Dahmer’s Death

The headlines could have read,
“Gay Man Bashed With Broom Handle”
or
“Chocolate Factory Worker Slain with Broom”
They could be headlines
that solicit empathy and wonder.
Why was he deserving of death?
The bashing of a homosexual some could justify.
The slaying of a chocolatier seems to be a joke awaiting a punch line.
The articles would explain the altercation;
the handle entered the left eye socket,
hit the back of the skull and ended a life.
Ended a life that took other’s lives.
The headlines read, “Dahmer Killed With Broom”
and we didn’t read the article.
We thought of divine intervention,
of karma,
of Darwinism enacted in jail.
A harsh death seemed worthy
for the monster that we forgot was once a child,
whose pants were unbuttoned at the age of 8 by a molester.
That story did not make the headlines.

I met a man who slept with Dahmer.
Said the sex was a drunken blur.
I was reminded that not everyone he encountered was a victim.
Were the dead those he didn’t like
or those he felt love for?
He didn’t know how to love, only consume
with his sex and his mouth.

And what of the public?
How did we consume him?
Vultures picking apart his actions,
forgetting the why, the lost child,
and our responsibility.

 

Cunanan1

I feel for that brown-eyed boy with black hair
who built an empire on his looks
that time, partying, and crystal meth eroded.
The mirror’s reflection was not the same as in the glossy magazines.
A sugar daddy’s rejection,
a desperate drive North to a lifelong love,
another rejection.
An ability to always internalize.
A fight, a death,
a body rolled into carpeting
and found days later.

Andrew would have been in his thirties now.
I wonder if he had survived his situation another way
if he would have looked back on his aging angst
and found it amusing. If he would have realized that all of his concern was for naught,
that his beauty he carried with him, inside him.
Age doesn’t take such things away.
It’s odd to think of a killer with beauty, but it had to be there.
The death toll of his sickness was not 5 but 6.
He was just as innocent as them but had gotten lost along the way.
All Men;
whose voices cracked before their 13th birthday,
who ate their brown bag lunch desserts at the morning bus stop,
young men who tapped the keys of calculators in math class,
all men who told their mothers they were loved.

Misguided doesn’t seem to be strong enough
to describe the action of a slayer
who taped the victim’s head like a mummy,
stabbed him with a screwdriver,
hacked off his head with a saw,
then took his Lexus
to the citrus state.
To the kingdom that epitomized
everything he no longer felt a part of,
to a resident he saw as a ruler.
To a man he was also rejected from
after a night of conversation, courting, and coitus.

It all came to an end
wearing no shirt, no pants,
slouched on a bed, legs slightly spread,
he was posed almost like a model,
a young man whose looks would have been worthy of a camera shutter.
A young man who cracked under the pressure of his culture, of his world, of his ambitions.
Who found his 6th victim,
his 6th victim,
at the tip of his own lips.

 

This is Not2

Pipe suspended in air.
Text below.
In his native French, Magritte wrote
This is not a pipe.
Oddly accurate, it is not a pipe.
It is a representation.

The affidavit stated Jason begged
before they killed him.
And as if taking one life were not enough, they wanted more.
Cruised Kennedy, Metropolis, then 2606.
They sat at the bar and found another.
Took him to the house where Jason exhaled his last breath,
where others who were drugged and raped, now consider themselves fortunate.
But Michael didn’t know this walking into the house.
He was thinking of being touched, of sharing his body with the two of them,
of consuming chemicals that made him enjoy it even more.
Not a search for love, it was recreation.
A late night hobby for the lonely or horny.
Soon after walking into 213 Powhatten, he didn’t meet the touch he wanted.
Rag soaked in ether pressed against the mouth he thought he’d be kissed on,
thought he’d give pleasure from.
This happens 2 more times as he rouses from sleep.
One more struggle, his last words shouted repeatedly
This is not consensual, this is not consensual.
I imagine they laughed at this
as one held the rag to his mouth again, and the other sat on his chest.
A young man who didn’t realize who he was with
still giving them the benefit of the doubt
thinking this was sex play gone wrong.
Letting them know with articulation
that this isn’t a coy “no,” this is not consent.
After he died, they took photographs,
His pulseless, bloody, naked body posed in bondage.
There is no text.
This is not S&M.
This is murder.

 

1 Andrew Cunanan was a part of the largest manhunt in American history. He was a gay male with grand ideas of his future who resorted to prostitution. Abusing drugs and quickly losing his appeal to older men, Cunanan soon demented and went on a three-month killing spree.

2 On May 20, 2005 an affidavit was filed in US District Court of Tampa accusing Steve Lorenzo and Scott Schweickert of the sexual abuse and murder of Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz. Both victims were 26 and reportedly killed in Lorenzo’s home within days of each other in December, 2003. A photo of a deceased Wachholtz and printed AIM chats detailing desires to make young men “disappear” were found in Lorenzo’s home. Police fear these two men are linked to several other disappearances.

 

© 2005 Steven Reigns - Contributor's Bio