Stuff I wrote in my early 20s
The Murderer
Written in 2013
This story was, I think, loosely inspired by Albert Camus's The Outsider and an early example of my brand of absurd satire. Actually, who am I kidding? It's basically a shaggy dog story.
Murder.
That was the crime with which I had been charged.
There was little dispute that I was guilty of the crime. I agreed with the prosecution that, legally speaking, I was guilty of murder.
But to use the other definition of the word guilt, well, that was a more complex matter.
To feel guilt implies that one feels remorse for one's wrongdoing, or at least that one acknowledges that one's actions were out of line, uncivilised.
Well, I'm not sure that I feel guilt for what I did. I feel sadness, and sympathy for the family of my victim. But then, I probably would have felt sympathy for them even had I not murdered their son; instead I'd have felt sympathy for them simply because they were related to such a repugnant individual.
In a horrible way, I know I felt more sorry for myself than for the victim as I sat in the dock, awaiting my sentence.
I was an intelligent man, talented, going places, with dreams and lovers and - at one time it seemed - a destiny, to go on to greater things.
And yet it was all over, all because of one single altercation, something I had neither sought to do nor provoked or instigated.
My lawyer told me to plea that my actions were a temporary moment of insanity. That was the truth, but the fact remains that all such acts, heinous acts such as the one I committed, are done in temporary moments of insanity. If not that, then as a result of permanent insanity.
No thug sets out to be a thug. Few murderers set out to be murderers. Even rapists, those most abhorrent of criminals, are merely nothing more than animals unable to control their bodily urges, presumably due to some sort of personal deficiency.
And so, I told myself, I would face the punishment for my crime. Justice had to be done, and for too long justice seemed to be on the side of men like me, and yet not enough on the side of the victims.
Even horrible victims like the man I would later learn was named Jack Crichton.
My own life was over, but I had ended a life, and it was necessary for the good of civilisation, that I face retribution for my misdeeds.
I pleaded guilty – there was no point in forcing the taxpayer to provide me with a long expensive trial which would inevitably conclude that which we all already knew: That I was the one who did it.
As I waited for the judge, whose cold blue eyes bored into me, to sentence me I recounted in my mind the sequence of events, fast and blurry, that had taken me out of my life and into this terrible situation.
* * *
On a balmy Sunday night I had taken a walk, up the hills near where I lived in Christchurch. At the time it had seemed such an easy decision – a good one, in fact.
Go out. Get some air. Get some exercise. De-stress before work in the morning.
And so I did, as I had done countless times before. There was a track, a short easy one, leading from a small park in the suburbs where I lived, up the Port Hills and through what might one day become a forest, looping around and coming back. A walk that would take maybe 15 minutes at the most.
The air was sweetly scented and warm, and twilight was upon me as I walked down the track. There was no one around, at least for now.
By the time I made my descent down the hill, it was dark. Perhaps if I'd left earlier, it would have still been light when I returned home. Perhaps if I'd left earlier, none of what occurred next would have happened, and I would not be guilty of murder.
But the gods had different plans that night, and so it was that at the bottom of the hill was a figure. A young man – white cap, hoody, gold necklace... the sort of person that a middle class well-do-to man such as myself was wont to automatically judge a loser, even without taking time to get to know the individual.
But this individual was not one I needed to get to know in order to assess that he was, so to speak, a waste of oxygen.
It was he who provoked me, contrary to the picture that the prosecution tried to paint in the courtroom.
I tried to walk past him, calmly, and to ignore him.
He blocked the path. He was larger than I was, and held in his hand a can of DB Draught, although I strongly suspected he was under the influence of stronger substances than beer.
“Hey faggot!” he yelled, an act of aggression which betrayed both his intentions and his lack of sophistication.
I tried to ignore him, but he would not let up, and continued to block me despite my best efforts to pass him without confrontation.
“Going somewhere faggot? Oi? Oi? I'm talking to you! Where the fuck you going, fag?”
Again, contrary to the picture that the prosecutors tried to paint, it was he who began the first act of physical aggression, as he shoved me, making me stumble back.
“Fucking talk to me, cunt!” he spat as he lunged towards me again, this thug who had no reason to provoke or attack me other than the fact that I was there.
I'm one of those people who can't do fight or flight. I freeze. If I was an animal in the wild, I'd be dead many times over by now.
My reaction to the initial act of aggression was not one of bravery - this was not something I'd likely brag about at the pub with mates in weeks to come.
Instead I froze like a deer caught in headlights, in shock and disbelief that I was being physically and verbally abused for no reason.
The youth grabbed me by the collar and pulled me to his face, close enough that I could see his missing teeth, and smell the booze on his breath, and see the spittle dripping from the corner of his mouth.
“I'll fucking kill you, cunt. I'll crack ya fuckin' skull open!”
He threw me back, and I fell onto the grass nearby, and I heard the jangling sound of metal as my keys fell out of my pocket too.
Had they stayed in my pocket, I suspect none of what happened next would have occurred at all. I would have remained passive, taken the beating, and perhaps it would be he who would be standing on charges of my murder and not the reverse.
But because my keys fell out, suddenly a part of me which had been dormant all my life – a functioning survival instinct – burst to life.
Adrenaline surged through me suddenly as I realised that I was able to defend myself and what I needed to in order to do so.
I picked up the keys, picking the longest key I could – my house key – and with it in hand I pulled myself up, lunging as quickly as I could, straight for the youth's eye.
I plunged the key into it, causing him to scream in pain and temporarily immobilising him.
I pulled the key out and noticed that there was a small trail of blood leaking from that eye socket. From that point on something in me snapped.
The part of me that would have immobilised him and then run away was gone, replaced instead by a burning rage, a desire to seek revenge as if this youth represented everything that was wrong with the world all at once.
Strength I didn't know I had surged through me, in time to grab the youth's wrist before he struck me with the switch-blade he was carrying. I kneed him in the groin – something I had never done before, nor felt I had the ability to do again – stunning him long enough to drop the blade.
To drop it right into my hand.
The tables were turned. I grabbed his neck, ripping the gold necklace he was wearing off as he tried to get away.
But this demon inside me, controlling me, did not want him to get away. It wanted to punish him. And so it was that, without any thought, I drew the blade down his back, tearing off his shirt. I could have left him there – I could have torn his clothing off and left him to return home, naked and humiliated with a bleeding eye socket, but I couldn't.
I had to go in for the kill. I had to stop this oxygen thief from continuing to waste valuable supplies of air. I had to ensure he never ever menaced society again.
And so I dug the blade into his back – something which was not easy. There were many layers of skin and muscle to cut through and the blade was not very sharp. But I was guided by his screams of pain, they let me know that I was damaging him.
I cut down his back, leaving a gaping, bleeding hole and he collapsed. I couldn't tell if he was still conscious or not, perhaps he was already dead then.
I couldn't be too sure, so I knelt down and slit his throat, finally leaving his bleeding corpse there, in the grass of the hillside, his red blood seeping into the soil.
It all happened so fast. Suddenly I was myself again, and panic set in.
I had just killed another human being. I couldn't believe what I had done, and desperately I hoped to wake up from what was obviously a nightmare.
But it wasn't a dream. It was too imperfect to be a dream. The cool, crisp winds biting at my face served to remind me that this was reality, this was too lucid and too detailed to be a dream.
But what could I do? I did the only thing I could think of then and began to walk, quickly, away from the body.
If I ran it would attract suspicion – it was only a matter of time before the corpse would be found by some unfortunate morning jogger.
And chances are that somebody had seen me coming and going. I was wearing a pretty recognisable long coat, someone would give my description to the police. Perhaps it would be someone who knew me, or who knew where I lived anyway.
But if I was lucky, I'd be able to put distance between myself and it. I could feign ignorance, pretend I had no idea that I had walked past a dead body on a Sunday night stroll through the Port Hills.
Surely it wasn't the only body found in those hills over the years – after all, one of the country's most notorious murders was committed in a place not unlike where I had committed my own murder.
Surely there were cold cases stemming from the bodies found in those hills. Maybe, just maybe, this would be another. Maybe I could forget, wake up the next day from the nightmare and go back to my life, while the mystery would remain unsolved, eventually retreating from the front page newspapers to the back, and then disappearing altogether save for the occasional reminder every few years.
Maybe I could wilfully forget and convince myself that it never happened, that I dreamed the whole thing.
Perhaps every murderer assumes they can get away from their crimes in such a way.
As I hurried home, to discard the evidence and wash the blood from my hands, I thought there was a chance I could get away with what I had done.
I was naïve.
There's no escaping the long arm of the law. New Zealand, for all its flaws, can always boast of the efficiency and effectiveness of its police.
Whether your crime was committed five minutes ago, or 50 years ago, some way, some day and somehow one could be certain they would find you.
As for me, it was a matter of hours before there were sirens down my street and then a knock at the door.
I had been naïve indeed.
A teenage girl had also been walking the track that night. She was near the top of the hill, looking down and had seen everything. She even followed me home, from a distance, and was able to point the police to where I lived.
When the police arrived – not brutal and demanding like in the movies, but surprisingly gentle and civil, there was no point in disputing it, or even trying to. I was too tired, and a little in shock from the severity of my own actions, and calmly I allowed them to arrest me.
I didn't ask for a lawyer, at least not during the questioning. I had done what I had done and if nothing else at least perhaps I could take some pride and solace in the fact that honesty was one virtue that I retained.
The next few days passed in a blur, one punctuated only by the fact that I was free in my dreams, and that in my dreams my life was back to normal and none of this had or was happening.
* * *
Back in the courtroom – filled with the victim's grieving family, and various members of the public who had been taught to hate me by the news media - the judge looked into my eyes with his cold blue ones and sentenced me to New Zealand's maximum punishment for murder.
I glanced at the mother of the late Jack Crichton, her eyes red with tears. Whilst I maintain that he was a loser, the dregs of society, someone who deserved what he got and if not from me would have received the same from someone else eventually, I genuinely felt sorry for her.
The true victim of this situation was neither myself nor Jack, but Mrs. Crichton, who did not deserve any of this. For her, and her alone, I was willing to face the full penalty for what I had done.
Policemen in the court room grabbed me by my arms and marched me into the middle of the room, in front of the family of the victim, to receive New Zealand's harshest penalty.
I waited, as another, older policeman appeared. It was time to face justice. To face what was coming to me.
And in front of the packed courtroom, the grieving family, he shouted instructions to those to whom the task of administering my punishment fell.
“Wet the bus ticket!” he commanded, as two other policemen appeared, dipping a small piece of paper into a bucket of water.
He turned and leered at me.
“Present your wrist!”
I did so, obediently, in spite of the dread I felt.
“For the heinous crime of murder, you are hereby sentenced to New Zealand's harshest punishment – one slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket!”
I trembled, and closed my eyes. I knew it was coming.
I took a deep breath and suddenly felt it – the uncomfortable wetness as the bus ticket touched my wrist, sticking to it and making feel all yucky.
Harsh though the punishment was, it was fair and I deserved it. After that, I didn't murder anyone else for the whole rest of the afternoon.
THE END