In Continuum.

In Cold Blood

Thanks to the outfield last week,this week has been rather tiring for us,tiring in the sense that nothing happened.Nothing,at all.Aside from those little short runs in the morning,or the pacing of SOC-takers in the afternoon,nothing much went out throughout the week.I was thankful for that,really.I mean,i needed a breather i guess,to take a break from just...well,everything.Get down to reading those books that i bought,and it felt good to sit there and prowl through those pages,emerging yourself in those pages and amongst those words.It was quite an adrenaline rush really,despite the fact that i just sat there the whole day.

I had the chance to start on Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood".Yes,THE Capote.The guy with the movie made about him.It's a non-fiction book,sort of written in a fiction format,about Perry Smith and Richard Hickock,two jailbirds who jumped parole,breaking into the residence of the Clutters in the winter of 1959,killing the family of four without apparent motive,leaving behind no clues of any sort.Detective Al Dewey,who was at that time in charge of the investigation,was baffled as he looked over the clues,or lack thereof.The most confusing aspect of the crume,mustve been the lack of motive behind the killings of the Clutter family.

All the family members(Herbert,Bonnie,Nancy and Kenyon Clutter)were bound,gagged,then shot in the head at close distance with a .22 shotgun.It was described at the back of the book,"...Blood and hair all over the walls...".A ghastly scene,even to imagine it myself as i read the book.With merely forty dollars missing in the whole house,robbery was definitely out of the question.I started to guess the motive of the killers,what they were really intended on doing in that house on that particular night.What sort of monsters would kill this family,deeply loved by their community and God-loving christians.Like Detective Al Dewey,i was equally confused then.

At the beginning Capote makes you hate the murderers,the way they wrote blank cheques while going on their shopping sprees,run over stray dogs with their trucks,and stealing food from malls.You start to hate this two characters,cursing every page that they will soon get caught.But as the story progressed,you find out a little more about these murderers,and the story behind their lives.You start to wonder,if the motiveless murders were actually,in a way,though however condemned,were understandable?

Perry Smith,the man who really murdered the family with the shotgun,grew up in a dysfunctional family.His mother ran away with all the kids one day,living his father elsewhere.After a divorce,he was sent to an orphanage,where he was constantly tortured by nuns,who would strip him naked and force him to wash urinated bedsheets in ice cold water in the winter.He never had a good life,ever.His brother killed himself with a gun over his wife,one of his sisters jumped out of a hotel window and his other sister is afraid of him.Being the only uneducated family member he was envious of them all,and felt like he was never treated the way he shouldve been ever since he was young.That caused him to hate the world,hate every life within it,hate everything in and around it.

Killing the Clutters to him,wasnt the target of it all.As it was later revealed,a fellow jailbird named Floyd Wells worked for Clutter once.Richard inquired him about Herbert Clutters' wealth,and was immediately interested by it.Floyd then told him the layout of the house,the location of the safe,the money in the house etc.Richard,the mastermind,then planned out everything from the weapon they are going to use,the alibi they are going to fake,the gloves they are going to wear,and where they are going to escape to.Everything,right down to the smallest details.After jumping parole they headed down to Garden City,Kansas where the Clutters lived and killed them all.

It was money initially,but as they searched the house and found no safe,and no cash save for the ones in purses and wallets,it was too late to turn back for them.They killed everybody in the house,not out of rage or anything.Perry killed,because he saw his hated father in them.He saw his dreaded mother,the nuns,his own life flashing across those faces.And he shot them,as if by killing them he was able to kill the ones he hated as well.

So,one mistake in life.One misstep,and they took their walk down the mile,to death roll.

While they were there,locked up in the prison cells on death roll,they met other fellow serial murderers.One of the most famous ones,Lowell Lee Andrews,murdered his whole family with a pistol and a shotgun on Thanksgiving,faked an alibi,then called the police.When the police arrived he was playing with his dog at the front lawn,with his face in an absolute calm.Strangely,he was titled the "Nicest Boy" in the town he lived,and never had a problem in school with grades,friends,whatever.

I was just thinking,after reading the stories behind these murders,if murder itself was really just irrational thinking,just out of pure rage.It's scary in a way,to think that anybody can just explode one day,take a dagger and stab you simply because you were in his vicinity.Those murders were not out of hate,not out of anger.They were committed,because somebody needed to die.Somebody needed to be the sacrifise,and you were in sight.That is all.Anybody could be the victim,anybody could be the monsters.

I sat there,and i thought how scary it was,really."Rattlesnakes",the citizens then refered to one another,implying how anybody couldve been the murderers of the Clutters.Guess in a way we are all rattlesnakes,you and i.What if i,one day,go mad and start a killing spree.Despite being able to tell from right and wrong,would the inability to have any emotional attachment make me in any way,more guilty?Or more innocent.It's so hard to tell,so hard to tell.So complicated.

Oh,by the way.GREAT GREAT book.;)