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Why crime fiction?
Why not.
For me it's only natural.
I was born in 1959 in a blue-collar suburb of Los Angeles. My father
was an ex-con and an ex-junkie who met dear old mom, also an ex-con and ex-junkie, and they decided to get married. I was
the only child of that union which, arguably, could have constituted a parole violation for the two of them.
One of my best friends in elementary school grew up to be a serial killer,
Vernon Butts, an accomplice of William 'The Freeway Killer' Bonin in at least five of his murders.
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Vernon Butts
Years later, I was working with Vern at Knott's Berry Farm while
he was committing these murders. He was a magician in the Knott's Magic Shoppe, and he gave me a card that showed his
stage name of Max Magnus. The weird thing is, I didn't realize that this guy Vern was Vernon Butts from Lesser Street. I remember
buying him a 7UP in the break room beneath the John Wayne Theatre as he puffed on a ridiculous Sherlock Holmes briar pipe,
pale and drawn. "What's wrong?" I'd say. "I can't tell you." he'd say. They arrested him a few weeks later.
I also remember on employees night at Knotts when Vern introduced me
to his friend Bill. Bill glared at me, like he was jealous of Vern's attention. He wouldn't shake my hand, but I just played
it off. Bill, of course was William Bonin.
William Bonin
In 1985 I lived one block away from the Nightstalker Richard Ramirez.
When he was arrested, I realized that I had passed him on the sidewalk several times during the period when he was doing most
of the killing.
Professionally, I've been an investigative reporter, a PI, a grave digger,
a security specialist.
I worked for the same security company in Bellingham, Washington where,
years earlier, Kenneth Bianchi worked as Captain and personnel director. I've spent many hours in the same waterfront guard
shack where Bianchi was supposed to be working on the night that he killed his last two victims. I used the same Detex clock
that Bianchi reportedly used to set up his alibi for that night. When they arrested him, it was at my guard shack on
the South Bellingham waterfront. And although Bianchi had been in the penitentiary at Walla Walla for many years when I worked
for his old company, his spectre loomed large. Understandably, at that security company, no one was allowed to speak about
the man once known in our company as Captain Bianchi.
I've known my share of victims, too. My high school friend Gina was murdered
in San Francisco by someone the press called the Bathtub Killer. On my last day of college in Washington State, I watched
a fellow student get shot 14 times as she ran away from her estranged husband, who calmly changed clips and kept shooting
'til the second clip was empty. He ran away and was tackled by some other students and some construction workers. I stood
guard over Krystal Way's body until the police arrived.
In retrospect, this seems ghoulish. It seemed like the thing to do at
the time.
I'm not saying that my experiences are anything special... many of us have been touched
by crime, deprivation, drugs, alcohol, even murder. I'm just using a few of my experiences as an example of how I,
just one insignificant American, have seen my share of crime and violence and have been affected by it.
I don't live my entire life thinking about these things... I try my best to be a
good citizen, a practicing Christian, and a good writer. I don't do drugs anymore, I drink rarely, and never to excess. Like
Neil Young said,"I've seen the needle and the damage done/a little part of it in everyone."
As a human being and as a writer, it's all about Sin and Redemption. Writers from
Dickens to Tolstoy to Chandler to James Ellroy have written on this theme, and beautifully at that.
Why crime fiction?
Why not?
Chris Jay Becker is the Editor and Webmaster of Big Bad Beat.
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