When I was in the fifth grade, I had a huge crush on a girl
named Barbara Jo Phillips. She was…well, to tell you the truth, hanging out
with my bride of thirty years has eclipsed the faces of my childhood crushes,
but I do remember I had one and that Barbra Jo was worthy of it. I thought she
liked me as well, but one day I overheard her and her friend, Paula on the
swing set talking about boys. I came around the corner just in time to hear
Paula ask: “What about Marc?” Barbara Jo turned up her nose and said something
like: “He’s way too nice. I like Ryan. He’s a bad boy—wild and dangerous.”
Apart from the soul-crushing realization that Barbara Jo had
actually turned up her nose at the very mention of my name, I remember trying to
figure out how a fifth grader could be more wild and dangerous. As far as I
could tell, Ryan was sort of a jerk, but the only thing that made him any more ‘bad’
than me was that he knew more curse words and smoked pieces of grapevine behind
the gym. In any case, Barbara Jo Phillips sensed something I did not. I’m not certain,
but it’s possible this was the moment when I subconsciously decided on a career
putting bad guys in jail.
I’m betting that when folks from my generation think of a
bad guy, Bruce Dern is on their list—or at least his character, Asa Watts—the
longhaired no account who shot John Wayne in the back in THE COWBOYS. Wayne is said to have warned Dern: “America
will hate you for this.” Dern replied, “Yeah, but they’ll love me in Berkley.”
Asa Watts was as bad as they come.
You’d think, over twenty-nine years in law enforcement, I
would have met a considerable number of Asa Watts personality types. I did have the chance to get to know my fair share of outlaws, but the fact is, I
could likely count the really bad ones on both hands…and maybe a toe or two. Even the semi-bad ones are interesting. There is a lot to each outlaw that
might be difficult to see at first blush.
I once arrested an outlaw biker who was an incredible pencil
artist, rivaling anything I have ever seen. He was also a killer and will have
plenty of time to draw. We had a long talk about life and his art when I
transported him to federal prison in south central Texas. Had I not been a deputy and
he a prisoner, we probably could have had much the same discussion in an art
class. I took the long route to the jail with another arrestee because he was a
great southern chef and I wanted him to give me his recipe for chicken fried
steak. Another fugitive was a fellow Kipling fan. I’ve already written a long
essay about misunderstood prostitutes so I won’t go further with that.
I’m always looking for ways to make the bad guys in my
stories more real and, at the same time, extra bad. The basically good,
philosophical artist who gets wrapped up in something bad makes for an
interesting character—but rarely an arch villain for our hero.
Over the years, I did cross paths with some people I would
consider truly evil--otherwise rational people who seem to feed on the misery
of others. Though plenty layered, these
were still evil, and get the Bruce Dern award for baddies in my book—and
literally, in my books.
I worked the Genaro Camacho trial in Dallas early in my
Marshals Service career. Camacho was convicted of murdering three people, including
a woman and her three-year-old son, who, according to a witness, he marched to
a hole in the ground and shot, one after the other, then covered up with kitty
litter to hide the stench. There was also testimony about him putting another
girl through a wood chipper. An evil dude if I ever looked one in the eye. I
remember one of the deputies gave him a breath mint during a break in the trial
and I snatched it back from the table before he could eat it. Some people just
don’t deserve breath minds. He was executed in 1998.
At the time of Faron Lovelace’s arrest, he looked up at me
from where a deputy sheriff and I were smearing his face into the grass and
said, “It’s obvious you are more racially pure than I am or you would never
have gotten me.” We were in a ditch on the side of the road and he had two
handguns, a can of bear spray, a butcher knife and a roll of duct tape, on his
way to rob a rich Mexican gun dealer—who we had made up in order to lure Faron
out of his mountain stronghold. He
eventually admitted to holding a Jewish couple prisoner in their home in
Spokane and the kidnapping and murder of a fellow white supremacist. I spent
many hours looking for this guy when he was a fugitive and during the
investigations after his arrest. I have
not met many with his disregard for human life. At his trial, he took the stand
and said: “I promise to tell the truth as long as it benefits me.”
He was sentence to death but the sentence was commuted to
life.
There is a girl on the list.
Frankly, I should probably save her for another post. She deserves much
more than a paragraph to describe her evil. As far as I know, she wasn’t a
cannibal, but that’s about all the good I can say about her. Yep, I’ll save her for later when it’s not
getting dark outside and I’m not alone in the house…
One of the worst outlaws I ever met was during my first
three years with the Marshals. We’ll call him Dean because I think some of his
case is still under appeal. Dean had
gone to prison for sexual assault in his late teens. When he got out, a family
friend, a man who’d mentored him in junior high, picked him up from prison to
make the drive back across country. On the way, Dean decided he needed the
man’s car more than the man did and after telling him he heard something wrong
in the rear axle, beat this family friend to death on the side of the road with
a rock. He did another two decades in prison where he no doubt ruled the roost
because of his physical size and pure evil demeanor. When he got out, he convinced
some poor woman to marry him, got her pregnant, then when she left him, he
kidnapped her and the two-year-old son, threw her in the trunk and took her to
Oklahoma where he tortured her in front of the kid for a couple of days before
getting bored. As U.S. Marshals, we came onto the picture at this point, after
he was a fugitive for this crime.
Dean was one of the few prisoners I ever dealt with who
earned a designated shooter in court, that is, someone whose sole job it was to
shoot Dean in the head if he broke bad. We explained this to him and he just
nodded as if such a warning made all the sense in the world.
On the way to prison, Dean felt we weren’t giving him enough
air conditioning in the back seat of our caged Impala. So he beat his head
against the side window until the glass broke and he could get some air—A real
problem solver who had to be the one in charge.
I’ve said it before, but as a writer, the time I’ve been able
to spend with these criminal minds has been invaluable—and I hope some of the reality
has seeped into my stories.
As it turns out, Barbara Jo was pretty good at identifying bad
boys, even back in the fifth grade. We moved away from that small town, but her
family stayed, and she eventually married Ryan. He ended up in jail for
beating the snot out of her—a couple of times. Last I heard they were still
together. I guess she sees something about his character that eludes me.
Marc Cameron is a retired Chief Deputy US Marshal and 29-year law enforcement veteran. His short stories have appeared in BOYS’ LIFE Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. He has published nine novels, six of them Westerns (several as a ghost writer and two under his pen name, Mark Henry). His present Jericho Quinn series—NATIONAL SECURITy, ACT OF TERROR, STATE OF EMERGENCY and TIME OF ATTACK (February 2014 Kensington) features an adventure motorcyclist, Air Force OSI agent and renaissance man who spends his days sorting out his life and kicking terrorist butt. Marc lives in Alaska with his beautiful bride and BMW motorcycle.
Visit him at:
www.marccameronbooks.com
http://www.facebook.com/MarcCameronAuthor
