Two Letters to the Marquette Mining Journal and a fIctiOn

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Keep up the good work
POSTED: July 14, 2008

After reading many letters to the editor for several years I find I must respond to the letters written in the July 3 paper by Christian Hansen and Marlys Murray.

From what I can determine both writers accuse the paper of biased reporting. I say good for the paper's editors to tell it like it really is. I assume Hansen reads the New York Times regularly by the context of his letter. Has he forgotten a recent president with a very thin resume, Ronald Reagan, and what about one of the greatest defenders of freedom and the Constitution this country has ever had, Charleton Heston?

It saddens me to see and hear about people who vote by party only and really don't study about a candidate's real voting record while he or she served their appropriate terms of office. Sen. Obama is known as the most liberal senator in the entire Senate. Check his Illinois voting record and look into the people and associations he belonged to. It will make you shudder if you are a true American.

Keep up the good work, Mining Journal.

Robert Whitaker
Skandia

To the Mining Journal:

As I read your paper on-line, it was with considerable interest that I read Robert Whitaker’s recent 7/3/08 letter to the Journal. As a writing instructor at U-M, one of the points I make to student writers is the need to support general statements with specific examples. For instance, when Mr. Whitaker writes, “[Hansen] has forgotten a recent president [Reagan] with a very thin resume,” he might tell us what exactly we have forgotten. This same rhetorical rule should be applied when we are told we would “shudder” if we knew the “people and associations that [Obama] belonged to.” Notwithstanding the fact that one can’t belong to people, Whitaker might support this vague charge with, perhaps, just one example of what “people and associations” he’s talking about, lest he be accused of being one of those who “really don’t study about a candidates…record.” Also, considering that Mr. Whitaker’s letter applauds “one of the greatest defenders of freedom and the Constitution this country has ever had,” he might want to spell his name right. It’s Charlton, not “Charleton.” Finally, since I am a U.S. citizen who loves this country, does the fact that I don’t agree with Mr. Whitaker make me a “false” American?

Randall L. Tessier
Ann Arbor
7/17/08
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FICTION

Under the bridge, in the headlights of dawn, she rummaged in the garbage bag for one of the many disposable lighters she had salvaged. Where is it? I need it. Big Mac I have. Slippery pavement. Stay to the shoulder. A tablet? No. A book without a cover. Pick it up. I'll take it.

She crossed to the southbound side, dodging the cars in the morning gridlock. The sun was rising from the mists of the Saginaw River. It's gonna be warmer today. Make the best of it she hummed softly.

Ten years later, it was this document that led Stakel to interview one Louis Oliver, a High School friend of Guerre's. Oliver's 1999 deposition recalls his early friendship with Guerre.

"For my part, first there was surprise, then stunned disbelief. For no cosmic serendipity, no celestial coincidence, no deus ex machina, no moira; nothing could have prepared me for the shock in learning that this macabre, terrifying document was written by someone I once knew."

Oliver recalled Claude's unpredictable nature.

"It was at the Tip Top. The smell of body odor, heavy medication and cigarette smoke that permeated the air provided the backdrop for our strange conversation. I wanted to talk about Dickie's death. Claude would have none of it. He asked how death could matter out here on the Mekong Delta. What with the constant attacks by enemy guerillas--all of who were women--he wondered how I could concern myself with the death of a Nazi collaborator. At the time I couldn't know the reason for the bandage on Claude's hand. Claude claimed it was his ticket out of the war, and that he fully expected to receive the ‘Purple Heart’ for his valor. Grabbing my lapels, he gave me a cold stare, muttering something about the decreasing value of Canadian currency. At the height of Claude's rant, Dan Tonka and Al Johnson came in and took a booth next to us. They were just back from Vietnam and had been severely wounded.”

Oliver remembered a party where Johnson had described his harrowing war experience. "Al was walking through a mined mango orchard when the guy next to him stepped on a Bouncing Betty. Instead of instantly killing him, as it did everyone else in his squad, the blast blew him twenty feet into the air, straight up. He landed in a bamboo thicket, where he came under intense machine gun fire. For the next hour his body was strafed by enemy fire. After extensive surgeries stateside, Al was finally able to get around using two canes."

"As Dan and Al sat down, Claude began to laugh and scream at them. The ravings of this shrieking wraith were incomprehensible to everyone in the bar. 'Claude! Shut up!' I whispered. 'What outfits were you with,' he screamed. 'Where were you while I was in the bunker? While you were killing babies, I was freeing the slaves.' Tonka's face, now looming menacingly over the top of our booth, was a grimace of hatred and pain. While grabbing Claude by the collar he reached up with his other hand and snatched his glass eye from its woeful socket. Dropping the shimmering orb in Claude's beer, Dan sneered, "I've got my eye on you.' Upon hearing this, Claude got up and bolted the bar. Stammering apologetically, I tried to explain that Claude wasn't right."

"This was the Claude I knew. Was he guilty of the rapes? Who knows? What I remember is this: one Lina Flatley, sister of Sam, who had recently drowned while fishing on the upper reaches of the Yellowdog, had been brutally beaten and raped near the Cinder Pond in the lower harbor. So severe were her injuries that she would never regain consciousness. A persistent vegetative state is what the doctors called it. The Mining Journal reported that she had been stalked in the woods behind the Northland Hotel and the waterfront. The fact that her nude body was completely covered with coal dust--an item that was kept from the press--suggested she had been assaulted amid the coal piles and then dragged into the bowels of an abandoned, half sunk dredging barge in the Cinder Pond. The kind of hatch in which she was found was meant to access the water, but in the winter these grim portals provided ingress to a tomblike labyrinth of solid lake ice; ice that stretched out to form a frozen catacomb within the barges lower compartments. The attacker had left behind a tattered leather motorcycle jacket."

"I later found out that around the time the rapes took place Claude had, for no apparent reason, kicked a number of local women at the Queen City Mall. Not long after these seemingly unrelated incidents, concerned friends drove him to Newberry State Hospital, where he agreed to be admitted.

This was the last I heard of him; and the last I expected to hear of him, but his name came up at my 30-year class reunion. My old Gwinn High School chum, Poo Poo Bourdage, asked me if I knew what happened to Claude after he was committed in 74. I assured him I hadn't seen or heard from Claude since then. But even though Bourdage hadn't seen him for a while, he had seen him more recently than I. Bourdage recalled a night when Claude came to his room at the Brunswick. He had a dazed, confused look and was covered in coal dust. As Bourdage remembered it, Claude didn't want to wash up, but instead wanted a bandage for the crescent shaped wound to his hand; a serrated set of tiny slashes suspiciously similar to teeth marks.”

"Guerre was gasping, frantically agitated, ranting about the fact that human bites were much dirtier, and more dangerous, than animal bites; and that it wasn't nice to bite." Hearing Bourdage's story 25 years after the fact confirmed my dreadful suspicion about a link between Claude and the rapes."

Stekel seethed with anger. "It was he, wasn't it? You saw him. Why didn't you tell someone?" Stan Rosen knew the man he had seen at the phone booth near Downings was probably Merryweather's killer, but he didn't care. As far as he was concerned maybe it wasn't. It didn't matter then, so why should it now. Later, when Rosen was deposed at the inquest after Guerre's body was exhumed, he testified that he had once witnessed the sadistic rape of an old women at an I-75 rest stop, but never reported it. He had spinal problems of the moral variety. "Why didn't you say anything?”

When Louis Oliver visited Guerre at Newberry State Hospital in the late 70's, Guerre had told him he saw a man near Downing's. Supposedly, this guy told him that he had just murdered a nigger. "Do you remember talking to someone?" Stekel asked. Rosen's answer had that ring of equivocation symptomatic of pathological liars. That quality of amoral ignorance which makes even the truth a lie. "I know you did," said Stekel. He knew it even before Guerre himself had told him so one day before his release. They sat under the decorative iron grilles smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.

Guerre's paranoiac affliction hung in the air amidst the thick blue smoke, providing a backdrop of obscene nightmare unabated, an ephemeral frame within which, interchangeably, delusion and reality passed for dialogue. Stakel would later describe this event as the most disturbing interview he had ever done.

The public area of the Michigan State Psychiatric hospital at Newberry contains six visiting rooms--florescent-lighted cells measuring 10x12, with walls and ceilings of cinderblock. In each chamber there was an electric ceiling fan, permanently fixed steel table and chairs, and concealed microphones and, as a part of the door, a one-way mirror observation portal. On Sunday, the seventh day of 2005, a solitary room was booked for 3:00PM--the hour Ward Stakel had selected for his first confrontation with Claude Guerre.

Just prior to that interview, Stakel gathered himself in the drifted over parking lot, preferring the numbing blizzard to the task before him. “Testing...testing. I'm afraid, afraid of the truths I might uncover, lies I might inspire, or worse, inability to recognize the difference." Rewind. "I'm afraid, afraid of the truths I might uncover, lies I might inspire, or worse, inability to recognize the difference." "His wire was working. That night he would edit and transcribe the tapes, carefully manipulating their linear witness."

As Stakel remembers it: "Nicole wanted to be there, behind the glass, but was instead stranded at the Detroit Renaissance Center, her residence since New Year's eve. As far as I was concerned, this has to be the guy! Rosen's testimony, Guerre's movements and actions at that time, and what I would hear that day all pointed to him as the killer. As I entered the room I was overcome by a sense of nausea, of awe and dread. And then I saw him."

"I imagined a bigger man, more physically imposing; not some rail-like wraith with lemur eyes. He was 62 years old but could've passed for 40. Oblivious to the core, he wore a tattered wife-beater, black horned-rim glasses and black shoes with no socks or shoelaces. I shook his hand. It was warm and clammy."

"Mr. Guerre,” I began, “my name is Ward Stakel. I am here on behalf of a private client with regard to events that took place some 40 years ago. You do, of course, have the right to say nothing. However, I must also tell you that you can no longer be prosecuted for any criminal actions you might have engaged in at that time. Further, should you be forthcoming enough in your responses to satisfy my client, we will facilitate your ability to meet the requirements for parole.” With dirty, piercing eyes, a soprano whine and articulate diction--he was a thoroughly despicable looking creature, with a repugnant, sneering grin; and early on he grinned often--eyeing me icily, speaking slowly and softly; seemingly unmoved by what should have inspired some kind of response.

“Been there, done that." Isn't that the quaint little colloquialism one uses in these situations? But all of these things happened so very long ago,” Guerre said, oddly serious for a moment.

“Now Mr. Guerre,” “it’s Claude.” “Claude, we're interested in what you remember about your time in Queen City and St. Ignace area around 1971. Do you recall an acquaintance you may have had? A Mr. Louis Oliver? He claims to have been a friend of yours in those days."

"I remember him all right, Oliver was a joke. Always worried about right and wrong, good and bad. A lot of good it did him, all this talk. It never seemed to prevent him from making the wrong choice.”
“What kind of choices might these be,” I asked.” “How subtle. Oh...you know, like deciding whether to kill someone or not? Come on. Where are you going with this? What is it you want to know?”
“Why don't we begin by talking about your childhood, you know, your family background.”

"Fixing me with those wild eyes, Guerre spun a twisted tale. He remembered when he was 13, his father had euthanized the family cat, Boots. “No matter what we tried, Boots refused to use the litter box. This went on for many months, until, one day, dad decided to, as he so delicately described it, to put Boots away. Only my father would think of electrocution as a humane method of death. Papa assured us that the cat would die immediately, mercifully. However, when it tore away from the electrified snare, he trapped it in a burlap bag and beat it to death with a shovel.” That was the only episode from his family life that Guerre mentioned. By his brief account, he had worked as a morgue attendant, paramedic, short order cook and cab driver. All before the age of twenty.

Let's talk about Oliver! “A strange one, such an intellectual, so shrewd. And such an interest in,...what was his theoretical spin? ...yes, the dynamics of moral consideration. How lofty. Ha Ha. Such a talespinner and glib talker. Spewing his academic snake oil as if it might make words more potable for having been treated with his unique blend of erudite semantic additives.”

"I can never tell you what you want to hear; but I can tell you something about Louis and I."
What Claude?
"They were moored at the Big Bay Marina.”
Who Claude?
“Some yacht girls from Cleveland, or Erie. Somewhere like that. We took them to an apartment above the Lumberjack. It was late. Louis disappeared with one up a pull down attic ladder, while I entertained the others with my guitar. I never saw her again. He strangled her.”
"Strangled who, Claude?"
"I don't know. Just her. As it turned out later, at least according to the newspaper I read, she was really a man. Someone left a cake out in the rain. Certainly a romantic lyric, don't you agree Mr. Stakel? May I call you Ward?"
"No. Please don't use my first name,' I whispered."
"As Louis descended the ladder carrying a sawed off shotgun, I produced a Nazi bayonet I had stolen from my Pappy's brother, uncle Bull. It didn't take long to hogtie and gag them. There is nothing duct tape can't do. Did you know they used it during the Viet Nam War to repair Helicopter rotors. Amazing. Then we marched them down to the basement. I tended to the two youngest first. Taped their hands together, using an overhead steam pipe to suspend them. I positioned them in such a way that they could not avoid watching us. We ordered the other two to undress. Grabbing a dusty refrigerator box from between the coal stoker and furnace, I flattened it out, forming a large stiff rectangle. Since I felt it was inordinately cruel to ask the eldest to stretch out on the cold concrete floor, I provided this makeshift pallet as her final resting place, securely affixing her hands and feet in a splayed position. The last girl, so beautiful, skin so exquisitely while, like alabaster or porcelain, I tied spread-eagled, face down on an old fashioned bumper pool table."

"The basic tools of torture are fist and boots. Nothing else is really needed to inflict suffering. Other items that come easily to hand, of course, are knives, broken bottles and cigarettes--all of which we had at our disposal. In the way of a whip, we had a scourge of electric cord and rubber fan belt. According to Oliver--a connoisseur of pain--a method of torture common to India and Pakistan is, Cheera, a torment in which the victim's legs are spread apart until the muscles tear and great bruises form in the groin. We applied this. We also used electric shock, targeting the genitals, nipples and lips (which are not only the most sensitive parts of the body but also the most private and personal ones). Applied by simply touching the skin with bare wires. Needless to say, we first sexually assaulted them. Oliver informed me this is regarded by many as the worst torture, causing the victim the ultimate humiliation, indignity and lasting psychological damage--a problem these girls wouldn't have to worry about. After this, we garroted them with guitar strings."

"A funny story my friend! Is it not? Cest la vie. Me and Louis Oliver: boulevardier, raconteur, Bricoleur, flaneur, Ph.D! I remember a jet out of K.I. Sawyer--an F101 Voodoo, I believe--that went down in Lake Superior in 1962. They never found the pilot. And I thought right then, I'll kill Oliver. No witnesses.” Guerre paused.

"I had come expecting to hear the worst," Stakel recalled, but not in the form of a story like this. I had hoped to learn what happened to Don Merryweather. Instead I was regaled with a story so appalling I was left with more questions than answers. If this were true, who were these women Guerre, and possibly Oliver, had murdered? Guerre's confession, although implying the fate of Nicole's father, failed to satisfy my understanding of why. What motive? What intent compelled these horrible killings? Stakel sought refuge in the solace of inexplicability. This crime was a simple twist of fate, a violence without meditation, pre or otherwise. The victims might have died in a plane crash or earthquake. But Stakel couldn't leave it at this. They had suffered cruelly, and needlessly. "I saw no desire for redemption in his eyes. No remorse. No flicker of self-examination. Still, I attempted to temper my anger with consideration, my ultimate judgment unfolding from my sympathy, no, my recognition of the cruel possibilities of human nature and an understanding of the need for retribution when these drives are unleashed. For Guerre's pathetic psychosis had never given him the chance to experience what flows from an affect nourished by the dynamics of human emotion, he had no emotional, and thus moral function. His longing was without love, and his hatred without anger, or spite. My sympathy, however, brooked no forgiveness, no mercy; but it did require that a meet my moral obligation to understand the man I was about to condemn. His sentence was sealed, albeit on strictly circumstantial evidence.