You do not have to pull the trigger that results in killing children to be insane. Any way you slice it, murdering children is insane. Aiding and abetting those who ultimately do murder children is, in my opinion, in absentia insanity. From you, the selfish voter who votes for the crooked politician who supports the NRA, the organization that encourages mass murder to be commonplace by supporting Colt, the manufacturer of the AR-15, the weapon the mass murder, to the user of the AR-15, the trigger-puller, makes you insane by complacency and complicity of an insane, murderous act. The mass murderer cannot exist without difficulty because you catalyze the chain of death that ultimately results in the final unit of death to occur, the unit being: gun + handler. You cannot have a gun murderer without the gun, you cannot have the mass murderer without the automatic weapon; they are joined at the hip. You, the voter, have indirectly placed the AR-15 in his hands. His act categorizes him as insane but your act of allowing him to execute his act of insanity is also insane. You are the invisible component of that vehicle of murder.
Legally, criminal insanity is understood as a mental defect or disease that makes it impossible for a defendant to understand their actions, or to understand that their actions are wrong. A defendant found to be criminally insane can assert an insanity defense, but you, having initiated that chain of death, have no such defense.
Columbus, Ohio. October 4, 1958. The headlines of The Columbus Dispatch read, “2 Men Perish in Sewer Water.” The brief synopsis below followed the headlines with more details on page 3:
Two Columbus men, Earl G. Vines (Age 69) and Eldon Smith (Age 26), drowned yesterday while inspecting a sewer line off Goward Road, due to anoxic conditions in the line. According to the survey crew, Smith went into the line first and passed out and was followed by Vines who while attempting to assist Smith back to the surface fell over, according to Vine’s crew members. Vines had a safety rope with him but not around his waist; Smith had nothing.
Matanuska Valley Alaska. September 11, 1982. Twelve people jammed in a university van drove north from Anchorage. “Shit,” Ray quietly swore as he swerved the van around the two moose carcasses, a cow and calf, barely missing them in the dark. Ray Mancell, my friend, was a very quiet, almost shy, physical education professor and coach at the university. We were taking a group of students to canoe Fish Creek, a relatively small stream north of Anchorage in the Matanuska Valley, and we had about an hour to go before we reached our put-in location. Two graduate students drove their car and were going to shuttle the van around to the take-out point. We had about a 2-hour drive.
Only until we were past the moose, did the image of grossly distended bellies with legs sticking straight out into the road, locked in rigor mortis, sear the image in my brain. They must have been dead for a while to have been that bloated in Alaska. Where were the road crews, I thought? But it wasn’t that cold, just wet. The smell of rotting flesh sliced through the heavy rain drops, through the vents, expanding throughout the van.
“Oooo, fuck, what stinks?” shouted Mandy from the back of the van. “Did somebody fart?” I already didn’t like Mandy who was from the “Outside” (Alaskans referred to the lower 48 in the belief that the laws of the universe did not apply to Alaska). She was crude and obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed, but that didn’t deter the panting wolf pack that followed her around campus unrelentingly. I admit, she was serious eye candy and despite Ray’s emphasis on dressing for cold and rain, she definitely wasn’t dressed for the weather with skin-tight jeans, a sweatshirt that accentuated her pronounced endowment and light tennies. Everyone else was in fleece and rain parka and rain pants and waterproof boots.
“We just passed two dead moose,” said Ray. “A cow and her calf. They must have walked up from grazing in the salt marsh alongside the road and got smacked, probably by a trucker with produce speeding toward Anchorage. If the road crew ever gets here, they may just push them back into the water and let them float out with the tide and get eaten.”
“Why would they do that?” Mandy asked. “Moose don’t live in water. I know that much. What eats ‘em when they stink so bad? And they’re huge.
“Moose spend half their life belly deep in wetlands feeding on the aquatic plants,” said Ray quietly. Before they die, wolves, black bears, and grizzly bears love ‘em. Especially the calves. We hunt the bulls and they’re great eating. If they die in the water and float as far as the ocean, sharks, killer whales, birds, crabs, many species of flesh-eating invertebrates.”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever. Makes me sick to think about it.” And with that she returned to her fetal sleep position. Mandy was the only student not from Alaska and she was the only one who had woken up. We had left the university at 5 a.m. and the rest of the students were dead to the world and had seen plenty of moose.
Other than the continuous sound of the drumming rain, infrequent blasts of wind slammed the side of the van, shifting the six canoes, strapped three deep on the trailer. By the time we were at the end of Cook Inlet, the wind had been able to build momentum as it came roaring, unimpeded, down the entire length of the Cook Inlet.
We were in our canoes on Fish Creek, when Mandy said, “I can’t believe you can see such big red fish all the way to the bottom stacked on top of each other like. It makes the whole river red,” The rain was coming down now at a steady drizzle. Fish Creek is not really a creek by lower 48 standards, but a small river, and it was well over its banks.
“These are red salmon. They are spawning now, and will all die after they spawn further upstream,” said Paul, a boy whose father owned a jet boat guiding business in Anchorage.
“Sockeye is their proper name,” Ray mumbled. He looked at the creek for a long time. He hadn’t considered that Fish Creek would be so fat and possibly dangerous in the Narrows, a short, sinuous and tight canyon just above the take-out, and this was a group of inexperienced canoeists.
Mohican River, Ohio. May 23, 1956. In the rain, Earl stared at the muddy river and softly cursed. He thought of her almost as a person: fat, brown and cocky as hell. He hated that river whenever he and Brownie had driven over two hours only to find it unfishable. And now, he just had me. He desperately wanted to show off his new shiny green Garcia spinning reel mounted on the new gold colored, Wonderod. He knew it was risky to cross the river, especially with hip waders on, but if he were really careful when he at the rapids, maybe he could get to the bass hole on the other side. Through the steamy window of the black ’55 Ford Fairlane, I watched, wondering what Grandpa was thinking about for so long. And then I saw him walk right into the river and fall almost immediately. In a split second his hip boots filled with water, dragging him, bouncing down the rapids like a bobber, and out of sight. I knew the river got deep below the rapids. I jumped out of the car, running hard downstream to try to intercept him before he got to the hole. When I got there, I didn’t know what I was going do because I didn’t have a rope or a paddle. Maybe I would find a limb. Suddenly he appeared before me, sloshing up the trail, water pouring off his red leather hunting cap and down his face, still grasping his new rod and reel. His boots must not have filled, or he wouldn’t be where he was. He looked sheepish but never said a word. We drove home but didn’t stop for hamburgers at Buddy’s Burger Bender.
Fish Creek, Alaska. September 11, 1982. Paul butted in, “My dad is a guide and I help him when I’m not in school. Both the males and female reds come up the creeks and rivers and spawn and then die within a few weeks. They only live 7-8 years and half of that they live here, then swim to the ocean for the other half and return here at the end to lay their eggs and die. You just have a sweatshirt, Mandy? No raincoat? Dr. Mancell said come prepared in class yesterday, didn’t you Dr. Mancell.”
“Yes, I did,” Ray said.
Through her heavily painted eyes and pouty glossy pink lips, Mandy stared at Paul for a long time. “Well, he didn’t say rain and in Arizona it never rains,” she finally said.
“This isn’t Arizona, Mandy. This is Alaska and in Alaska, it rains. A lot. I have an extra rain parka I can loan you,” said Paul. Paul thought Mandy was the sexiest girl he had ever seen.
“Thanks, but this sweatshirt is sorta waterproof,” she responded. “That’s really interesting. While they are swimming upstream against the current to die, we’re canoeing downstream, with the current to live.” Paul didn’t see any comparison whatsoever, but he just smiled. He wasn’t about to upset Mandy.
We launched our canoes into the water around 10. It was raining harder. The water was icy cold, crystal clear, meandering, docile, and packed bank to bank with red. They were so dense, some backs were out of the water, and they even banged into the boats. Our paddles ricocheted off their backs, hardly penetrating the water. The students reached down and touched the salmon who were emaciated and weak from their foodless struggle miles from the open ocean. Their drive to spawn superseded everything else. Occasionally one would roll over, showing its white belly, and drift downstream to be eaten by all manner of wildlife—eagles, osprey, gulls, bears, maybe a wolverine waiting for them at the inlet.
By the time we pulled over for lunch, the rain was steady and seemed to be getting heavier. There were now two groups, the hard-core paddlers with Ray, who were well ahead of us, the slowpokes. Mandy and Paul were in my group. They were giggling together on a big log, not paying attention anymore, definitely not to me or Ray. It was too wet to build a fire and besides, we didn’t have the time. We ate fast and returned to the river.
I was in the rear with another student. It was raining so hard I could barely see the two canoes in front of me. They were strung out, which didn’t help. We caught up to the canoe ahead of us because I noticed it was zigzagging from bank to bank. Mandy was in that boat. I told my bowman to move alongside her canoe. She was shivering uncontrollably and crying. Her hair was plastered to her head and her mascara was all over her face.
“What’s wrong, Mandy?” I asked. She tried to answer but her teeth were chattering too much. She dropped her paddle into the water. I grabbed it and gave it back to her. “Mandy, you and Lizzy pull over to the bank immediately,” I said. Paul and Larry had stopped and come back to us. “We have to build a fire,” I said. Mandy struggled to get out of the canoe and up the bank, even with Paul’s and my help. With a lot of effort, we were able to build a decent fire. Mandy stood so close to the it I thought she was going to ignite. She dried out and her lips turned back to glossy pink. Without any argument, she took my extra wool shirt and Paul’s extra raincoat with a hood.
When we returned to the river, Mandy was in my canoe so I could keep my eye on her. The rain had reduced to a light drizzle. The river now wandered a lot less but with more large boulders and downed trees which weren’t a problem because the water was calm and seemed slower.
Even small creeks have ways of not revealing danger until you are in it. And usually, the danger can appear understated and frequently unnoticed by novices. It is not uncommon to be taken by surprise and when you realize it, it can be too late. As my group moved downstream, about an hour or after lunch we could begin to hear a roaring sound getting louder. Thus far, Fish Creek had been tranquil, so no one suspected anything different. We still had a mile to go to the van. As we rounded a sharp turn, we saw the hotshots standing on the shore with their canoes pulled up, watching another canoe which was completely underwater and lodged up against a huge log on the opposite side of the stream. Two students were trying to break it free with long limbs by prying and pushing it. Eventually the boat broke free everyone cheered. It was not seriously damaged but badly dented. The dark pools and levelness of the earlier Fish Creek were replaced by steep rapids, small waterfalls and fallen trees.
“This is the Narrows,” Ray said quietly to me. “With the water level this high, I don’t think the students should paddle the last mile to the van,” he said to me. “There is a poor trail that runs along the bank that goes back to the parking area. You and I can take the canoes through the Narrows.” I hadn’t bargained for this; Ray had never said anything about whitewater on Fish Creek. There were six canoes, including the dented one, which meant six trips paddling and six one-mile trips walking back. And darkness was only about two hours away. Besides, I did not feel comfortable at all in whitewater; it actually scared me.
Ray grabbed a canoe. “Why don’t you take the bow, since I’ve got the experience,” he said. I didn’t argue. The Narrows were shockingly narrow and therefore, running much faster. We jumped in the boat. Only a few hundred yards down river, we encountered a log jam on the right side with water boiling up in front of it. The entire creek couldn’t go under the jam, so it had to divert around it, taking a tight hairpin to the left. I was kneeling and draw-stroking like hell on the left side when my knee slipped on the smooth aluminum causing me to lurch and miss one stroke. One stroke. Instantly, the current yanked us to the right and directly into the logs. The canoe whipped broadside and both Ray and I instinctively leaned upstream, the wrong way to lean. If you lean downstream, sometimes you can avoid inundation and if lucky, slide left in this case and past the jam. The weight, combined with force of the water, will take any canoe of any material and easily bend it double if it fills. The water poured over the gunnel, immediately swamped the canoe, capsized it and wedged it against the logs close to the bottom of the creek, all in a few seconds. Ray was thrown to the left into the main channel, but I was not so lucky. I stayed with the boat and slid under the log.
Otsego Lake, Michigan. July 3, 1958. Tripping over the minnow bucket at the transom of the fishing boat, Grandpa fell into the lake, still clutching his now weathered Wonderod, still with the Garcia reel on it. He sunk like a stone into the placid blue lake because he wore all kinds of lures and hardware hooked to his vest and under that his red and black heavy wool hunting jacket. It was cold. He never wore a life jacket. I rushed to the back, in time to see a few bubbles, knowing that he couldn’t swim. The lake quickly regained its placidity. Maybe a minute passed but it seemed like a year before he popped to the surface like a cork, still holding his precious rod and reel. He must have clawed his way to the surface. His now sodden stogey was still clamped between his teeth. With a lot of difficulty, he climbed back in the boat, refusing help from me as he did. He cast again almost immediately but said nothing. He acted as if nothing had happened, and that I wasn’t even there.
Fish Creek, Alaska. September 11, 1982. Ray could see that I was pinned by the force of the water against the upstream edge of the log jam. I was upside down looking up, with my face about six inches below the surface. I reached my hand up and around the log in an attempt to pull myself up, but I couldn’t budge.The force of the water was incredible. If Ray had tried to help, he would have gotten pulled under, too. It seemed like forever as he watched me drowning. He later said that he looked away momentarily and when he looked back I was gone. A few seconds later, I reappeared downstream dragging myself onto a gravel bar. The canoe had dislodged and miraculously ran aground further downstream.
“How did you pull that off?” Ray asked.
“I don’t really know. I remember realizing I wasn’t going to beat the power of the river and muscle myself up over the log. I figured the only option I had was to push up against the log and hope I could break free and go with the current and under the sweeper, praying there were no staubs sticking down to hang up on. I shot out the downstream side.”
“Did your life pass before your eyes like they say?” Ray asked.
“No. I do remember not panicking. I do remember thinking how ironic it was that here I was down with the salmon knowing I didn’t want to be there, that my life belonged a mere six inches away in air, but I couldn’t get to it. And a salmon in the reverse situation on the bottom of boat would be thinking just the opposite. His life was six inches away in a river he couldn’t get to.”
Columbus, Ohio. October 3, 1958. Earl isn’t thinking about his retirement in three months and the bass he and I will catch with his ancient Shakespeare Wonderod and Garcia reel on the Mohican River. He pushes one of his young crew members aside who has started down the ladder and says, “It is my job to go down there, not yours.” He descends the ladder into the sewage pipe below where Eldon lies unconscious, overcome by sewer gas. Earl is thinking only about getting him out alive. He doesn’t want to happen what happened to one of his crew members years ago when he failed to save him in a very similar situation. He cannot fail a second time.
Fish Creek, Alaska. September 11, 1982. Ray and I completed the mile easily and then repeated ferrying boats five more times without further mishap. We knew exactly where our enemy was waiting to ambush us. It was dusk and raining hard by the time we were all packed together, shivering in the van. I stared blankly out the steamed window; I’d lost my good glasses under the log to the current, and my spare glasses were old, cracked, and almost useless. I squinted and thought I saw an old man standing in Fish Creek, casting with a new Mitchell Garcia mounted on a Shakespeare Wonderod, against a backdrop of the bright white on dark green of birches and spruce. That combined with my brush with death, gave me a sense of nakedness and total despair. By all rights, I should have drowned a mile upstream instead of sitting where I was sitting. I had escaped death under water, but Grandpa had not.
Columbus, Ohio. October 3, 1958. When the emergency squad arrived and climbed into the pipe with oxygen masks on, they found the two men face-down in a foot of fetid water at the bottom of the pipe. The autopsy revealed the actual cause of death was drowning.
The Mitchell Garcia was still mounted to the Shakespeare Wonderod, lying comfortably and peacefully in the trunk of the black ’55 Ford Fairlane in a city parking lot in downtown Columbus, waiting for its next owner to take it to the Mohican.
