20
The following maxims form a summation of my next several months and epigrammatically describe certain perils inherent in roaming around America killing people:
Mr. Perfect staggered in front of my windshield on a deserted stretch of U.S. 6 east of Columbus, Ohio, one early evening in April of ’81, and within ten miles I had heard his entire life story — family misunderstandings, shoplifting, burglary, reformatories, prison, parole and the search for the “Big Break.” At dusk we turned off the road to share a bottle I allegedly had, and moments later I shot the man twice in the head. His pockets yielded identification belonging to William Robert Rohrsfield, born within a month of my own birthday, an extra seven pounds the only physical point distinguishing him from me. I buried Martin Plunkett deep under the hard soil by the Interstate and became Billy Rohrsfield. The irony of transmogrifying myself into a fellow burglar combined with Grandpa Rheinhardt’s foolproof credit made me feel loose, cocky, stylish. From there I moved into a wordless, sleepless euphoria that felt like a permanent one-way ticket to Panaceaville, Fat City, the Big Contentment. Had I been able to verbalize in my trance, I would have told myself that at thirty-three all my needs were met, all my destinations had been reached, all my curiosities and desires had been sated. Instead of putting forth the sly spiritual epigrams that begin this chapter, I would have advanced the ethos of a Vegas hustler on a roll — I’ve got it made.
But something happened.
I had just crossed the Ohio-Pennsylvania border when I was tossed by hand out of the Deathmobile’s cab. Flying head over heels, I had a view of blue sky, U.S. 6 and my van continuing without me. Then I was back in the cab and shimmying across the dotted yellow line; then I was side-swiping a chain-link fence on the right shoulder; then I braked and banged my head on the dashboard.
When the shock was over I began crying. Too many days of too little sleep, I told myself through my tears. Be good to yourself, another voice added. I agreed in the German accent I affected when using Rheinhardt Wildebrand’s credit cards, drove very slowly to a motel and slept.
The next morning, the first thing I encountered upon rising was a perfect mental image of my “sister” Molly Luxxlor, lost since December of ’79. I wept in gratitude, then remembered that I was Billy Rohrsfield, not Russ Luxxlor, and that Billy’s sister Janet was a child-beating shrew. Molly vanished, and a facsimile of Janet took her place, curlers in her hair, a rolling pm in her hand. I laughed my tears away, shaved, showered and walked out to the motel office to return my key. The clerk greeted me with, “Auf Wiedersehn, Herr Wildebrand!” and I ran from the salutation straight to Deathmobile II, straight to another head-over-heels toss into the sky.
Airborne, I saw travel posters and billboards for the Jook Savages and Marmalade; hitting the driver’s seat, I saw L.A. County Sheriffs spread-searching a scared young man. At first he looked like Billy Rohrsfield, then he looked like Russ Luxxlor. Then I automatically moved into my old 80 %/20 % fantasy-detachment game and saw what was happening.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
My first lucid impulse was to destroy the Wildebrand credit cards and Rohrsfield ID. A second, more lucid thought stopped me: discarding such valuable cools would be an implicit admission that I couldn’t control my own selfhood. A third, most cogent thought took over from there: You are Martin Plunkett. Driving away, colors stacked up behind the litany that allowed me to hold the wheel steady and Deathmobile II at an even 55. The words were I am Martin Plunkett, and the colors were telling me exactly what they did in San Francisco back in ’74.
Landing in Sharon, Pennsylvania, I went verbal beyond my litany and took tight hold of my destiny. The color days had cleared my mind and had given me the courage to make certain admissions and arrive at conclusions as to how to restore order to my life. Wanting the prosaics of resettling out of the way before I formally stated the words to the summer air, I bought three rooms full of medium-priced furniture with Rheinhardt Wildebrand’s Visa card and rented a three-room apartment on the town’s west side, using the name William Rohrsfield. Juggling the two fake identities produced no moments of schizophrenia or disturbing euphoria, and when I was alone in my new home, I made my declaration:
Since Wisconsin you have been in flight from your own unique strain of sexuality, warrior in nature; you have been running from old fears and old indignities, experiencing near-psychotic hallucinations as a result; you have lost your will to kill coldly, brutally and with your hands; killing simply and anonymously has rendered you a nonentity, devoid of pride, slothful in your habits. You have become a comfort seeker of the most despicable sort, and the only way to reverse the above is to plan and carry out a perfect, methodical, symbolically exact set of sex murders.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
Tears of joy were streaming down my face when I finished my self-confrontation, and I wept against the nearest object available to hold — a cardboard box filled with dishes and cooking utensils.
Over the next four months I secured the symbolic accoutrements: airline posters and rock posters identical to the ones adorning the walls of Charlie Manson’s fuck pad back in ’69, a set of burglar’s tools and a theatrical makeup kit. Locksmith technology had improved since my burglary days, so I bought do-it-yourself door locks representing the new technological spectrum and practiced neutralising them at home. Hours of makeup practice in front of my bathroom mirror got me adept at working pancake and fake noses into non-Martin Plunkett visages, and as my steel-town summer wound down, all that remained was to find the perfect victims.
Easier said than done.
Sharon was a rough-hewn industrial city, Polish/Russian in its basic ethnic thrust, honky-tonk in its life-style. There were plenty of blonds out on the street projecting “kill me” auras, but an entire summer of cruising for an attractive blond-blonde couple brought me nothing but eyestrain. To combat the frustration and stay in reality while doing it, I went or another pop-culture jaunt, courtesy of People and Cosmopolitan.
“Family” was still big, as were religion, drugs and right-wing politics, but physical fitness seemed to be moving into first place among America’s fads. Health clubs were the newer “new meeting grounds” for singles; body awareness had spawned the “new narcissism”; and bodybuilding equipment and techniques had progressed to the point where one “new fitness” gum flatly stated that weight workouts were the “new religious service,” while muscle-toning machines themselves were “the new totems of worship, because they unleash the godhead physical perfection in all of us.” The entire craze reeked of a bottom line of people wanting to look good so that they could fuck with a higher class of partner, but if that was where the attractive ones were congregating...
Sharon had three health clubs — “Now & Wow Fitness,” “The Co-Ed Connection” and the “Jack La Lanne European Health Spa.” A battery of phone calls got me the rundown on their respective merits: Jack “La Strain” was for the serious iron pumpers, the Co-Ed Connection and Now & Wow were pick-up joints where men and women worked out on Nautilus equipment and took saunas together. All three bright-voiced phone people invited me to come down for a “free introduction workout,” and I took the latter two up on their offer.