With every high profile murder one expects to read somewhere in
the news accounts some rattled neighbor saying the suspected
killer was “a quiet man who kept to himself.” In fact, the whole
neighborhood figured the suspect was a ticking time bomb as
evidenced by the way he minded his own business, never played his
stereo too loud, and was disinclined to comment on the weather.
Just take this
headline from a recent issue of the Hartford
Courant: “Stephen Morgan: From Quiet Loner To Accused
Killer.” Morgan, as you no doubt have heard, allegedly slayed
Wesleyan University junior Johanna Justin-Jinich on May 6. The
subtext seems to be if Morgan had gotten out more, schmoozed a
little, learned the fine art of small talk, if only he had been
more of a “playa,” he would be a candidate for Time’s
Man of the Year and not the FBI’s Most Wanted.
Why is it we seem to notice only the fact that office shooters
and homicidal maniacs are quiet and keep to themselves? What is
it about these personality traits that so unnerves the populace?
The rattled neighbors never seem to mention, for instance, that
the alleged killer tended to wear sandals with socks, enjoyed
Harry Belafonte records, refused to water his lawn, or drove a
Pinto. It is only his supposed anti-social behavior they notice,
that is, his taciturnity and shyness. He may own a large
collection of chainsaws, and sport hockey masks off-season, but
it is only his bashfulness that is attention-grabbing.
History books are riddled with harmless, unindicted men of genius
who were not constantly inviting the neighbors over for barbecue
and brewskis. One wonders if Henry David Thoreau’s neighbors in
Concord considered him the Victorian equivalent of The Unabomber,
particularly when they overheard him muttering things like: “I
never found the companion so companionable as solitude.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne spent his best years alone in garret
composing tales about witches and pilgrims and no doubt
terrifying his neighbors with his close approximation. (“I had
very few acquaintances in Salem,” Hawthorne said, “and during the
nine or ten years that I spent there, in this solitary way, I
doubt whether so much as twenty people in the town were aware of
my existence.”) The same can be said for Kant, Kafka, Nietzsche,
Schopenhauer and countless other intellectuals who kept mainly to
themselves. Emerson called solitude the stern friend of genius,
and the bachelor Voltaire, certainly no solitary man, told
Frederick the Great that “the happiest of all lives is a busy
solitude.”
On the other hand, I could come up with hundreds or thousands of
homicidal maniacs who were anything but quiet and who seldom kept
to themselves. Jesse James was rowdy. Charlie Manson charismatic.
Al Capone a celebrity. I remember reading Truman Capote’s In
Cold Blood. Of the two killers in that book, only one (Perry
Smith) might be called moody or somewhat introverted. The other,
Dick Hickock, was a high-living, woman-loving rambler. Few
homicidal maniacs were creepier than John Wayne Gacy, and yet
here is how Gacy is described by his biographer Martin Gilman
Wolcott: “John Wayne Gacy was never a loner, never someone who
kept a low profile and lived a secluded, quiet life.” Take a
quick glance at the FBI’s
Top Ten List and near the top (after Usama bin Laden) one
finds Jason Derek Brown, wanted for murdering an armored car
guard. Does Brown sound like a quiet man who keeps to himself to
you?
Brown speaks fluent French and has a Masters Degree in
International Business. He is an avid golfer, snowboarder,
skier, and dirt biker. Brown enjoys being the center of
attention and has been known to frequent nightclubs where he
enjoys showing off his high-priced vehicles, boats, and other
toys. He has been described as possibly having bisexual
tendencies. Brown has ties to California, Arizona, and Utah. In
the past, he has traveled to France and Mexico.
And yet being a quiet man who keeps to himself remains the
scariest label you can pin on a young or middle-aged man —
especially if he is a bachelor — and that is unfair. Most murder
victims, we know, are acquainted with their attacker. Many times
it is a crazed husband who butchers his wife. Or the wife who
poisons her husband’s chowder. Doubtless the reason it took
police nearly two decades to apprehend Dennis Rader, the
notorious BTK Killer, was that they were looking for a quiet man
who kept to himself and not a husband and father who was a cub
scout leader, actively involved in local government, and
president of his Lutheran church’s Congregation Council.
Sadly the suspicion automatically attached to quiet men who keep
to themselves will not be undone by a single contrarian essay;
the bias is too deeply ingrained in our collective unconscious.
Perhaps what is needed is a campaign to raise awareness. I
propose a Rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Perhaps on a National
Day for Persecuted Quiet Men Who Keep to Themselves. The only
question is, will anyone attend?
