The development of theory
Treated in a romantic and
Irrational spirit ruins the
Impermanence of things a
Mystical significance with
Which the idea of beauty
Is closely associated
Beauty in the material world
Is a reflection of the divine
A reversal of the real the
Warmth and depth of
Your eyes
Character is key in almost any kind of book. This was brought home to me recently when I read and really enjoyed The Unlikely Suspect by Ben Machell after having encountered several other true crime books that simply didn’t satisfy. The trend today is to serve up an unsolved mystery and slather it with internet speculation and/or trial transcripts. There may be few satisfying crime books, fact or fiction, where you never find out who dun it, but it’s certainly very few. I won’t name names, but if you write a book about, say, a person who evidently either killed themselves or was murdered in a flamboyant fashion, it’s important to know their character to decide which of the two were more likely, something a journalistic “just the facts” approach doesn’t provide.
One of the good things about The Unlikely Suspect is that Machell not only slowly delineates a complex, unusual Englishman named Stephen Jackley through his acts and thoughts, but also provides a much more nuanced portrayal than expected. To judge the book by its subtitle and jacket copy, it’s the tale of a brilliant criminal, another Scott Scurlock, the subject of Ann Rule’s The End of the Dream, a wily, methodical, highly successful bank robber who lived the surfer lifestyle to the bitter end. Jackley probably read that book, and if Scurlock was a Peter Pan, he aimed to be Robin Hood, raising vast sums in order to create a foundation with an ambitious social agenda. For all the obsessive thought lavished on them, however, his plans are usually neither realistic nor very successful.
It doesn’t take an especially astute reader to soon figure out that Stephen is clearly on the autism spectrum. It would be charitable to say that the fact that he was never officially diagnosed as such until relatively recently is because people were less aware of the condition at the turn of the 21st century, but the cold truth is that because of his precarious social and economic situation he was practically invisible. Until he began his armed robberies that is.
Although highly functional, his inability to process information in the common way caused a certain lack of direct empathy that warped his idealistic desire to help mankind by looting corporations into an erratic crime spree that mostly frightened actual people. Far from the master criminal the American authorities and his own fantasies made him out to be, he was mostly good at running away, which is a necessary part of robbery, but not the only one.
The indignities this clearly damaged individual received at the hands of the American authorities is maddening, as Machell alternates Stephen’s misadventures in confinement with the erratic path that led him there. Thanks to complete access to the erstwhile Robin Hood’s writing and current outlook, The Unusual Suspect is able to take us directly into his mind while still maintaining a telling objectivity. It’s a standout performance, the very model of character based true crime.
In the spring of 1945 American armies advancing through Germany discovered a cache of paintings from Berlin museums hidden in a salt mine. The works were transported to the United States for “safekeeping.” Under supervision of the Army, they were exhibited in eight major American museums in 1948-9, with the proceeds going to the German Children’s Relief Fund.
c. 1555
TINTORETTO
Oil on canvas, 54 x 117 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
1898.
By Georges de Feure (1868-1943)
When my love
Stands next to your love
I can’t compare love
When it’s not love
It’s not love
It’s not love
Which is my face
Which is a building
Which is on fire
— David Byrne
Photo: Daniel Leal-Olivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Through the big plate glass window of the cafeteria I see Virginia and Pam at a patio table outside. I break off my conversation, slip through the crowd, and go out the door and around the corner to them.
Hey, I say, sitting next to Virginia. Just like old times, huh?
God forbid, Virginia mutters and Pam laughs, but we manage to initiate an amiable enough conversation.
What’s this? I point to some flecks of paint on Virginia’s hands. Redecorating?
Yeah, she says, brushing at them to no effect. My bedroom.
I bend closer. What color is that, anyway?
Sea foam.
Pam’s old boyfriend, one of the Hammerheads, called that for the flattops they’d affect during football season, slides next to her and they resume one of their many long standing arguments.
Virginia turns to meet my eyes for the first time. I have something for you.
Really? What is it?
Hold out your hand, she says and when I do she drops something soft in it. There you go.
What? It’s a small piece of brown fabric, curling over in my palm. What is this supposed to be?
It’s your soul. I want you to have it back.
I smooth it out – silk on one side and cheap, striped canvas on the other. I try to play along. No way, Virginia. I gave it to you of my own free will. You know how crazy I was about you.
You never loved me, she says evenly. You just thought I was your subject.
What the hell are you talking about? I always treated you like a fucking…
As my voice rises, I realize that the Hammerhead’s gone and Pam’s staring at us. You guys O.K.?
Yeah, fine. Virginia stands up and puts on her sunglasses. Let’s just get out of here.
I hear there’s some kind of performance down at the Union, I say. It sounds like it might be fun.
We head over that way, but as we pass the Commons there’s a tall guy with a guitar standing in the square, a crowd milling in front of him.
Oh, look! There’s Stubb! Pam says, and cuts across the street abruptly.
Who’s Stubb? I ask.
Virginia just leans over to give me a kiss on the cheek, then follows Pam. I stand there as they start talking to the guy, all smiles, and take a couple of bottles of water from the cooler at his feet. They open them and go sit on the wall as he starts singing what sounds like the theme to Gilligan’s Island to appreciative recognition.
I just shake my head and keep going on toward the Union. Typical. And then This could be the last time.
The performance is in the basement, where the lunchroom used to be. It’s been artfully staged to resemble the ocean, with billowing blue smoke, flapping green and violet sheets and rippling light effects, all edged in a black light glow.
At one end is a tableau vivant — The Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite? –complete with Tritons, Nereids, and a trident wielding sea king, which is finally scattered by the arrival of mankind in outrigger canoes. It’s all slightly confusing, puppets and papier-mâché boats drifting around, and no clear distinction between performers and audience, but I’m fascinated as the mythic creatures and humans coexist for a while, with sirens luring Greek heroes, and clam shell breasted mermaids splashing around hungry eyed salts, but people and their works start to predominate, Viking ships gliding toward the far horizon, Jolly Roger flying pirate ships blasting away at Union Jacked men o’war, and even a crazed pegleg Ahab, harpoon in hand, pursuing an amorphous white whale to scattered applause.
Then the tone changes, and the last trace of magic fades as huge cardboard tankers, atomic submarines, battleships and oil rigs overshadow the scene, projections of dolphins floundering helplessly in nets and vast spreading oil spills playing over the now literally torn fabric of the ocean and then disappearing themselves, leaving everything lifeless, slack and spent.
At last a disembodied, echoey voice intones And the sea gave up the dead that were in it… and there’s an explosion of white light, figures emerging from every side – soaking sailors covered in seaweed staggering out of the waves into the arms of their wives and children, tragic suicide lovers reuniting, mariners finally twisting from the tentacles of Kraken, swept away infants cradled in their mothers’ arms, Titanic and Lusitania disgorging entire deckfulls of clammy corpses, and everyone’s hysterical, sobbing and crying, and so am I, pressing that little piece of fabric, my soul, to my watery eyes.
Human sex becomes estranged, the object of panicked alien inspection.
— Mark Fisher
A Leak In The Safe 