Let me tell about a man I met back in 2003, by the name of Martin.
When I met him, he told me he was 35 years old. A plump, ordinary man by almost every metric. A slightly receding hairline, but clearly no anxiety or shame about his looks could be found on his warm smiling face. He easily spoke about all of the little things that interested him in life. He told me about how he loved to carve wood, types letters on his vintage typewriter, fold paper cranes, coach youth tee-ball games, and even how he enjoyed stepping on every crunchy leaf come fall. A self describe “analogue” man. By every metric, an honest, small town, optimist.
90 minutes before our conversation took place, Martin had shot and killed a defenseless man outside of a gas station. I was the one who was taking his statement at the police station.
The town I was called into was lucky to have a 4 digit population come Christmas time (with relatives coming to visit and all that). This has stuck with me all this time because I haven’t had a conversation like it before or since. It all started because someone was trying to rob the gas station. A wanted felon by the name Eddy Murklay was on the lamb, he had been running from the police for two days. He pulled into the BP gas station and filled his tank at the pump, like anyone would. Afterwards he stepped inside and pulled a gun on the owner, demanding he empty the register. The owner did as he was told, but unfortunately for Eddy the teller’s grandson had been hiding in the back when all of this started. The instant Eddy wasn’t pointing his gun at his grandpa, he tackled him from behind. The two men pinned Eddy to the ground and threw his gun away from him. They kept him that way until the local sheriff arrived minutes later. Eddy was cuffed to the metal bench outside the gas station as the sheriff made a call to the feds that were looking for him.
The thing with small towns, police sirens going off out of nowhere has the same effect as ringing people’s doorbells. Townsfolk came outside by the dozens to see what was going on. Martin was no different, he told me that he made it a point to walk directly to the gas station after hearing the sheriff rip past while on his evening walk. The sheriff had the deputy keeping everyone at a reasonable distance, but Martin apparently used to work at the gas station so he had the excuse to check on the owner. He tells me that the owner and his grandson were a bit jittery after the confrontation. The owner asked Martin to do him a favor and get the handgun out from under the shelf he threw it under. Martin agreed, went inside, and fished out the handgun from underneath the motor oil shelf. He stepped outside and tried to hand the gun to the sheriff, but was hand waved away as the sheriff was arguing on the phone at the time. Martin then walked around aimlessly for a few moments, then strolled up to Eddy, who was cursing and shouting at everyone looking at him. Martin looked at the gun, and then shot the still hand cuffed Eddy Murklay in the head, killing him instantly.
I spoke with Martin about what he did. I was called in to talk to Eddie, but that was out of the question now. I didn’t know I was going to be talking to Martin until I had already arrived. I was the one to talk to him because no one else knew what to do. Martin was not handcuffed when I walked in, he was hanging out in the lobby of the police station as if he was their visiting an old friend or waiting to pick up someone for lunch. The sheriff looked dumb founded, like he was trying to parse together a puzzle that was only one color. He and the other deputies were concerned for Martin’s health, something clearly was wrong and they were powerless to find out on their own it seemed. I learned two important things about Martin over the course of my conversation with him.
The first thing was that Martin was openly a sadist.
He, with very little prompting, gushed about how funny he thought it was when he shot the gun off and scared everyone. He described it as though he had pulled a prank, like setting off a firecracker in your brother’s bedroom, as opposed to having murdered someone. Martin says he always loved pranks like that when he was a kid. That he would get in trouble more often than not, but he would still do them because they made him happy. He lamented that he didn’t pull pranks like that anymore, and that he’s been feeling nothing but nostalgic since he pulled this one off.
The second thing I learned about Martin was a bit more… complicated.
You see, Martin thought that everything was… alive. Not in the sense like you or I would would consider something alive. Apparently, Martin would have you believe that EVERYTHING was capable of human levels of comprehension. The grass on the ground, the sign on the wall, even the un-sharpened the pencil in his pocket was capable of thought and understand it’s own existence. He said it didn’t matter if it was a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, the tires on a Chevy outback, or a chewed up old baseball, everything was alive.
Martin was also convinced, more than anything in the whole world, that everything had the capacity to feel pain. Martin talked for a solid 10 minutes about the bullet that killed Eddy Murklay. How scared it must have been, trapped inside it’s casing, dreading the day where it would instantaneously be scorched by gunpowder, launched hundreds of miles per hour, only to have it’s body torn asunder when it made impact with something. How horrible it must be, to be trapped in the hot, wet, mush that is Eddy’s brain matter with nowhere to go, no way to scream out for help. Dreading the future where it might be buried along with Eddy, stuck for eternity inside the rotting flesh of a man he was used to kill. He spoke with more empathy and concern for the bullet than he did about Eddy. When I questioned him about this contradiction, he said:
“I mean, the fella got off easy. He died right away. The funny thing is… I don’t even know if it’s possible for a bullet to die…”
My first inclination was to think he was clearly under the influence of something. Some kind of long form substance abuse that culminated in a nervous breakdown at the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s what I was telling myself until I left to get myself a cup of coffee. When I was back into the room, I saw that Martin had pulled out his un-sharpened pencil and a small plastic sharpener he apparently had on him.
He was just… giggling to himself. With every minor twist of the pencil, flakes of wood and lead were shaved away. He didn’t even notice that I had enter the room again, he was too busy amusing himself, by sharpening a pencil. Turning and turning, he kept going until it was nothing but a nub and small pile of #2 pencil debris. I heard him whisper under his breath after he realized that he couldn’t continue:
“Man, that’s gotta hurt, huh buddy?”
He openly chortled to himself, only then did he notice that I was staring at him. He smiled and apologized for the mess. I no longer doubted Martin was being genuine. The last thing I asked him was what other people thought of his… particular habits. He pondered for a moment, shrugged, and said no one had really asked him until now.
Unfortunately, nothing really came of my interview. Eddie Murklay was recorded on camera shooting a cop in the lung two days prior to my meeting with Martin. My transcripts weren’t going to be read anyway, it was just a matter of formalities. There was no need for a confession when there was bullet proof evidence like that. I also don’t think the sheriff or anyone at the police station looked into it either, last I heard they took Martin to the local clinic because his ears were still ringing from the gunshot.
Nobody was going to convict Martin, why would they? Everyone already knows everyone. Martin was a town favorite, he was the upbeat, glass half full, small town guy that everyone loved. He mowed everyone’s lawn for free come summer time, he collected and burned everyone’s yard trimming without even being asked, and he taught every young man within city limits how to hit a baseball out of the kindness of his own heart. It didn’t matter that he shot a killed a man in cold blood in front of everyone. They had already decided how they saw him, and what they saw made them happy.
I’ve been thinking about Martin a lot recently. Just the sheer statistical likelihood of having two disparate characteristics that form such a macabre symbiosis. I find myself… a little bit jealous sometimes? If I’m being honest, I wish I could find pleasure in such small things like sharpening a pencil. These feelings of jealously don’t last long however, as the sense of creeping unease retakes in throne in my gut. As far as I know, Martin spent his entire life more than satisfied with pencil shavings until Eddy came along… I just worry if or when the next Eddy is gonna show up.
I’ve been thinking about Martin a lot recently. It’s fall again, there are “dead” leaves all around. I wonder if Martin will run out of leaves to step on anytime soon.