G.K. Wuori's Blog
June 5, 2014
Murder Most Foul!!
I’ve been giving some thought to murder lately. Often this mood comes over me on a Monday morning when I read about the weekend murders in nearby Chicago, almost always more than you could count on one hand. If Chicago happens to escape my attention, Mexico doesn’t. Those drug people down there just don’t seem to like each other at all.
I think we like murder, at least in the sense that it suffuses our entertainments – from novels to movies to television shows. Usually, too, the grislier the better. Mass murders and serial killings are, of course, the diamonds in this genre. I’m not enough of a psychologist to come up with any reasons for this strange enchantment. Perhaps it’s just that violent death shows us how much better a peaceful passing can be.
Over the past few months I’ve been particularly close to a murder, or perhaps I should say I’ve been close to an attorney defending a murderer. The attorney’s name is Jim and he’s a pretty impressive guy. He stands about six-foot six, has jet black hair and an impressive black mustache. Sometimes he seems pretty fearsome but he’s really a gentle soul who’s not at all comfortable with his current case.
You could call the case one of domestic abuse if you want, although a man who emptied two nine millimeter pistols into his wife could be said to be a little bit more than simply abusive. His name, by the way, is Johnny, and I think he’s in his early thirties.
Jim took the case because this is a small town and none of the other attorneys would take it, and Jim feels strongly about the rights of the accused and all of that. He’s a pretty moral guy, pretty introspective, too, probably because he has a graduate degree in philosophy and even taught it before going to law school.
One of Jim’s big diversions that I think has helped him as he’s struggled with this murder case is an old house. Actually, it’s his boyhood home that he inherited after his parents died. He’s divided it up into three rental apartments and he likes to go over there as often as he can to, as he puts it, “putter around.” He makes repairs, paints, tends some flower beds, and fixes almost anything one of his tenants says has broken.
Part of his enjoyment, too, comes from the simple act of doing things with his hands. When your whole life is in your head, he says, sometimes it’s necessary to pick up a hammer and just pound the shit out of something – carefully, of course, and skillfully. Jim has a lot of those skills, a remnant of a time when he was young and was a carpenter’s apprentice.
Even there, however, that pleasant diversion, Jim meets some aggravation. One of his tenants can’t pay her rent. Her name is Sophie and she has a teenage daughter named Chantal.
For a time before I even knew Jim Sophie and her daughter were homeless. Before her husband died Sophie used to roll her eyes in a wifely, tolerant way whenever her husband, a plumber, would carry on about the illegality of taxes and how it was unconstitutional for the government to take money from hard working people.
Wives often tolerate the quirky views of their husbands, and Jim and his wife, Bridget, a real estate attorney, have had their share of people who, as they like to say, shouldn’t be allowed to have driver’s licenses.
Anyway, things are eating away at Jim the way they do all of us from time to time. We get ourselves in a box or a corner and, even though we know that time has a way of working things out, we don’t always have the patience for that.
Jim, for example, can’t simply remove himself from his onerous murder case because he feels that would be unethical and Jim is a highly ethical man. Nor can he simply confront his single mom and tell her that either she pays her rent or else she’ll be back on the street. He knows she’s had hard times and he just doesn’t feel that he can be a part of more hard times.
Besides, he tells me, he’s quite fond of this Sophie. She has kind of a wistful, loopy way about her, the kind of woman where you just want to put your arm across her shoulders and tell her you’ll help her get through – well, all of it.
Jim also feels strongly about the daughter, Chantal, a bright, sassy, perky kid who’s found life so far pretty nasty and has had every reason to go down any number of seedy paths, yet she hasn’t. She loves her mother and does whatever she can to help out as the difficulties keep piling up.
These are good people confronting some of life’s tougher choices, and I’ve gotten to know them really well in writing my latest novel. It’s called Infidelity and it’s going to be published by Main Street Rag Publishing in late July.
It’s not, by the way, a self-published book, a disclaimer that seems important to make these days. Main Street is one of many small presses filling the gap left by the Big Six publishers who seem to have their eyes only on bestsellers and not the kind of good books that might take a little time to find their audience.
Anyway, the book can be ordered right now with Main Street offering some great pre-publication discounts depending on how you pay. The book will be sent to you shortly after its publication date. The easiest way to order is just to go to my website at www.gkwuori.com, and then click on the big cover picture of the book. You’ll find yourself right on the order page. You’ll also find yourself all warm and fuzzy from my gratitude.
I think we like murder, at least in the sense that it suffuses our entertainments – from novels to movies to television shows. Usually, too, the grislier the better. Mass murders and serial killings are, of course, the diamonds in this genre. I’m not enough of a psychologist to come up with any reasons for this strange enchantment. Perhaps it’s just that violent death shows us how much better a peaceful passing can be.
Over the past few months I’ve been particularly close to a murder, or perhaps I should say I’ve been close to an attorney defending a murderer. The attorney’s name is Jim and he’s a pretty impressive guy. He stands about six-foot six, has jet black hair and an impressive black mustache. Sometimes he seems pretty fearsome but he’s really a gentle soul who’s not at all comfortable with his current case.
You could call the case one of domestic abuse if you want, although a man who emptied two nine millimeter pistols into his wife could be said to be a little bit more than simply abusive. His name, by the way, is Johnny, and I think he’s in his early thirties.
Jim took the case because this is a small town and none of the other attorneys would take it, and Jim feels strongly about the rights of the accused and all of that. He’s a pretty moral guy, pretty introspective, too, probably because he has a graduate degree in philosophy and even taught it before going to law school.
One of Jim’s big diversions that I think has helped him as he’s struggled with this murder case is an old house. Actually, it’s his boyhood home that he inherited after his parents died. He’s divided it up into three rental apartments and he likes to go over there as often as he can to, as he puts it, “putter around.” He makes repairs, paints, tends some flower beds, and fixes almost anything one of his tenants says has broken.
Part of his enjoyment, too, comes from the simple act of doing things with his hands. When your whole life is in your head, he says, sometimes it’s necessary to pick up a hammer and just pound the shit out of something – carefully, of course, and skillfully. Jim has a lot of those skills, a remnant of a time when he was young and was a carpenter’s apprentice.
Even there, however, that pleasant diversion, Jim meets some aggravation. One of his tenants can’t pay her rent. Her name is Sophie and she has a teenage daughter named Chantal.
For a time before I even knew Jim Sophie and her daughter were homeless. Before her husband died Sophie used to roll her eyes in a wifely, tolerant way whenever her husband, a plumber, would carry on about the illegality of taxes and how it was unconstitutional for the government to take money from hard working people.
Wives often tolerate the quirky views of their husbands, and Jim and his wife, Bridget, a real estate attorney, have had their share of people who, as they like to say, shouldn’t be allowed to have driver’s licenses.
Anyway, things are eating away at Jim the way they do all of us from time to time. We get ourselves in a box or a corner and, even though we know that time has a way of working things out, we don’t always have the patience for that.
Jim, for example, can’t simply remove himself from his onerous murder case because he feels that would be unethical and Jim is a highly ethical man. Nor can he simply confront his single mom and tell her that either she pays her rent or else she’ll be back on the street. He knows she’s had hard times and he just doesn’t feel that he can be a part of more hard times.
Besides, he tells me, he’s quite fond of this Sophie. She has kind of a wistful, loopy way about her, the kind of woman where you just want to put your arm across her shoulders and tell her you’ll help her get through – well, all of it.
Jim also feels strongly about the daughter, Chantal, a bright, sassy, perky kid who’s found life so far pretty nasty and has had every reason to go down any number of seedy paths, yet she hasn’t. She loves her mother and does whatever she can to help out as the difficulties keep piling up.
These are good people confronting some of life’s tougher choices, and I’ve gotten to know them really well in writing my latest novel. It’s called Infidelity and it’s going to be published by Main Street Rag Publishing in late July.
It’s not, by the way, a self-published book, a disclaimer that seems important to make these days. Main Street is one of many small presses filling the gap left by the Big Six publishers who seem to have their eyes only on bestsellers and not the kind of good books that might take a little time to find their audience.
Anyway, the book can be ordered right now with Main Street offering some great pre-publication discounts depending on how you pay. The book will be sent to you shortly after its publication date. The easiest way to order is just to go to my website at www.gkwuori.com, and then click on the big cover picture of the book. You’ll find yourself right on the order page. You’ll also find yourself all warm and fuzzy from my gratitude.
