The subject of my last book—Toledo Blade--was a murder; actually, the subject was an abduction, rape and murder. That book was fairly clear cut and cleanly defined. There was very little gray middle ground in that book; no, it was black and white, good and bad, victim and victimizer, the innocent and the guilty, no ambiguity.
This next book will not be so easy. There is nothing open and shut about it. Under similar circumstances, any one of us might react in a similar way, i.e., we might take a shotgun and blow some hated person to their rightful station in life--Hell. Also, after the trial, had we done something like that we too, like the subject of my book, might find ourselves spending the rest of our lives in prison.
Morgan (right) is in her mid-thirties. As a middle school student in metro New York, she was one word away from the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. The pretty teen was considered a “brain” in high school and was largely ostracized and tormented by her lessers because she refused to conform to convention. Then came a devastating change in family dynamics. Drugs made their foul appearance and the downward spiral of yet another promising child began.
Morgan left home, became a pole dancer in several cities, including New Orleans, threw in with a drug dealer and soon became a heroin addict. Somewhere in all this mess, she managed to be married twice, have two beautiful daughters, kick the filthy heroin out of her life, pursue her self-taught education, and become an accomplished graphic artist. Unfortunately, Morgan maintained her fatal attraction for the father of one of her children, so much so that she actually became his registered slave.
Anyway, cutting to the chase, one day another woman slid in between Morgan and her “master” and because of repeated in-her-face taunting and harassment by the newcomer Morgan one night snapped. Grabbing a shotgun purchased a few weeks earlier she tracked down the other woman and ambushed her one night outside a home where a party was breaking up.
Clearly, Morgan is not your typical murderer. She is extremely intelligent, an expert on English grammar, a lover of Shakespeare and classic literature, a curious young woman who is full of warmth, wit and good cheer. I like Morgan. Over the months, we have become friends. It will be very hard wielding an unbiased pen when writing her story. Unlike anything else I have written, Morgan’s story will be nine parts biography, one part true crime. A&E is doing something on her now.
BTW—Drugs? Morgan could have been just about anything she wanted to be and not doing life without parole if not for easy access to drugs. Like Muslim countries, I favor the death penalty for drug importers, drug suppliers, drug dealers, and any other slimy sleaze balls who poison our kids. Death for death, that sounds fair to me, for that is what occurs when our youth get hooked on the poison. Public beheading for the first offense also sounds just the ticket to me and a proper punishment to fit the crime. If I sound pissed off, it's because I am.
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Bummer--Little did I realize when writing about my close encounter in Englewood the other day, that some poor rudder would be killed in an accident very similar. Up at St. Pete (about two hours north of this sand bar), biker Tom Hirsch was pedaling through a cross walk when a car ran over him and squashed him like a wild squirrel. Hirsch was 58. For all intents and purposes, we bikers are mostly merely absolutely and positively invisible to the motoring public, much like a darting squirrel. Any biker who assumes the opposite is biking on borrowed time.
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Meanwhile--Someone needs to take the batteries out of Sunshine State seniors' golf carts. Seems more Florida fossils die on golf courses than all other causes combined—lightning, alligators, pitbulls, more than post office parking lot accidents, more than bingo hall heart attacks, more than torture and beatings in nursing homes, more than all combined. Up in the Panhandle, an 86-year-old woman was tearing up the sidewalks at the local country club, doing at least 3 or 4 MPH in her high performance, fuel-injected golf cart. No, this accident did not involve another golf cart, nor did the driver take a corner too fast. Nope, none of that. What happened here was that a wheel slipped off the concrete causing the cart to roll over. For a normally healthy person such an accident would be a trifle, hardly worth commenting on back in the club house. For someone barely able to move even on a good day and for someone with one foot already in the coffin, being "ejected" at that great velocity is all it takes. Mercifully, no mention in the report if the woman was wearing a seat belt, football helmet, body armor, or any other such stuff. Alas, the lady is now 86 and forever.
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O, Happy Day?--Yet another birthday looms on the horizon for your fearless featherless blogadeer. At three score four, the blogger has never felt better, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, or outrageously in his entire existence than he feels this very moment. If he can avoid being killed while riding his bike twenty miles each day, and if he can stay away from golf carts, he might be good for another ten years of blogging, another ten years of traveling and another decade of hot sexing Michelle. Your fearless blogger’s greatest fear? Your fearless blogger, of course, has no fears. Your blogger’s greatest concern? Guess.
