What You Gonna Do When They Come For You?

Mentioned this to Bob earlier when we were discussing Smiley Face. Some cops stay on a case, some could care less. I brought up something I hadn't thought about in a very long time. Back in 1982, while the Atlanta child murders were going on, there was a great reporter named Rick Soll covering the story for the Sun-Times. This guy was a great writer, wrote in a narrative that was stellar for its time, and yet he just fell "into the erff" and disappeared, the quotation marks being around a phrase cops around here commonly use. I think in cops novels they call it "in the wind." Well, anyways. Over the course of a week's articles, I made note of a pay phone near a mall that figured into two of the murdered boys. The fact was not mentioned, it was something that just was a realization that anyone might have if they had read each article, one kid had used that phone last, another had been seen near a phone in that same mall entrance between the time he disappeared and the time his body was found. Well, picture Wayne at the long ago age of 22 1/2, grabbing some blank paper and typing a letter to the Atlanta Murder Task Force on his manual Smith-Corona Galaxie Twelve, mentioning my "realization" and stating that I no doubt believe the cops already made the connection, but I thought it was worth writing in. A week later, I received a response to "Wayne Saller" thanking me for my letter and that the detectives had indeed followed up on the lead. I recall exactly how the following moments went, like a scene in a film. My father was in the backyard, wearing his t-shirt bandana, trimming hedges. I showed him the letter, he read it, looked up at me and said, quite seriously "You know this means that they have you on their list of suspects, don't you?" Well, Wayne Saller, at least. But the deadpan way my father delivered that line. The bottom photo was taken in Waynesboro VA at Beth Massie's house, during a weekend gathering of writers like Brian Hodge, David Niall Wilson, and Mark Stephen Rainey. The cop was a friend of the family and I thought a funny photo would be of me cuffed on the ground. I'm not really mugging it up with my expression, because the cop lifted me off the ground by lifting the cuffs between my wrists as we posed for three takes. I still intend to use the photo in a memoir or, hell, a simple author photo. The fake mug shot is one of my cut & paste with scissors & tape deals, there used to be a great photo booth in the Woolworth's on State Street. I could make my hair look like that just by moving my hand over my forehead. If I used a comb, that hair would fall out. It was a time of Larry King-brand prescription glasses and strands of hair on my typewriter keyboard...bad eyes, bad hair, what you gonna do?

The Computer Is My Nemesis, Chapter 27

Well, my blog is back after being in the cyber-wind for about fourteen hours. Here's how I screwed up THIS TIME. I wanted to add the Storytellers Unplugged blog to my blog bio or whatever its called, simply so that I could better enter my essay on the 28th of each month. David Niall Wilson explained how easy it was, and I accomplished said task, but somehow--alien manipulation, Philip K. Dick's spirit, Donny Rumsfeld surfing through midget porn via hacking my IP yet again--I DELETED this blog, the Frankenstein blog. Well, Karl at Blogger Team helped me out while I was working yesterday, acting quickly because I sent the same message repeatedly, The Computer Remains My Nemesis. And I might've mentioned Dick Cheney staring in a hentai film on YouTube, I forget. So now I explain the photos. First, here I am searching through endless windows as I was jacked into cyberspace like Case in Gibson's NEUROMANCER. Afterwards, I was so tired, I of course napped at the Pace bus stop, somehow wearing Neo's Matrix duster (which I bought for $24.00 from the Salvation Army near that selfsame Pace bus stop. Lastly, I thought I'd have to fall back on my old ways; instead of blogging, I'd have to come up with catchy ways of advertising myself. Anything to actually keep myself from writing new fiction, right? You all know me well enough, indeed. Your chattel, Wayne

Better Breed of Bastard

Sorry about how these images cut and pasted, its kinda like if someone gave the Unabomber a cheap-ass scanner. I touched on the subject of John Wayne Gacy in my Storytellers Unplugged entry for July 28th, and it prompted Thomas Sullivan and David Niall Wilson to get me to give up the goods on where I was on Monday night, May 8th, 1994. I wasn't watching the second half of THE STAND miniseries, if that helps. Gacy went to Hell that night, and I was indeed a part of the crowd watching him wheeled between Death's waiting room and the table where he'd get the black needle. (In the end, all I had to do was fax Nic Howell at the Illinois Dept. of Corrections my business card and intent to write an article for DEATHREALM magazine.) I've added the front page from that article on the left side of my blog, and it was reprinted in FIENDS BY TORCHLIGHT. The clown with the briefcase was actually in Daley Plaza during the events of Gacy Day Parade. I corresponded with the killer several times in the early 90s, simply to have documentation for my file cabinet, along with items like Police Evidence and Property Envelopes, things like that. (Of course, never knowing that one day Google Images would make my visual catalogue obsolete). I had very much wanted Gacy to send this questionnaire thing that he was fond of sending people, and I received it the day after he was executed, as you can see from the postmark. The strangest thing about the page is where it says Address: Death Row, Menard, Ill. The guy lived fourteen years too long, as long as the age of several of his victims. People ask me about Gacy at almost every convention I go to, I was even asked to speak in front of the Midland Authors Association about it at a paid dinner. At times, I feel like the dentist who identified Mengele by his dental work down in South America. At least that breed of bastard is dead, as well, although sticking around decades longer than he deserved.