Man-In-Sea

Epilogue

LINK

I built the first sub, Deep Diver, down in the cargo hold of my ship. It took some time before I found my sea-legs, and some days I was so violently sick, just sitting in dock, that I’d have to keep a coffee can on a string around my neck to vomit in while I worked. That’s how I was the day Clayton came into the bay covering his eye.

CLAY

Dad!

ED

What’s the matter?

CLAY

A bug or something flew in my eye. I think it’s still there.

ED

Did you tell your mother?

CLAY

She went into town to find a doctor.

ED

Come on, let me see it.

CLAY

No, Dad, leave it alone.

ED

You want to wait all day for a doctor? Come on, I can get this... He’s a big sucker, isn’t he?

CLAY

Can you get it out?

ED

Let me find a pair of tweezers. My God, does everything in this place have grease on it? All right, open up. Stop struggling. If you don’t sit still, I’ll poke your eye out. There!

CLAY

That hurt!

ED

Let me look with the magnifying glass to make sure I got it all.

CLAY

I’m fine, Dad.

ED

Damn it.

CLAY

What are you laughing at?

ED

You and your bum luck.

CLAY

What’s wrong?

ED

I think it laid eggs.

CLAY

What?

ED

The damn thing laid eggs before it died!

CLAY

Oh, Jeez! Get me to the doctor!

ED

Come on. I can get them. Let’s go to your bunk. I can get them.

CLAY

Dad, please, leave it for the doctor.

LINK

I’m not letting one of these quacks touch you. I can take care of my own family, now come with me.

END

MAN-IN-SEA

by Paul Juser

Available in print:

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

Man-In-Sea

Scene 33

MARION

Clayton, wait! Just you wait! Someone else is on the way. It won’t be long at all.

ED

Marion, please, come with me. Come up to the deck. Let’s go.

MARION

No, you’ve got to get down there, Ed. Please! Go! Stop sitting here and go down there with him.

ED

Everyone is doing everything they can. Marion, please, just come up to the deck.

MARION

There’s still time, Ed.

ED

I know, so come on. We gotta go. Just let me get something... an extra tank.  Go up and wait for me by Reef Diver.

MARION

Okay. Okay.

ED

Clayton, can you hear me?

CLAY

I couldn’t hear you.

ED

What are you doing here? How did you get back?

CLAY

I couldn’t hear you. We never spoke.

ED

This isn’t how it happened.

CLAY

None of this is. I didn’t hear a word you said on the radio.

ED

No, it was. I heard you talking. I heard your voice.

CLAY

No, Dad.

ED

I spoke to you. Your mother spoke to you.

CLAY

You didn’t. You couldn’t, there was no radio in the chamber, Dad. You couldn’t hear anyone but Jock.

ED

But I did hear you. I remember it. They had you on the intercom. It was faint. Everyone was weak. I don't know, it may have been too late for Al already. But I heard you talking.

LINK

You sent your son down there with nothing.

ED

You said, 'I remember the cabin, Dad.'

LINK

No suits, no extra air, down into the cold in a tiny aluminum box.

ED

'I remember the cabin, Dad.' I didn’t hear anything else.

LINK

What did you expect to happen?

ED

I didn’t know.

LINK

What about his wife? What about his son?

ED

I didn’t know... How could I know?

LINK

All those years playing around in the water like a child in the tub. That’s just like you, never a thought to the people around you. Had to see it all, didn’t you? Couldn’t let it rest. Got your mind wrapped up in all these wild fantasies, like you’re in one of those adventure movies. You told him it was okay to do these things, okay to put your life on the line, okay to put your family at stake... As long as there was a camera in your face.

CLAY

That’s what they were watching when they dreamed up religion.

ED

I’m sorry, Clayton.

CLAY

It’s not your fault.

ED

I should have never let you go.

LINK

You should have locked him in his room, slipped food under the door, keep him from ever knowing what kind of danger was outside. You should have protected him. He should have never been down in that sub.

ED

I never should have let you do any of it.

CLAY

I should have never collected pottery from Greek ports, never should have seen the bottom of the ocean. Never should have laid my hands on an anchor from the Santa Maria.

LINK

Never should have let him go. Where were you when he needed you most?

ED

Clayton, I didn’t know...

CLAY

I knew what could happen down there. I knew every risk, and we took every precaution against it. I knew what I was doing down there. You showed me.

LINK

You killed your own son.

ED

It wasn’t supposed to happen...

CLAY

But it did. You’re no more guilty than I am. What if you did this? What if you did that? We could spend eternity debating it. I wanted it just as bad. You showed me the things other kids only read about. None of those kids will ever listen to the bugs in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, or stand on the walls of a Crusader city. I didn’t learn about history, I helped you make it. You gave me that, Dad. You didn’t do anything wrong. Thank you. Happy Father’s Day.

LINK

Ed, come with me. I’ve got something to show you.

ED

What is it, Daddy?

LINK

We’re going on a train.

ED

A big one? Like in my book?

LINK

Just like in your book. Your mother is going to get you ready to go. Come on. Come down to the parlor.

ED

Where are we going, Daddy?

LINK

A little place in the woods. They want us to make pianos.

ED

Will we be near the Ocean?

LINK

Close enough, I suppose.

ED

Can we see the Ocean?

LINK

Oh, sure, I suppose we’ll see it every weekend

ED

Some day, I’m going to have a house on the bottom of the Ocean, where no one can find me, so I can just sit and watch the fish go by.

MAN-IN-SEA

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

Man-In-Sea

Scene 32

LINK

Clay and I flew there while Bill and Marion brought the car. Clay told Bill not to get lost with our food, and Bill punched Clayton in the arm. I had no idea what the state of the place would be, I wasn’t even sure how long I’d left it. I’d been paying caretakers for a while, but even that seemed nonsense eventually.

CLAY

Jeez! I don’t think I’ve seen this place since I was sixteen.

ED

I wanted to sell it a few years back, but your mother just about took my head off.

CLAY

Maybe you shouldn’t have let them come with Bill. It’ll be days before he can find his way here.

ED

You shouldn’t make jokes. I’ve never been so scared as those nights your brother was lost.

CLAY

I wasn’t scared at all.

ED

Of course not, you got to sleep in your brother’s bunk for three days.

CLAY

I knew you’d never let anything happen to Bill. I knew you’d save him.

ED

He found his own way home.

CLAY

I know, but...

ED

I didn’t save him.

CLAY

It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay. Just forget about it.

ED

That whole time I was flying, I kept thinking to myself, “What if I don’t find him? What will I tell Clay?”

CLAY

I bet you could have gotten half of Canada out here to help...

ED

I couldn’t even save my own son.

CLAY

That’s ridiculous.

ED

It’s not! I read all the time how many lives I’ve saved, but when the cards were down, I couldn’t even save my own son.

MAN-IN-SEA

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

Man-In-Sea

Scene 31

LINK

That boy couldn’t be on time to save his life.

ED

Sorry, Dad!

LINK

I told you to be here ten minutes ago.

ED

I know, I know, I didn’t mean to be late.

LINK

How do you expect to accomplish anything if you can’t even keep an appointment?

ED

It’s just that... well... I was over at the airfield...

LINK

I don’t care about your excuses! If I tell you I want you home at five, you’d damn well better be home at five! We were supposed to be at the Forum by now. I sent your brother to get the car to at least save a little time.

ED

I’m sorry!

LINK

I certainly hope so.

CLAY

Hey Dad?

ED

What?!

CLAY

N... Nothing... Mom is taking me to the airport. I just wanted to see you before I left.

ED

Oh... sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just...

CLAY

It’s okay, Dad.

ED

I was down here thinking, is all.

LINK

Always down there thinking. Got your head in the clouds.

ED

I guess I’ve just got my head in the clouds.

CLAY

Don’t worry about it. Listen... I... I just wanted...

LINK

You’ll never get anywhere in life if you just sit around daydreaming all the time.

CLAY

Those things I said yesterday... about you finding a place I can’t bother you...

ED

No, Clayton, it’s okay. Don’t...

CLAY

No, Dad, just let me talk.

ED

Clayton, please.

LINK

Do you think anyone will pay you a decent wage if you can’t even finish high school.

CLAY

I didn’t mean it, Dad.

ED

I know, I know. Stop, please stop.

LINK

You’ll spend your life digging ditches. You can’t raise a family like that.

CLAY

I’m sorry, Dad.

LINK

Your mother has no idea how much damage she’s doing.

CLAY

I know that ain’t true, I was just real upset is all.

LINK

I won’t be here to bail you out forever.

ED

Please! Just leave me alone!

CLAY

Mom says you will be back in Binghamton by the time I leave Germany. I guess I’ll see you then... Bye, Dad.

ED

Bye.

LINK

Am I wrong? Is that what the men in the shop tell you? Look who signs their paychecks. Tell me how much smarter than me they are?

ED

Leave me alone! Just leave me the hell alone!

LINK

Don’t you dare talk to me like that! Now look, there’s your brother. Let’s go.

MARION

Ed!

ED

You’ve got to hang in tight, Clayton, just hang on, okay? They have to be careful in that current, but they are coming for you. Hang tight.

MARION

Ed!

ED

What’s wrong?

MARION

The divers were pulled down on the wrong side of the ship!

LINK

I told them to compensate for current! It was tearing through that day.

MARION

By the time they figured it out, they needed to come back up for air.

ED

We’ll never get another one down there in time! Come on!

CLAY

I remember the cabin, Dad.

MAN-IN-SEA

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

Man-In-Sea

Scene 30

LINK

I let him talk first. I wanted to know what he thought of it.

CLAY

Pretty cool, Dad.

ED

Your mother is going to hate it.

CLAY

How much did you buy?

ED

For what I paid, I’d better have gotten half of Canada.

CLAY

Mom doesn’t know?

ED

I told her I was investing in some commercial property.

CLAY

She’s going to flip her lid.

ED

I was looking for slightly bigger lodgings, but at least this one has rooms for each of us.

CLAY

Mom won’t leave New York for good.

ED

No, but the lake is big enough for me to land and take off the plane, so I can still take her every so often. I mean I’ll still have to oversee the occasional function of the company... at least until I can sell all my shares.

CLAY

What are we going to do out here, Dad?

ED

I don’t know, probably a lot of hiking. Maybe some canoeing.

CLAY

Cool.

ED

I think I hear your brother shouting.

CLAY

They’re here! Come on, let’s help them bring in the food. I’m starved!

MAN-IN-SEA

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

Man-In-Sea

Scene 29 

MARION

The divers reached the bottom!

ED

Already?

MARION

They are on the wreck and should reach our sub any minute!

ED

Clayton! Clayton, come in please! Can you hear me? Navy divers reached the bottom. Hang tight, Clayton, you’re almost home.

CLAY

I knew you’d save me, Dad. I knew you would.

ED

Now, I want you guys to be ready, okay? When they cut you loose, I want you coming right to the surface. We are right above you.

CLAY

I can’t wait to see you, Dad.

ED

Oh, Clayton. You’re going to have the biggest dinner you’ve ever seen waiting for you.

CLAY

We can’t hold on, Dad.

ED

Think of the cabin, Clayton.

CLAY

Bill was lost in the rain.

ED

Before that. You and me, we flew in there, over those orange trees, middle of nowhere. Think of the Cabin, Clayton.

CLAY

The day we first went there.

MAN-IN-SEA

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

Man-In-Sea

Scene 28

LINK

I’d been thinking for a long time.

MARION

Why the sourpuss?

ED

I’m done! I’ve done nothing but sit up here for the last month and sign papers. I don’t want to do it any more.

MARION

I’m sure we can get an assistant to take care of a lot of this stuff if you want...

ED

No, I don’t want any of this any more. I look out the window onto the factory floor and it just makes me want to scream.

MARION

Look, Ed, why don’t you come home for the afternoon? I’ll make you a nice lunch.

ED

I already had something down at the cafeteria.

MARION

I’d hardly call that fulfilling, now come with me.

ED

I don’t want lunch.

MARION

What’s wrong with you?

ED

An army of killers streaking across the sky, all trained on the Link Blue Box! I built that thing to save lives, not end them more efficiently.

MARION

It does save lives, and the war is over now...

ED

So what good will a state-of-the-art flight simulator be? Until we start gearing up for the next Great War.

MARION

You made something important...

LINK

“The Luftwaffe met its Waterloo on all the training fields of the free world where there was a battery of Link Trainers!”

ED

I just wanted kids to stop crashing! You ever seen someone broken up in an airplane crash? I didn’t want to make a killer!

MARION

What did you think would happen when you signed with the Army?

ED

I have to close the plant in Canada.

MARION

Why?

ED

The RAF canceled their orders. However, they promised to utilize Link technology in the development of simulators for a number of bombers and jets currently being designed.

MARION

You said you could switch the plant to manufacture the Link-anoe?

ED

How many people are going to buy a folding canoe? We can’t employ a factory with that!

MARION

It’s something...

ED

It’s nothing! Even if I did convert the factory, I’d still have to lay off three quarters of the workers. They’re better off all going. Then they can start coming to terms with what I made them do.

MARION

Ed! Calm down, catch your breath!

ED

I’ve built up this juggernaut that smashes everything  in its path, and I’m here chained to my desk, unable to do anything but sign papers. I’m done! Do you understand me? I don’t want this business anymore!

MARION

Look, why don’t you come home, take the afternoon off and get it out of our head.

ED

Yeah, okay... I’ve... I’ve got some things I need to take care of here. I’ll meet you back at the house, okay?

MARION

Home in an hour.

ED

I promise.

MAN-IN-SEA

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

The Vampire of Doom City

10/31/15

Man-In-Sea

Scene 27

MARION

Clayton?

CLAY

That you, Mom?

MARION

Yeah, honey. How are you doing down there?

CLAY

Scared.

MARION

The Navy is almost down there. You just hang in there, okay? It won’t be much longer.

CLAY

Sure thing, Mom. We’ll be fine. Where’s Dad?

MARION

He’s over on the Tringa making sure everything gets done right.

CLAY

Why?

MARION

I don’t know why.

CLAY

Why...? Why?

MARION

I don’t know why.

CLAY

Why?

MARION

I love you, Clayton.

CLAY

Why...? Why?

MARION

Your father loves you too. We both love you very much, and we’re very proud of you.

CLAY

Why?

MARION

And Bill loves you. And Maurine loves you. And Aunt Marilyn loves you. And Uncle Theron loves you. And Grandpa loves you.

CLAY

Why? Why? Why?

MARION

I don’t know why. It’s not fair.

MAN-IN-SEA

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

Open For Business

The Vampire of Doom City

From the pages of

Originally published
June, 2013

Part 5

Bambi Madden’s birthday is celebrated every June with a balloon release at Otsinango Park. The CBS procedural “Without a Trace” offered to include Bambi Madden in the true story section at the end of an episode. According to Amanda Barry, one of Madden’s twelve siblings, the story fell through when the Binghamton Police refused to cooperate. Madden’s family then hired a private investigator from Virginia that met the same brick wall. He returned their money, claiming the case was unsolvable. The family plans a fundraiser this summer, after the balloon release, to hire another investigator.

Barry believes the police conspiracy, citing the Vampire graffiti and a dearth of circumstantial evidence. A friend of Bambi’s mother worked as an undercover prostitute for BPD, and lost her job after relating a story of two officers that joked about Madden’s corpse never being found. When rumors surfaced that Madden’s body was buried in the basement of Sarah’s bar, police did only a cursory walkthrough without breaking any ground. They also will not release the name of a drug dealer who was sent to prison based on Madden’s testimony. He’d been released shortly before Madden’s 2006 disappearance, and word on the street had him looking for revenge.

Barry spoke with the Police Gazette in the back corner of Nezuntos, where she drank coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. Her face was a mass of open sores and one tooth protruded from her gums. It  would be naive to ignore these symptoms of methamphetamine abuse. Bambi Madden was commonly known to be a prostitute, and inhabited an area of the city rife with drugs and crime. Barry couldn’t site any hard evidence for a conspiracy beyond the Vampire messages themselves, and a note tied to a rock thrown through the window of Bambi’s landlord. This was the same building where Madden resided in the lower apartment until she disappeared. Barry didn’t know if the note still existed, but promised that someone had a picture of it somewhere. The NPG has not heard from Barry since. I’m sure I would have recognized the handwriting.

Barry admitted she knew Michael Petrucci. He’d been a drinking buddy to her father. I didn’t read about Petrucci’s 2010 arrest until I began writing this story, but I’d noticed his absence. For years I followed him through muddy back alleys, along flood walls, and shrouded areas beneath highway supports where no person in their right mind is likely to stick their nose. Petrucci was the graffiti artist that captured not only my interest, but had garnered print and television time as well when it seemed he might know details someone didn’t want in the light. Petrucci was arrested as the graffiti artist I’d named “The Vampire.” According to Barry, charges were dismissed against Petrucci the day of his trial and he was shipped out of town and never seen again. Petrucci told the family he had a letter with proof of Chief Zikuski’s guilt. He was about to deliver this information when he was arrested.

Barry confirmed Petrucci’s drug and drinking problems, which can have a synergistic affect with any number of chemicals Anitec and Titchner flushed down the toilet in that part of the city. The Vampire held Zikuski accountable for the murder of Michelle Harris in some of his earliest messages. The wife of a rich Owego used-car dealer is a far cry from Zikuski’s alleged MO of prostitutes like Bambi Madden and Terry Dittman.

I came to predict Petrucci’s movements. If Zikuski made the news, I would find a new message within a few days. When the Vampire finally returned after the conviction of Bobbi Jo Hatchcock, the Vampire blanketed the Riverwalk and Boscov’s parking garage with claims of a hoax. The masterpiece on the riverbank side of a highway bridge support not only gave intimate details to Zikuski’s relationship with Dittman, it also accused Zikuski of funneling $80,000 to Osama Bin Laden. It was hundreds of words and illustrations. Petrucci spent hours back there, spelling out a conspiracy that quickly descended to nonsense. I found his final message in the Boscov’s parking garage, shortly after Zikuski spoke on national news following the A.C.A. shootings. The Vampire suggested that Jiverly Wong had not taken his own life, but had instead been shot by police. Oddly enough, Zikuski was not mentioned. Unknown to me, Petrucci was arrested shortly after.

Petrucci didn’t have any secret evidence on the Madden killing, he plugged names he saw on television into a story I’d been watching him write for years. Petrucci’s real crime was to convince a grieving family to place their hope in a theory and drive the investigation to inaction. After speaking with Barry, I reached out myself with questions to the Broome County Sheriff and Binghamton Police. Sheriff Captain Fred Akshar responded by email, “... if you wish to discuss the disappearance of Bambi Madden and the associated people in that case, we would be happy to meet with you...” When I arrived, I was told the Madden and Dittman cases were both jurisdiction of the Binghamton Police, and the Sheriff’s office could not comment on either. Binghamton had not yet responded, so I called that morning. I spoke with a detective that referred me to Lt. Burnett, who was off that day. I was transferred to his voice mail. I did my best to explain myself, and my position, but my call was not returned.

Some have praised Jack the Ripper for granting his unfortunate victims an immortality they could not have achieved otherwise. Bambi Madden’s disappearance and probable murder is a carbon copy of a crime that happens everywhere. They are difficult to solve and easy to forget. Bambi Madden lived a dangerous life and associated with dangerous people involved with criminal activity. Unemployment, poverty, and dangerous drugs fester in unseen sections of Binghamton. Did the police become tight-lipped with information after Madden’s family pushed to dig up multiple basements to pursue a rumor?

Bambi Madden may have lived a hard life and supported it with poor decisions, but that does not warrant a death sentence. Her family deserves the opportunity to face her killer in court, no matter how they’ve lived their own lives. Bambi’s killer is probably someone she knew well, probably someone involved in the same activities. Petrucci himself fits this description. The Vampire’s flow-chart beneath the highway identifies a “Mike” that knew Dittman’s killer, and was being set-up by Zikuski as a “dead scapegoat.”  Were his messages expressions of his own guilt? Seven years on, there is probably little evidence to find Madden or her killer. Instead, she will rest as one of the great mysteries of the Twilight Zone.

THE END

The Vampire of Doom City

From the pages of

Originally published

May, 2013

Part 4

In my mind, the Vampire was a wretched mental patient, discharged from the castle on the hill. He lived in a filthy downtown rattrap. One night he witnessed something terrible. He had a story to tell, and no one to he could safely tell it to. This was no ordinary monster, but Police Chief Joe Zikuski of the Binghamton, PD. New messages appeared even on days that were so cold no one in the city but myself and the Vampire were crazy enough to leave our homes or places of employment. I poked my nose in forgotten holes to find the fragmented messages. Should I ever be caught trespassing, my camera was loaded with images claiming the Binghamton top cop was a vicious murderer.

While he still liberally adorned the walls of the Ice Factory, most of the messages were penned in quiet locations where they would easily be missed. Size and length varied with the amount of security. Behind a Front Street storage mall, I discovered a long narrative across the back of each building for the benefit of any flood wall hikers. The vampire icon appeared along side many, apparently representing Zikuski himself, though the real chief of police lacks the distinctive mustache, not to mention the giant vampire teeth.

The Vampire decorated overpasses, underpasses, the walking bridge to the South Side, the statues on the Riverwalk, and any wall that was left unattended a few minutes. Under the Clinton Street bridge he gave grisly details of several crimes. On the paved path through the field between the long straight section of 81N he painted an arrow to the place a human finger bone was allegedly discovered. The messages on Front Street past the ice factory told the story of a body dumped in that location, possibly Bambi Madden, possibly Michele Harris. The ice factory would be painted over, and the Vampire would strike again a week later.

Bambi Madden was his favorite subject, but he now claimed Zikuski committed Binghamton’s oldest unsolved murder. Terry L. Dittman was a prostitute that was beaten and stabbed behind a Public Works building on the North Side. Bobby Jo Hatchcock had been a prime suspect since the 1997 murder. His semen was in the condom still inside Dittman when she was found. Hatchcock denied the charges, but also admitted they were possible, as he’d been smoking crack with the victim either that night or the night before. He wasn't sure. He asked the leader of his Bible study group if a murderer could be forgiven. Other samples were recovered from the body that cast reasonable doubt on Hatchcock, and the case stagnated for 11 years.

The Vampire’s  magnum opus was the back of a bridge support facing the Chenango River, where Rt 17 crosses Front Street. The canvas was covered with cartoons and script. The left panel depicted a shark rising toward “Dracula” Zikuski, who kneeled in a raft, his onion-shaped head staring down at certain demise. Another panel showed Madden and another woman driving stakes into “Dracula,” who maintained a giant, spurting erection. Text in black marker surrounded the figures, discussing the crimes and the conspiracy in detail. 

A rumor in City Hall held the Vampire to be a mental patient and the start/stop nature of the messages marked periods of hospitalization. The Vampire had been silent in 2008 when Bobby Jo Hatchcock was arrested and all through the trial. Hatchcock was convicted on new analysis of old evidence. I patrolled the streets relentlessly, searching for the Vampire's response. Part of me feared Hatchcock himself had been the author I’d followed.

While the story about Zikuski seems unbelievable, could the Vampire know something true? Hatchcock’s story changed repeatedly. While he was undoubtedly with Dittman the night she died, he could never be sure he was the killer. The day after the murder, Hatchcock told his brother in law he knew the identity of the killer. Was he talking about himself, or another person? In the face of overwhelming evidence, Hatchcock was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. He was nearly freed when his first appeal ended in mistrial. For eleven years Hatchcock was allowed to walk free with blood dripping from his hands despite his virtually unquestionable guilt.

Bambi Madden was a known prostitute and drug abuser. One rumor puts her not en route to a gas station for beer or cigarettes when she vanished, but turning a trick in the hotel above the former Sarah’s Bar on Clinton Street. The dive was notorious for cocaine blown freely on the bar, and outsiders were not welcome. Could Hatchcock be responsible for this or other murders during this time? I kept my eyes open for any word from the Vampire to see if he really knew something about the crimes he wrote about. 

Part 5

Man-In-Sea

LINK

She had me in her sights.

ED

You’re right. If anything I’m happy to get my mind off this Man-in-Sea mess. If it wasn’t for that damned Cousteau. I mean come on! An underwater house? From what he’s telling me, he doesn’t plan to send his men down more than fifty feet! What’s that going to prove? Our people will be the ones working at substantial depths...

MARION

Read this.

ED

What is it?

MARION

It’s a contract. My publisher wants me to do another book.

ED

That’s wonderful!

MARION

I told them about Man-in-Sea a few months back, before Cousteau announced his project. They think his underwater house is nothing but a publicity stunt, and want me to tell the exclusive story on Man-In-Sea.

ED

Why didn’t you tell me?

MARION

I wanted it to be a surprise. But, first you have to give me a story worth writing about. This mess is finally winding down. Most of the officers seem to have gotten tired with it. I doubt they’ll bother us much longer, and it’s only a matter of time before your appeal goes through and the conviction is overturned. I’m not going to have you stomping around here yelling at everyone on the ship any more. Do you hear me?

ED

Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry.

MARION

I’m not the one you should be apologizing to. Now go find Clayton.

ED

Yes, dear.

MAN-IN-SEA

Cast of Characters:

LINK

An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED

As Link remembers himself.

MARION

Ed’s wife.

CLAY

Ed and Marion’s second son.

The Vampire of Doom City

From the pages of

Originally published

April, 2013

Part 3

As I’m told, Swayze took Oxycodone, covered his body in nicotine patches and went out for coffee. His roommate found him cold in bed a few hours later. He was a brilliant writer, and I still have some of the DIY punk rock zines he published on photocopies stolen from Staples. Issue 6 described his exact method in detail, ordering copies at the back of the store, but requesting to pay at the front, then stuffing the sheaf in his shirt and running out the door. That was the issue he was copying when he was arrested. A short story of mine is in that issue, so it must be some kind of collector’s item. A few Swayze tags remained for years in faded yellow spray paint in forgotten corners of parking lots. Swayze was not alive to be the Vampire, but I was convinced Geraldo Rivera and the Vampire were one-in-the-same.

Bambi Madden’s investigation focused first on her husband, as it does in any good crime procedural. He faced down three lie detector tests, and a tip that her body was buried in his basement. Binghamton Police searched with cadaver dogs, but could find nothing to back up the claim. Bambi’s family now believes him to be innocent.

Winter became Spring, and as dawn grew earlier I’d be out of the house by 6am to capture ghostly images of Binghamton occupied by no living being but myself and the artist I called “The Preacher.” The tattered remains of his posters cling to telephone poles and traffic signs all across the Triple Cities. Most are misspelled Bible verse in multiple layers of colored highlighter. On many concrete walls, the glue remains like the mark of Zorro, especially near the bus stops. I still see new posters every month, but in 2008 the Preacher was out every morning spreading his message deeper and deeper into neighborhoods that were sure to be perturbed by the Preacher’s racist slander.

Before special events he would plaster Downtown, and Parade Day was like a crusade that was shredded without consideration by throngs of revelers. Normal days favored State and Court Street for the drunken college students that needed saving, but the Preacher also left his mark at every bus stop in Binghamton. He clearly spent at least a day each month on the 35 bus down Main Street as far as the Oakdale Mall. With transfer slips and inattentive bus drivers, he could blanket the West Side and Johnson City for a single fare.  As a promoter, I had to respect him.

Scripture was misquoted, but verse numbers adorned each for reference. Over time the Preacher arranged his words into crosses and symbols. They were written on plan paper, lined paper, tiny pages from schedule notebooks, even the backs of unopened mail. I found one with a complete address, but it was destroyed when I tried peeling the message off the wall.

The voice is dim-witted racist, written with a good heart and no clue of the offensive nature of the work. Most posters hang in tatters after only a few days. When one poster is torn down, another is stacked in its place, some many layers thick. If a poster remained long without significant damage, the Preacher placed another, and continued to do so, spreading out like wallpaper. Readable words were like Cut-Up poems across town with city walls as the blank page.

SpoolMFG hung a collection of the Preacher’s artwork, using posters painstakingly peeled from signs and walls while wet. Also included was a cardboard box panel that had been nailed outside a store. Each had his signature scripture, ridiculously written and traced repeatedly in blue, pink, yellow, and green. To the best of my knowledge, the Preacher did not attend.

I found him, and like most real-life supervillians, the truth was disappointing. He was in Rolando’s Diner one morning, Bible poking from his back pocket. He was pockmarked and pear-shaped with wisps of white hair poking from beneath his hat. His book was gilded in highlighter of many colors identical to the papers folded inside. The Preacher’s mission was to save his readers, but his quest made him blind to his own ignorance. He was trying to good, but came off as a self-righteous prick instead. I lost interest in the Preacher as his messages repeated. “You steal rainbows from children when you sell drugs.” The Preacher was another cranky old racist with no other mode of transportation but the bus line.

The Vampire was in a creative burst in the winter when I was wandering the lonely city streets as the sun rose above Binghamton, and his messages disappeared fast. If I didn’t get a photo on my first pass, the graffiti was likely to be gone when I returned a few days later. He wrote in giant black script, naming murder victims and attributing them to Police Chief Joseph Zikuski, and followed each with a phone number that could either confirm, or needed to know about the conspiracy. The story was brilliant. The police chief of a small city was murdering prostitutes to end love affairs and silencing witnesses. The Vampire was telling his tale in secret corners of the city. He wrote on the backs of trailers at an abandoned gas station in black spray paint, and in black marker on the electrical box on the Washington Street walking bridge. The story was about to grow even more strange. 

Part 4

The Vampire of Doom City

From the pages of

Originally published
March, 2013

Part 2

In 2008, the local news reported that Bambi Madden had been buying beer when she disappeared. An annual candlelight vigil began in front of the gas station Bambi never arrived at. Strange graffiti appeared across the front of the church facing the home of Bambi’s sister. The short message claimed Bambi died in police custody. Below the message was a phone number for Calvin Harris, an Owego automotive hustler who’s wife disappeared equally mysteriously on a certain day in September of 2011.

I’d been following a Binghamton graffiti artist I named “the Preacher.” He ran a circuit of the Triple Cities gluing crude religious slogans on walls and signs, declaring, “You steal rainbows from children when you sell drugs!” Talk of thugs, drugs, and bug spray arranged in bad rhyme and misspelled to the point of nearly unreadable. Some dabbled in a garbled pidgin Spanglish. It would have been the work of a harmless nut but for the latent racism in the lined paper torn from notebooks and traced numerous times in shades of highlighter.

Most assumed this was the work of an old man that hung around the Oakdale Mall. Bible verses were written on his hats and jackets in neon glow-paint. I didn’t believe it. That little old man used his jackets, hats, sweatshirts, and pants to silently evangelize rebellious teenagers. He was there the first day I could drive to the mall on my own with my windows down so Slayer could answer his challenge for me. The Preacher operated in the dark. Fog would still be on city streets when I bicycled through to find the glue still wet. The little old man at the Mall was so frail he needed help to use his walker. There was no way he and the plump woman in similarly decorated sweat suits were sneaking through abandoned and debris-strewn industrial zones in the middle of the night affixing posters to dumpsters.

I bicycled along the bus routes at dawn, camera bag flapping behind me. I’d stop at mailboxes, electrical poles, and store windows to snap a photo and move on. In winter I walked, but the Preacher covered a huge amount of territory, and he was prolific. After seeing the Bambi Madden graffiti in the newspaper, I swung through the North Side one morning to capture a message I’d seen from my car the day before.

The ice factory on Front Street has legends of its own. It’s the last bastion before civilization gives over to highway and the wilderness beneath it. The ice factory sits like a fortress atop the floodwall on the north bank of the Chenango River, it’s walls riddled by cannon fire when the city was sacked in 1987. Rumors of bodies in basements persist, but cannot be confirmed. The ice factory sits at the bottom of the Front Street exit, and became a billboard for the artist I named the Vampire, for the cartoon face that accompanied his messages. It had tiny eyes, a bristly scribbled moustache, and big bloody teeth.

I recognized the handwriting when I saw the messages on the news. It was nearly identical to an artist called Swayze. He was a punk kid that favored political rants. His most prominent piece was “This guy died for money,” scrawled across the back of the Skirmisher at Confluence Park. I believed him also to be “Geraldo Rivera,” a series of tags I’d first discovered on a boarded window at the corner of Liberty and Robinson, near the highway exit.

I knew Liberty St. from my pizza delivery days. The tenements on Liberty and Munsel have boarded windows and families huddle on carpets and mattresses around a single lamp jacked from the city power grid. Some have not seen the light of day in generations. Liberty was not a street to be walked lightly.

Geraldo Rivera moved downtown in black spray-painted scrawls, and like the Madden messages, was always followed by an 800 number. In the Boscov’s parking garage I’d discovered a list of numbers and a conspiracy message. The handwriting was a match to Swayze, who was a writer that went off the deep end with drugs. We were once friends, but I sport a broken tooth from a night he pulled a knife on a Rocky’s manager, who then alone chased Swayze and his friends down Court Street. I assumed Geraldo Rivera was the next step in Swayze’s paranoia, and it would not have been a surprise if he’d gone on to write these cryptic messages that implicated Police Chief Zikuski not only Madden’s murder, but perpetrating a grand cover up only Ronald Benjamin could unravel.

The Vampire loved the attention he received in print and on television, and his pleas for investigation appeared up and down Front Street from the ice factory to Main Street, and Downtown, picking spots that were high traffic in daylight but deserted at night. Some were in black spray paint, others in black Sharpie, no different than Swayze. Most were eradicated quickly, but would linger for months at the ice factory before the absentee landlords hired someone to paint over the messages in varying shades of gray and blue like Post-Modern art. Exactly like Geraldo Rivera a phone number followed all the Vampire messages, and the handwriting was the same for all three. However, when the Bambi Madden messages started, Swayze had been dead for more than two years.

Part 3

The Vampire of Doom City

From the pages of: 

Originally published

February 2013

Part 1

When people tell me they loved Rocky’s Pizza, I know they only ate there after midnight. We were located between five college bars, so every weekend was a kitchen dance party. When the bars emptied the restaurant filled to sardine capacity with drunken meatheads and orange girls doing their best to sober up before dawn. Location location location made us enough money between midnight on Thursday and 4am Sunday that we could afford to be open the rest of the week.

I take full responsibility for being part of management, even if there was always some question to my official position. My promotion came a month after my hire with no prior food service experience, so I never let the title carry much weight. During a stretch that lasted several weeks, every single person on staff was a manager. New hires were often pressed for recipes the first night.

As a pizza delivery driver, you try not to get too involved in the lives of your customers, but I remember frequent deliveries to Bambi Madden’s house on aptly-named Winding Way. I don’t remember much about her, though she was briefly employed at Rocky’s as well. I remember the man who identified himself as her husband. He was an older gentleman, and always very appreciative of our efforts. He came in Friday afternoons to order a sheet pizza to be delivered to his wife at 5:30pm. He was going to be away for the evening and wanted her to have food. He paid with a twenty-dollar bill, and I’d keep the substantial tip whether I took the delivery or not.

Our bathrooms broke every night at 10pm sharp. Not only was I manager and pizza chef, but bouncer as well. It was a normal night if I found myself pummeling a frat boy that peed in the potted plants. Rocky’s employees lasted because they could not find work anywhere else. I was called in early one morning because another manager’s meth lab exploded. We were proud of her for being the first in New York State. Drug withdrawl in the kitchen wasn’t uncommon.   The foyer of Rocky’s remains the only place I’ve been pepper sprayed. I only took it in the cheek, which burned bad enough that I went home. The manager we called “Tree Trunk” got it full in the eyes, and I’m probably one of a few people alive that have seen him cry. I arrived one afternoon to find the owner had been taken to prison. He ran the store by collect calls for the next three months.

Sober customers stayed with us less time than employees. If they got a decent meal delivered once, it would be uncooked the next time, or burnt to the point of being unrecognizable. Delivery drivers would occasionally threaten physical abuse to answer complaints. To improve our reputation, the owner would keep the same location, menu, phone number, and staff, but change the name, believing customers would forget the terrible experience they had with us. I’ve watched Chef Ramsey inspect kitchens that were sanitized for surgery compared to what could be found in a Rocky’s refrigerator. The only time we did change location, it was around the corner, and we did it in the middle of the shift. Customers could see us making dough at one location and rolling it down the street on metal racks to cook in the new restaurant.

One afternoon, a couple years after I turned in my pizza paddles, I passed the restaurant to find it unsurprisingly empty. The manager was sitting in the kitchen, feet on the table. With one hand, he was smoking a blunt, and with the other he endlessly polished the stove handle with a rag. He was the first to tell me my connection to Bambi Madden, who disappeared without a trace on January 11, 2006.

Bambi lived in an area off Front Street called the “Gateway to Binghamton,” which was lost to Viking raiders some time during the mayorship of Juanita Crabb. The city has been trying to reclaim and rebuild the area for years to little avail. Bambi left for the gas station with $5 for cigarettes. The store was only half a mile away. Bambi Madden was never seen again. She enjoyed drinking beer and eating at McDonald’s. She smoked Newports and had a history of drug abuse. Bambi was tattooed and rough, and her disappearance made national news in 2006. No article I’ve read mentioned a husband. For all I know, the story was a half-remembered anecdote with no basis in reality.

Bambi’s friends and loved ones described her as a friendly person with no known enemies. However, the facts of her life made for an easy unspoken narrative. She lived in a rough part of town and knew unsavory people. In all likelihood, Bambi “Bam Bam” Madden died no different than millions of other unfortunate women throughout history. Bambi’s spotlight faded. In 2008 she returned to the public eye through the work of a graffiti artist I came to call, “The Vampire.”

Part 2