Issue #1 Winter 2002
Pervert At Large
by Rusty Haight
Walter Bainbridge was born on July 4th, 1952, on the same day the United States
celebrates its independence from Britain. He was the only child of Ernest and
Dorothy Bainbridge of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Walter was a quiet child who kept
to himself. He was fat and uncoordinated and teased by the other children. They
would call him fatty and tugboat and lard ass and throw rocks at him. Walter
would often cry himself to sleep, tears rolling down his pudgy cheeks as he
smothered his face down into his pillow and prayed for his own death. So I am
told.
Walter's life took several unspectacular turns as he dropped out of high school
in the eleventh grade and became a janitor. From there, the life of Walter
Bainbridge went on and on unhappily and unnoticed by almost everyone around him.
That is, until he was charged with the murder of eight people.
The first, Alice Walker was a student nurse, eighteen years old. Then Janet
Wiggins, divorced mother of two, thirty-two years old. #3 and #4 were
unidentified street walkers approximately eighteen to twenty-five years old. #5
was Crystal Gibson, schoolteacher, age twenty-seven and #6 was myself. #7 and 8
were also prostitutes. All eight victims, including myself had been molested and
decapitated.
To those who did notice him, Walter seemed pathetic and harmless. Many thought
he was mildly retarded. He was certainly not bright. He was slow-witted, dull,
and often ridiculed behind his back for his rather large man-breasts, which
jiggled and swayed comically as he walked. He was certainly not the type thought
to be capable of murdering and chopping the heads off of eight people.
When Walter was twenty years old, shortly after he had become a janitor, I am
told he began to hear voices. Not just the voices that taunted him and called
him fat and stupid but voices that weren't there at all. Voices inside his mind
that told Walter he should seek revenge for those who laughed at him.
It was women that laughed at Walter the most, at a ratio of almost two to one.
They would tease him and pinch him and offer to let him borrow their bras, then
laugh. Women never liked Walter, they were never attracted to his grotesque body
and therefore Walter remained a virgin. Walter satisfied his urges by
masturbation and I am told he had a large collection of pornography.
My own experiences with women were somewhat less traumatic. I was never
overweight or below normal intelligence like Walter was and, though I may have
been laughed at a few times, people hardly ever threw things. I was quiet but
since I was a healthy, average looking child I was called 'the strong silent
type,' instead of weird or retarded like Walter. I graduated the twelfth with a
solid 'B' average and got a job at a gas station. While my own romantic
endeavors were much more successful that Walter's, I often occupied myself with
masturbation. In fact, during that one summer, immediately after graduation, I
may have given Walter Bainbridge a run for his money in the masturbation
department.
As the months went on and on, Walter and I masturbated and masturbated. I pumped
gas; Walter mopped floors. When I got a job selling insurance two summers later,
Walter continued to mop. When I met the girl I would marry, Walter continued to
masturbate. I proposed to my sweetheart, Mary Ellen Lockhart, the most perfect
soul I'd ever met and the voices in Walter Bainbridge's head kept telling him to
murder people.
Mary Ellen and I kissed and made love and promised to cherish each other
forever. We made plans about the future, about having children and our own home.
Walter lived in the same basement apartment, ate the same TV dinners, emptied
the same trash cans and mopped the same floors. He argued with the voices that
told him he should murder people. "It says 'thou shalt not kill' in the
bible," said Walter. Walter Bainbridge knew the bible well. His mother
would quote passages from a heavy King James version as she beat him with it.
She made him kiss a crucifix on Jesus's private parts and chained him to a fence
in the back yard like a dog. Walter's mother Dorothy was crazy. She thought that
the world was so awash in mortal sin that God would arise and breathe fire and
bake them to a crisp unless they repented. She told Walter that if he touched
himself he would go to hell, so that he still felt guilty whenever he did.
Walter's mother told him that if he ever had sex with a girl that he would go to
hell. That was fine because no girl ever wanted to have sex with Walter
Bainbridge. They just laughed and threw rocks.
The voice in Walter's head said that it did't matter what it said in the bible.
It said that the people on the street that laughed at him and filled the waste
baskets and walked on the clean floors with their muddy shoes were the real
sinners. God had forsaken Walter for making him ugly and fat and retarded.
Walter had to make them all pay said the voice.
While Walter was learning how ugly life was inside his poisoned head, I was
finding out about love. Mary Ellen and I had fallen hard for each other. Every
time I looked into her eyes, I was brought to the brink of tears by her
beautiful face and beautiful voice and beautiful insides. Mary Ellen was not
just a pretty girl but smart as a whip, funny, energetic and full of life. I
wanted to father her children just so I could make more wonderful little
creatures that looked just like her, with a little of me mixed in. Mary Ellen
dreamed of being a school teacher, just like Crystal Gibson, victim #5. She was
studying to become a teacher when we moved into our first apartment.
It was not like the house of our dreams. It was cramped and in need of repairs.
Since I had lost my job selling insurance, I couldn't afford to make any repairs
or even buy food for us. The economy was in trouble and people were losing jobs
they'd had for thirty years, never mind those of us looking for new ones. Mary
Ellen studied and studied as I read the want ads and fell into a deep
depression. As the weeks went on, my situation did not improve. There were
simply no jobs for me.
Walter was secure in his janitor job. The axe had not fallen on him, so to
speak. He'd managed to avoid being laid off because he was a fat, ugly retarded
middle-aged man and no one thought he could get another job. In that respect it
paid off for Walter Bainbridge, being the way he was. I, on the other hand, was
in trouble. Mary Ellen and I, still in love, were experiencing the kind of
troubles that couples do when one is out of work. We squabbled and behaved badly
to one another. I took my frustrations out on her and acted like a jerk. It is
one of my deepest regrets, now that I am dead. I hope somehow that she forgives
me. As I searched and searched in vain for jobs, Mary Ellen continued to study
and study to be the great teacher I'm sure she became.
It was at that time that Walter began to listen to the voices in his head. He
agreed that it was not his fault to be born the way he was. He wanted to make
the ones that laughed at him and threw rocks at him and called him tugboat pay.
He chose to kill Alice Walker at random because she was as young and pretty and
intelligent as he was not. He abducted her, restrained her, molested her and
chopped off her head. I remember reading about it in the paper when she
disappeared and thinking, "Poor girl. Some maniac has surely kidnapped and
raped and murdered her." Sure enough, some maniac had.
I heard nothing about Janet Wiggins, the divorced mother of two or the two
prostitutes. I was still checking the want ads and praying to God or whoever to
allow me to provide for my family. As I flipped through the classified section,
mouthing that silent prayer, I scarcely noticed the front page which announced
the discovery of the unidentified, decapitated prostitutes.
Walter, meanwhile, was having a hey-day, mopping floors and emptying waste
baskets by day and chopping and mutilating womens' bodies by night. Instead of
choosing women that looked young and smart and pretty, he went for whichever
happened to be available. Janet Wiggins was young and smart but not pretty. The
two prostitutes looked young and pretty but neither was much smarter than
Walter. Crystal Gibson was just in the right place at the right time being smart
and young and pretty. It was an accident. By the time she disappeared, they had
found Walter's other bodies and were beginning to use the term "serial
killer." I read the want ads as usual from a paper that had a big picture
of Crystal Gibson on the front under which read, "Missing Woman 5th Victim
of Serial Killer?"
The article went on to detail information about how the women had been sexually
abused and decapitated by an unknown assailant. I stopped to notice that the
missing woman was a school teacher like Mary Ellen had hoped to become. That day
I also noticed that the Federal Express Company was hiring couriers. It wasn't
much but it would be money. I didn't know it then but Mary Ellen was already two
weeks pregnant with our first child. So I became a Federal Express driver as
Walter mopped and masturbated and prepared to kill again. I was fully immersed
in the Fed Ex lifestyle when I was sent to deliver a package to an Alan Schmidt
at 217 Rosewood lane. The package was sent by a long, lost relation of Mr.
Schmidt, using an address more than ten years old. Mr. Schmidt had passed away
ten years ago, due to heart attack and his house had been rented shortly after
by a fat retarded janitor named Walter Bainbridge.
I was in a hurry to get home to Mary Ellen. My next paycheck was on the way and
I couldn't wait to buy her a gift and tell her how glad I was to have her stick
by me during such a difficult time. I never got the chance. I was so eager to
drop off the package that, when I found the door to #217 left open, I marched
right in calling, "Mr. Schmidt? Mr. Schmidt?" The house smelled
strongly of mothballs and human waste. I thought that Mr. Schmidt may have died
or needed resuscitation. I was ten years too late. The smell was of Walter
Bainbridge's sweat and semen and filth. A sharp blow to the skull with a small
club of some sort is all I recall. I was identified later as victim #6 of the
serial killer, the only man, also sexually abused, decapitated and thrown in the
river. The photo the newspaper used was one from a fishing trip I'd been on just
after high school. I could be seen grinning maniacally, holding a speckled
trout. The paper went on at length about my mutilation and how I had been
violated after death.
I can't imagine what Mary Ellen must have thought of me, losing my head,
literally, in that unflattering Fed Ex uniform. "It's alright," I try
to tell her sometimes. "I didn't feel anything. Walter didn't mean to do
it. He is a very sick man." Yes, it turns out I ran into an old
acquaintance of Walter here on the other side. He told me all about poor
Walter's life. It still makes me sad and angry what he did to me and, more
importantly, to Mary Ellen, though to him I know I was just another sinner.
I would give anything to be with Mary Ellen again. I wish I could watch our baby
grow up and see whether it does look like her, with a little of me mixed in.
Even now that Walter got careless with the last prostitute and was seen dumping
the body, even now that his DNA has been matched to fluid samples from the other
bodies, even now that he's been found competent to stand trial and will probably
spend life in prison, I'm sure it is no consolation to poor Mary Ellen. She will
forever be the poor sweet girl whom I loved so much, whom I worked so hard to
look after but was never able to.
Walter was ugly, fat, retarded and reviled, but he left his mark on society. I
did not. To the world, I will always be victim #6. The one holding the trout. I
wish I could say that Mary Ellen became a wonderful schoolteacher and that our
only child grew up fine. I don't know. My spirit may have passed on but I still
can't see into the future. I just have to wait like everyone else. I can see
Mary Ellen picking up the pieces of her life. I can see Alice Walker, Janet
Wiggins, Crystal Gibson and the four young prostitutes no one cared to name or
claim and I can see Walter. Poor, retarded, ugly Walter that no one will ever
love, that no one will ever cry for, sitting in his cell, waiting for Jesus to
turn him to fire.
©2002 Rusty Haight
Rusty Haight's spotty employment history includes working the graveyard shift at a 24 hour sex shop in Vancouver's notorious Downtown East-side. His experiences there served as inspiration for his recently completed novel, Pandora's Box, which is currently being serialized on the web at www.babelmagazine.com (starting with Sept., issue #72). He still lives in Vancouver with his girlfriend, Andrea, and their two miniature pinschers. Send all death threats to: Rusty_mf_666@yahoo.com.