Twenty-Three

 

2019

I was on the subway when I was finishing the book, Presumed Innocent.  I had not sleuthed out who had done the killing, and I was nearing the part where the killer would be revealed.  I was so engaged that I decided that if the doer was not revealed by the time I got to my stop, I would keep on reading to make sure that I could finish and find out who did it, uninterrupted by the commotion of exiting and then needing to find a spot to read.

And I didn’t finish when I got to my stop, so I let Kenmore Square come and go and was down by the Park Street stop when I bolted upright.  

This killer I had never considered.  I’d wondered if the narrator had, as accused, been the perp and had wondered about several others—the judge, another prosecutor, a former lover—but this person, the doer—certainly presumed innocent by all—I’d not imagined.  Then when it came together after the explanation, I likely gasped out loud.

 It was not only that the perp was the perp, but that someone, besides the killer, had known nearly from the beginning that the perp, presumed innocent by all, was the perp. And that person-- also, at least nominally presumed innocent--had a strong reason to identify the killer but a stronger reason to remain silent.  

I stayed on the train for three more stops, Government Center, Haymarket, and then North Station. All the while I gazed at the riders on the subway who looked innocent and unlikely to commit murder. And then I thought that every person on that train, under the right conditions, could be a murderer.  When I saw my reflection in the dark window, I knew that I too was not exempt.

I figure there are different kinds of killers.  You have your certifiable crazies like the Son of Sam who heard voices telling him to kill.  Then you have the political crazies, people who think they are killing for a cause like the cowards who flew planes into the world trade center or who drive dynamite loaded trucks into buildings.  Of course, there are rotten eggs who are not certifiable or political--thieves or hitmen--who consider killing their trade of sorts—something one does if they are in a particular line of work.  Gangsters of various stripes.

But then there are others, people who are not legally insane or motivated by a cause, or just taking care of business.  You have people who when a certain confluence of events occur can become killers-- temporarily insane perhaps—but motivated by a logic fueled by emotion as if a short circuit in their wiring triggered what seemed, in a particular moment, justifiable.   

And when this happens we all can become killers.  Some of us are wired so well that it would be difficult for us to short circuit. We have, most of us, insufficient emotional damage to spark sudden irrational violence.  Like a decent road we don’t easily buckle even with heavy traffic. But we all, trust me, can think for a moment that it is right to pull a trigger.   A composite of fear, rejection, bruises, sense of inadequacy, and emotional hunger can make just about anyone believe that murder is a right thing to do.