Hate Speech

The other day I was perusing facebook like I typically do. I had been down and out with the stomach flu. The week before had been spent at my cousin's wedding, and then on the plane to Las Vegas acting as credentialed press for the Presidential Dates with Donald J. Tramp. Things were shaping up fabulously.

Then I woke up Tuesday morning feeling dizzy. I figured I was tired and got a glass of water. Next thing I know the contents of my stomach are spewing everywhere. For the next several hours I couldn't keep anything down. Not water. Not coffee. Nothing. The next call was to my mom. Then to my sister Skipper. She said to take it easy, rest. This wasn't going to kill me, just be annoying for the next 24, 48 hour time span.

So I decided to see what my friends were up to. One is a guy I will call Mike Spratt. Supposedly, Mike was involved with the mafia back in the day, or that is at least what he likes to tell people. Apparently Mike became hooked on coke and dope, and found the message of God and recovery through AA. Dedicated to his sobriety, Mike attended 3 meetings a day every day, and church daily as well. When he wasn't drinking the kool-aid instead of the booze, Mike was trying to get his own reality show. This is how I met him, for better or for worse.

Mike had come to a comedy show of mine once. He came with another guy he met from his meetings. Mike informed me that his psychic powers had guided him to me, and God told him specifically I needed saved. (What could possibly go wrong?)

The waitress then told Mike and his friend he had to order two drinks. Mike's friend, a nondrinker, ordered a bottle of water and didn't want to make a scene. On the other hand, Mike began to verbally berate the waitress for making him drink. He was in recovery. How could she? When the waitress and Mike's friend explained that he could order a nonalcoholic drink, he got more belligerent. The club manager not only banned Mike from ever entering the venue again, but encouraged me never to invite him to future shows. I felt that this was a wise decision.

Fast forward. Years later, despite his claims, Mike never got a reality television show. Seems like The Long Island Medium had more star power. However, Mike had decided to become political. Since the start of this election, his posts have shifted from the eccentric orders from God to just plain vile. Each week, they have been getting more and more disturbed. In each post, he has been talking about how the Jews and Muslims have declared war on The White Christian Male. Yes, I was at the meeting last week. They are plotting against you and you alone.

This latest post was the straw that broke the camel's back. In it, Mike spoke about how the Muslims were infiltrating the government. He believed Barack Obama was a Muslim, and wanted to make Islam the official religion of America. Mike also said Nancy Pelosi had secretly converted to Islam, and was secretly hiring members of Isis as spies on all the Christians. After which Mike insisted that when Muslims prayed, they were really praying to Satan. Now, Salmon Rushdi called, he wants his idea back, idiot.

The end of his post called for a holy war against Muslims.

This wasn't just paranoid bordering on delusional. It was dangerously removed from reality in every way. Actually, it made me sick to read. In anger, I responded, "You should go back to drinking, you sounded better on the sauce."

Then I knew I was sinking to his level. I would never get through. So I blocked him. Still, it made me glad both candidates were travelling with security. People are too crazy right now. Words sometimes are not just words. We dismiss them as just that, and then the individual spewing the hate does something drastic.

Clearly my pal Mike Spratt has more going on than being an ex drunk who's hooked on God. He needs mental help from real professionals outside of church basements. Hopefully those are just words, but also, hopefully someone else sees his ramblings and gets him help before it's too late. 

Just Say Maybe

When I was in elementary school, it was a big thing to be in the 4th grade. It meant being upstairs and finally being one of the big kids. It meant having a big kid locker on the first floor. It meant finally getting to sign up for the Just Say No Club.

Yes, the well intended and oft failed Nancy Reagan brainchild. It was conceived during her trip to Day Top Village while campaigning for her husband. She saw all the addicts and shuddered for the youth of America. Nevermind many had traumatic upbringings, were Vietnam vets, or it was a genetic predisposition. Nevermind science has been asking what makes a person an addict. Nevermind the world has wracked their brains for years to treat these people as rehab doesn't work, jail is a fail, and AA barely does a mediocre job with this issue. Nancy Reagan, clutching her pearls came up with the anti-drug platform of "Just Say No."

Well I joined Just Say No as soon as 4th grade hit like all the other good little adherents in my sheltered suburban elementary school. Our sponsor, Ms. Dallet, an old school mistress type who got angry when you doggy eared your library books, was losing her hearing so we had to shout when we spoke. We watched a video about the dangers of pot. It was sort of an after school special type of thing, full of drama and at the end it's okay that little Jimmy said no. He did the right thing. As we watched said video, we had the drug free but ever sodium and sugar filled pretzels and soda. Note, some experts consider sugar a drug but nevermind.

After the video was shown, they asked us what to do if we ever were in a situation where we were offered drugs. Our little voices shouted, "JUST SAY NO!"

Then there was the practical portion, what to do if offered drugs. I raised my hand and suggested making an excuse, like you were sick or had to go. I got Ms. Dallet's praise and the approval of the group. And then a few other people gave suggestions and we yelled, "JUST SAY NO!!!" again.

Yes people got hooked on drugs because it was all about peer pressure. As I said, there is a genetic predisposition to addiction, and science even backs me up on this. Heck, some of my own family members are case studies. But truth be told, it was all the evil PEER PRESSURE, PEER PRESSURE, PEER PRESSURE. They were putting that joint in your hand and pouring that liquor in your mouth. And then there is the Gateway Drug Theory, but I could spend a whole blog debunking that but won't. Bottom line, science still doesn't know a lot about addiction and it is foolish miseducation like this that punishes addicts, shames the sick, and kills people. Yet at the time we didn't think of that. We were cool and got to join a big kid's club.

The following year Ms. Dallet's hearing loss forced her to retire and hang up her spurs as the Just Say No sponsor. She was replaced by a woman by the name of Ms. Samson. This denizen was a biker moll who somehow was teaching 5th grade. She wore leather and too much makeup, and how she got a job in the district I will never know, It got awkward when she came to student events with her motorcycle boyfriend named Rick who had long hair. Sometimes he would show up drunk.

Ms. Samson was about 25 I think, and would smoke during lunch behind school. The year before she had gone on our pumpkin picking trip for Just Say No and smoked behind the bus while the students were picking their pumpkins. Yes, we were supposed to Just Say No to tobacco too.

Our first Just Say No meeting with Ms. Samson we got pizza and watched a movie. Unlike Ms. Dallet who took the whole thing seriously and maintained a moral high ground, Ms. Samson didn't front. After the movie she said, "Kids, say no to drugs. Seriously. They are bad. Life happens. But seriously do your best to try to say no."

Okay.......

Needless to say, the mission of Just Say No pretty much fell apart and disbanded shortly thereafter.

Over the years, many former Just Say No graduates went on to drink, smoke, and do drugs. A few went to rehab, but most turned out alright. Still, it was amazing how much that initiative failed worse than Mama June at Weight Watchers.

Heck, I have even seen people I love negatively affected by drugs. One former boyfriend who self-medicated because they couldn't get his bi-polar meds right could never get sober, and I had to let him go. I buried two friends I cared about because they couldn't get clean. A kid I went to karate with died of an overdose. Another family friend has a son who desperately cannot get clean. Even some of my family members too.

However, it's not that they won't say no. It's that they can't say no. Plus sometimes people get hooked because they are given a medication and it is much more complex. Then again, liberal critics said the same thing I did so I know I am not crazy.

Yet at the same time, I look back at how campy and corny those meetings were, and how well intended the whole thing was. It just didn't work. Like Communism. Sigh......

Maybe Ms. Samson was onto something. Do your best. Just Say Maybe....


www.aprilbrucker.tv

Castles in the Sky

When I was twenty three I was going through a huge transition in my life. I went from being a hot mess that made more messes to a mess who wanted to clean herself up. I felt like a butterfly coming out of the cocoon and now emerging, flying if you will. Replacing nerves that were once calmed by alcohol, diet pills, and destructive eating was the Serenity Prayer. I was also out of an abusive relationship, one that ended in stalking and a different mailing address for my own safety and on the market for a decent man. Enter George Washington.

George Washington had the same name as the president who chopped down the cherry tree. He was set up with me on a blind date by my friend Saul, a friend I worked with on a project. Saul said George and I would be a perfect match. The first time he called me he seemed nice enough and made me laugh. We went out. George underwhelmed me in many ways. He was losing his hair and had abysmal fashion sense. Not to mention that he bored the hell out of me. But he had a nice manner, paid for dinner, and was  a lawyer. Most of the guys I dated dined and dashed and were mostly defendants. My mom had married a lawyer and was happy. I figured I could work around a lot of things. A lot of people settled. Why shouldnt I? Plus he did seem to like me.

Right away George regaled me with his life. Before becoming a lawyer George had apparently played with rock bands and even worked as a substitute guitarist for the Violent Femmes when one player had mono and had been a part of the Detroit Cobras too. He played with many people and played me CDs and even played guitar for me a few times. George could quote Shakespeare and he knew a lot about history. For the first time in forever someone liked my writing. The ex fiance hated my writing and tried to kill my dreams and aspirations. George on the otherhand breathed new life into them and was proud of me. Maybe it wasn't the chaotic love affair it had been with my fiance and maybe he wasn't as hot as the ex cons but I felt like this could be happily ever after in Kew Gardens.

Did I mention he even wrote a song for me?

George used to take me out to the best eateries, only five stars in Zagats. He also told me about some of his former girlfriends. Like me George too had been previously engaged. His ex had been a Smith grad, a Yale grad, and had an impressive job in DC. Apparently she cheated on him. Before that one of his exes had appeared on VH1, then one had been married to Romeo Rojas, a world famous soccer player from Columbia. One had won an Academy Award for costume design. As compared to these women I felt sick to my stomach. My boyfriends had been to jail and maybe had a lawyer from Yale. I knew people on VH1  but had never dated any, I wasn't their type. The only Romeo Rojas I knew sold drugs. I had friends who designed costumes but never got that far. He was probably underwhelmed with me and I just felt this insecurity and chip on my shoulder, something that followed me for the duration of the relationship. Would I ever be good enough for him? Probably not.

Right away George told me of a terrible childhood with an abusive alcoholic father and a grandfather named Shane who was involved with the mob. Jimmy Hoffa had apparently been his father's godfather. My Uncle Frank had known Jimmy Hoffa through the labor unions as well and had even dodged a car bomb planted by Hoffa. Right away he seemed exciting as he told stories of a childhood seemingly plucked from Oliver Twist. I felt for him. Part of me wanted to love him and fix him because he seemed so different than an ex who used me as a mental and physical punching bag.

George wanted to move up in the world and introduced me to his friends. They were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and struck me as snobby and fake. George wasn't born with a silver spoon. Whenever I would tell him just because they were rich didn't mean that they were good people he would fire back about how I couldn't accept his friends. How he was embarrassed because anything could fly out of my mouth. How he wanted to move up in the world. Meanwhile I had grown up among lawyers and judges. I saw how George conducted himself with two left feet. I saw how they rolled their eyes. Whenever I would give him advice it was what do you know?

George was desperate to belong with these people. One of his bosses remarked that he didnt have pedigree and this sent George over the edge. My dad didnt come from a family of lawyers and judges, he was the son of a steel worker. However, my dad was hardworking and brilliant. Not only did he end up doing well but many of these lawyers and judges have my father on speed dial and treat him like the brother they wish they had. George didn't want to go about it that way though. Instead he was always going out to fancy places and spending money he didn't have.

Once he met my mother and took us out for a three hundred dollar dinner. My mom, knowing George was out of law school told him that this was too expensive. She had lived with my dad when they were newly married and  he was working at Price Waterhouse by day and going to law school at night. They had card tables and were dirt broke. George said, "You are a lawyer's wife, this is what you are accustomed to."

My mother, who is the eldest of six and grew up in modest means was taken aback. Sure my dad was a lawyer but we didnt live high on the hog. Most of the time we clipped coupons like the rest of the world and knew money didnt grow on trees. My mom  responded, "George, I am accustomed to paper plates. Applebees would have been fine." At that moment it occurred to me that perhaps George was trying to buy my mother. It felt awkward and sickening.

I also became close with George's mother, an eccentric Al-Anon veteran, husband to a recovering alcoholic, that read my blogs and wrote me letters that God had instructed her to write. In each she would tell me how God was commanding her to tell me that she and her kid belonged together. I laughed it off. She's a mom. What could I say or do? But looking back this was another warning sign.

A week after meeting my mom I met his dad. They seemed like a nice duo. We went to a Mets Game, used Saul's family's box, and hug out some. While I liked his dad it seemed like the two were trying to put on a show for me. From what George told me his dad had been a violent drunk. Now they were getting along great and his mom even called. It's like they were the perfect family, beyond the Clever's, something smelled like an act. George insisted that he had grown up in Corktown, a terrible area of Detroit, but his dad insisted the family was from Ann Arbor. He was hardly the towering ogre descried in his son's stories as well. After the meeting his mother sent me a letter that is still suspicious to this day, "I am glad George's father gets to meet you. All of George's girlfriend's disappear before we can meet them."

During the four month mark in the relationship George told me that Alex Kelly, the man responsible for being the first one convicted of date rape had grown up outside of where he was from in Detroit in a gated community. Anyway, one of the victims was from his part of town. George told me after Alex Kelly was captured in Europe where he had been hiding with family money and brought to the US his friend's dad was the prosecutor that coined the term date rape. I remember going on wikipedia and looking this stuff up just to see his friend's dad's name. What I found surprised me. Alex Kelly happened in Darien, CT, not even remotely close to Detroit. At that moment I began to wonder, was I in a relationship with someone who lied for the sake of lying? The thought raced through my mind. I found myself ashamed and surprised. George had always done what he said he was going to do. He had been a man of his word. Maybe it was a similar story.

As the relationship went on however problems, major problems began to emerge. A lot of George's stories about ex girlfriends in particular were constantly changing. This would usually come out during one of my jealous rages. He would tell me I was bad with timing. We made a vow never to talk about exes or the past but something always lingered in my mind. He treated me well and spent lots of money on me. Why was I always fighting with him? I found myself acting out in rotten ways too. Whether I was getting the  number of a different guy or lying about how I was single I couldn't stop. Friends told me the relationship was a good one and I was scared. But what was I scared of?

Around this point the truth about George's financial situation reared it's ugly head. He was in debt, big debt. It started when I accidentally answered a call from a creditor. Then he confided in me that he hadn't opened his bills or paid them for several months. We went from fancy dinners to me footing the bill. I didn't mind it. I loved him and told him he had to make it right with the creditors. At the time I had a little money and even offered to bail him out. He told me he could handle it when really he was falling deeper into debt.

Our already fragile relationship plagued with fights was put on further thin ice when George's friend Jenny moved in with him. Apparently they had accidentally gotten drunk and messed around when they were kids once but didnt want it to ruin the friendship and they had since been seeing other people. My friends all warned me to be weary. But George let me know I had nothing to fear and that she was happy about me.

 Jenny seemed nice when I met her, and told me horror stories about what a psycho George's ex fiance was. I heard how this woman wouldn't eat, how she just ran all the time, and was miserable to be around. I also heard about how she forbade George's friendship with Jenny. But Jenny told me this woman had been such a wreck she already got fired from her job in DC that she had lobbied so hard for.

But the second Jenny moved in she began to demand all of George's time acting as if she were the girlfriend. In an attempt to drive a wedge between us she demanded George take off work to take her to the doctors. Then she also would purposely break things so George would have to fix them when I was there. Jenny would also make allegations that people assaulted her so George would have to risk his law license and threaten them physically. One time she even poisoned her dog in order to have George drive it to the animal hospital. The fights became more intense and the unhappiness more profound. I stopped eating and my moods changed. This was hell. Either she had to go or I would. I didnt want to but I made the demand with George. He told me I was imaging things and Jenny didn't know not to keep bringing up the ex fiance that was gone.

The beginning of the end was during a dinner with an obnoxious couple George and I knew where the husband took a jab at me because of my past. My boyfriend didnt step up to defend me. Then his wife was equally obnoxious. After they left Jenny told George something and a huge fight broke out between us. We had two more fights, finally ending in complete hell Labor Day Weekend. When he called me to break up I was done and gone already. I had erased his number from my phone.

I was hurt and crushed. But my dad said something important to me, "April, the secret to being in a relationship is you actually have to like them. And also, lawyers are nuts. I don't even like other lawyers. When I can avoid spending time with them I do."

Two days later I ran into a lawyer friend who knew George. He said George had not been employed for months because of judicial misconduct and was in danger of losing his license. I wanted to find out what else Mr. Fabulous, JD was lying about. I googled the Detroit Cobras who are a revolving door band and list all their members. He was no where to be found. I also googled every ex girlfriend he ever mentioned. The Playboy Model was so well known Google couldn't find her. Romeo Rojas was not famous for playing soccer but owning a paint company. The chick on VH1 that he met at the Comedy Cellar never plays their, she is an alt girl. As for the winner of the Academy Award for Costume Design, the year she supposedly won the award went to a man. And his Violent Femmes concert on CD, I found the Haitian who sold that in Harlem on bootleg. The tie to Hoffa was fake as well. Everything was fake.

No wonder his girlfriends disappeared before anyone could meet them, fake women do that. I still remember the picture of his ex-fiance from his law school graduation, looking miserable like Emily Dickinson dragged out of hell and wanting to kill him. Out of morbid curiosity I googled her and found out not only was she happily running and winning road races but had gotten a promotion with the Department of Justice, the job she supposedly lost. I went from being jealous as hell to feeling bad. I gave six months to this perpetual truth adjuster while she had given two years. Poor thing.

At first I was angry I had been lied to like I had been. Had I been so wicked and awful that he felt the need to bend the truth? I felt violated. George knew about all my trust issues and went the extra mile just to lie to me because I was so clearly so desperate. People told me I should have been more careful trusting, meanwhile it took me so much work to trust him. I was so angry that I could have just beaten him with a baseball bat. For once I felt like I had a good man only to be played by the greatest liar of all time. More than anything, I was angry at myself for being so stupid.The kicker was the song he wrote me was playing on the radio about a week later. It seems Snow Patrol stole it.

Angrily I blogged about him. My mother begged me not to because she insisted his mother was crying. My response was, "Let the bitch cry. She's a psycho who tried to pawn me off of her kid. God hates them all." I also rebelled by dating the worst guys possible because at least they were honest. But the truth was, I couldn't go back to dining and dashing. I couldn't go back to paying someone's way. I had been treated to well by George Washington, attorney at law. That made the whole thing sting even more.

I found out about a year later he told some story about having cancer. I told a mutual friend I had doubts about the cancer being real. Our friend yelled at me and said, "What if he dies?"

My terse response was, "For once in his stupid fucking life he will be telling the truth."

My dad of course had the best take. He said, "Wherever that boy is going, let him go. Because he doesn't even know."

Stories have gotten back to me from mutual friends and acquaintances that unlike his namesake who could not tell a lie, George Washington, attorney at law, cannot tell the truth. A compulsive liar is someone who's self-worth is floor level and feels the need to alter the story constantly. It is someone who has something to prove. It is someone who is hallow. It is someone who hurts others, and most of the time unintentionally. It took me some time but I don't view George as evil and don't have an ax to grind. If anything I feel bad for him, always living a lie and telling so many he forgot where the lie ends and the truth begins. Always having to remember and never quite remembering who he told what to.

The lessons I walked away with were that I had settled, setting the bar very low because that was where my self-worth was. Some of it was the product of being treated badly, and some of it was just young female insecurity. But I wasn't the gum on anyone's shoe and I certainly was good enough for someone of quality as long as I believed I was. Just because someone had a suit, a job, and benefits as well as a nice pad didn't make them a good person. They deserved to be scrutinized like everyone else. Maybe life had been such a nightmare that I wanted to believe the guy who looked good was heaven when really he was hell, just in a way I never imaged.

For as much as I hated George's friend Jenny I am now grateful for her. If she hadn't broken us up I may have married George, had children, and after six years in some change discovered who he really was. That wouldnt have been painful. It would have been tragic.

I used to tell him when I was going to see him I would rip him up. Tell him to fuck off, fuck his fucking psycho mother, and maybe he would fucking die.

Now I realize he builds castles in the sky, not because he is evil but rather because he is sick and confused. In his mind he lives there, not because he wants to be alone but because the world is too cruel and reality is too painful. When you are in the castle in the sky, riding in the chariot in the wind, you don't live in real time which can be cruel and reminds us all that we fall short. While it's not the road I take, as I spend more time on this Earth I realize there are reasons why people do what they do.

If I were to see him now I wouldn't rip him up. Instead I would thank him for making me run after my dreams and getting me to talk about what I wanted to do with my life instead of dating ex cons. I would thank him for treating me kindly when not many guys I dated did, because for a while he did treat me like a princess. In a way he also raised the standards in my life for a bit.

However, I would tell him, "I know life is hard and lonely for you and I am sorry. I hope one day you do find whatever it is you are looking for. I hope you finally get to move into your castle in the sky."

Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
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Burn in Hell, Philip Markoff

It was 2008 I believe when I met Julissa Brisman. She was a friend of a friend. I remember she was an aspiring actress who was also dipping her feet into modeling. She had a big smile and deep down eyes. Julissa was very pretty in person, so an acting career wouldn’t be a stretch. We laughed as I remember she told me she was a Taurus, determined and a fighter. She laughed when I said fighter. Looking back that was ironic in how her life ended. Julissa had coffee with a friend of mine and myself. She dressed nicely and seemed to have an awful lot of money on her for an aspiring actress. Down the line it was revealed she was giving massages on craigslist, a job that would lead to the end of her life.

I met Julissa two or three times after that. A young woman who had taken a wrong turn or two, she was desperately trying to get her life back on track. Julissa was attending AA and going to school to be a drug and alcohol counselor. Life wasn’t easy for her it seemed, everything was a struggle. Julissa never complained, took it in stride, and was always very sweet when you saw her. One woman on a message board said after her murder, “It’s not like she was some kid selling candy. She was a hooker.”

I wanted to stop this judgmental wench of a woman and inform her that while her six cats could keep her all the company in the world, he who is without sin may cast the first stone. Also, sometimes life isn’t as kind to everyone as it has been to you. Addiction and alcoholism are continual and progressive diseases. Recovery comes sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly and it takes time to shed the lifestyle. But more than anything, regardless of what she was doing to pay the bills she didn’t deserve to be murdered in cold blood.  Julissa was someone who fought through life and could never seem to get a break. Things were starting to turn around for her when she died.

Fast forward to the spring of 2009 when she got murdered. I was looking at the paper and reading the reports and at first I didn’t recognize her because her hair was blonde. A minute later I got a call from the mutual friend who said, “April, you know Julissa was murdered, right?” I took a moment. I did a double take. She was the girl I had met a handful of times, the aspiring actress and drug counselor who was trying to get sober. The one with the sunbeam smile. The Taurus.

Days later details emerged. Her killer was a medical student named Philip Markoff. White and clean cut, there were photos of him getting his white coat in the paper. Like my brother and sister, he was on his way to helping people and saving lives. Somewhere on the course he deviated and decided his time and energy would be better spent taking them.

In this photos Philip Markoff appeared stoic and cold. They attributed the fact that he robbed two prostitutes and preyed on transgendered individuals selling sex services was that he was in debt between student loans and a gambling problem. Unlike the others he had robbed, Julissa fought back. She had been a fighter. She fought against drugs and alcohol to get sober. Now she was fighting this creep who pointed a gun at her. As I saw this I thought, “Jesus, why didn’t you just get robbed safely sweetheart?”

On the other hand, I think she knew he was a monster, a demon. He was going to kill her. Julissa was a Taurus and they never give up. I could only imagine how terrifying the last few moments of her life were. I read she scratched him on the neck leaving a long, bloody gash. I found myself hoping it would leave a scar, letting this predator know that he wasn’t God, he didn’t have the right to decide who lived and who died. To someone like Philip Markoff these women were easy prey. They were sex workers. They didn’t matter.  He was going to be a doctor. So what was a dead hooker, right? Philip Markoff was going to be sipping champagne on the veranda, and in that equation Julissa Brisman didn’t count.

Of course Markoff had it all planned out. He had a fiancé at home, who was pleasantly ignorant as it can be seen in the police tapes. Sheltered and a tad spoiled, she probably unknowingly ignored some of the big red flags her man was putting up. While this psychotic charlatan was probably a master of disguise, on the other hand there is only so much one can hide. I can only imagine her horror and disgust as she realized the truth, she was about to marry a sexual sadist. Megan McAllister is now in medical school in St. Kits. She is probably unable to trust men. She is probably shaken forever. She probably has nightmares. And sometimes I bet she probably feels like she has Julissa’s blood on her hands.

Philip was set to go to trial. There were delays because as we know, in our great country’s judicial system victims have zero rights. As proceedings kept being delayed, my mutual friend began to have a meltdown. She claimed Julissa spoke to her in her dreams. Watching the news was hard for her. Eventually this friend took a job in Florida to clear her head. It seemed the only thing Mr. Markoff was ever capable of was destroying lives. Maybe he should have gone into practice with Jack Kevorkian.

However, Philip would never face trial. Being a coward, he took the coward’s way out and killed himself. Apparently on the one year anniversary of what would have been his wedding he suffocated himself with a bag. Before that he scrawled his name as well as his nickname for his fiancé on his cell wall. In a way this was actually a blessing. Massachusettes is quite liberal when it comes to criminals so Markoff would have gotten off easy. Not to mention he claimed he was indigent and the state was paying for his defense. Also, Julissa’s family would have had the pain of not just rehashing her last moments, but also some male defense lawyer dragging the poor thing through the mud. To top it off, the media would make it even worse as they kept highlighting that she was a sex worker. In the end it worked out for the best.

In his passing there was no justice for Markoff’s living victims, the two women attacked in the hotel room. Like Julissa, life had been unkind to them as well. No one wakes up, goes to first grade, and tells their classmates about how they dream of selling sex on craigslist. It happens because life hasn’t been kind to them and they have been pushed there. Same with the transgendered women he preyed on. Social outcasts who barely have rights, they had the pain of facing a sadistic bully like Markoff. Much like Julissa, he didn’t feel they counted either. Where is the justice for those victims?The answer, there is none. There are only horrible memories and nightmares.

I felt compelled to write this because I saw the Lifetime Movie The Craigslist Killer recently. About a year after his death, I caught wind of the making of it at the time through an actress friend. Just this past weekend, I came across it on youtube. The film portrayed Megan McAllister, his fiancé, as the nice girl, while Philip Markoff seemed like the perfect man trying to be the perfect fiancé with a dark secret. The movie gave him more of a sympathetic edge in an attempt to make him real and human. Bravo for making him human, but I found it as offensive as hell. Maybe it was because I had crossed paths with Julissa Brisman. Either way, in her character’s brief appearance on screen when I saw her get shot it made me ill. I remember reading the headlines and knowing that the young woman I had coffee with had been gunned down like she was an animal in the woods, simply erased because she was nothing. I remembered her smile, her laugh, and her nodding when I said Taurans were stubborn as hell and that they were fighters.

The fact she was a fighter was the reason that he killed her. Bullies don’t know what to do when someone fights back. She wasn’t going to let him rob her. Julissa was going to ID him and expose his secrets. Philip Markoff’s perfect life would be in shambles. His fiancé would leave. He had to kill her. Seeing that part of the movie upset me so badly that I actually got nauseous and almost lost my lunch.

When Philip Markoff died people were upset that there no answers into why he did what he did. Profilers had different explanations. They struggled to know, to understand. They want to know if it was something rooted in childhood, something so that they can make an excuse. There is only one answer and that is plain and simple, Philip Markoff was the closest thing to pure evil that many people will ever come into contact with. In Dante’s Inferno, there is a layer of hell where the physical body is still on Earth but the soul is in hell. My Humanities teacher, Mr. Tietz, explained that you could see it when you peered into a person’s eyes, like crime Godfather John Gotti, because there was nothing there but darkness. I remember seeing the pictures of Philip Markoff and he possessed the same sort of blank stare, the darkness behind his eyes. It was because there was nothing there. No soul. No regard for others. Robbing and killing were easy for him. Ironically, he was trying to help people by becoming a doctor, a job where one has to regard human life. By the Grace of God he never practiced medicine which is a miracle for all mankind.

I can say one thing for sure. I know there is a hell and Philip Markoff has finally come to join his physical spirit. He is burning and suffering in a place so terrible no one can imagine it. It’s indescribable. However, he deserves every horrific minute of his fate. God decides which of His creatures matters and which does not. Philip Markoff tried to play God and thought he could eliminate Julissa because how dare she fight back? How dare this hotel room masseuse stand up to the good doctor? As for those who will throw stones when I say this citing Julissa was not perfect, that is true. No one is. However, there was a difference. Julissa Brisman was an innocent struggler. Philip Markoff was nothing short of the devil.

I know Julissa is finally at peace. She is in a place where she doesn’t have to sell sexual services on craigslist. Since her death the erotic section of the site has been removed. Prostitution is legal in other places around the world and there are things done to protect those women in those countries, it was nice to see we were taking a step in that direction here. Just because they sell their bodies doesn’t mean that they are people who don’t count.

And to Philip Markoff, the afterlife is a bitch, isn’t it? Just like the word you probably commonly used to refer to women while you were alive. I hope you enjoy hell asshole. It is rumored the devil is a woman. You could kill yourself and escape jail and a trial that way. But eternity is forever, assweed. Satan is always on PMS. Hope you enjoy her, mutherfucker!

 Love, April

I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl

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Nephew of Sam

It was the summer of 2007. I was up and down, falling apart and being built back together. At the time I was making an attempt to stop drinking which would ultimately be successful as well as to kick the diet pills as well as the destructive eating habits. Most of the time I was tired. In between meltdowns I fought with my mother. While usually my best friend, she had become something of an adversary. I was twenty two, desperate to live my own life. She didn’t understand that I didn’t want to tell her who my friends were, what club I was performing at, and I didn’t want to wish her a goodnight over the computer.

At the same time I wasn’t acting like an adult. About a year earlier, I had been stalked by an ex-fiance of mine who wanted me dead. My mother had every reason to worry, after all, she had my ex’s name on her refrigerator in case I were to disappear. During this phase in my development I was dating ex-cons. Nice guys were scared away when they found out my an old lover was stalking me, shame on them. Especially when he would start harassing them online. However, cons weren’t scared of that sort of thing. Being crazy and messy like myself, they sort of welcomed the drama.

At the time, I was seeing an ex con by the name of Keith. I had met Keith in the neighborhood, and while we weren’t serious per se, we were friendly and he always was taking me out. Keith had escaped from prison at one point. Although recaptured, Keith was still a bad boy. My mother wasn’t thrilled about my choice in men and goaded me to dump him. Somehow though, I couldn’t. In between my ex-fiance and the damage there and wanting to live my own life, I didn’t want to listen to one word she said.

On this particular day, my mother and I had a terrible fight. It was one so horrible I hung up on her. I remember slamming down the phone, cutting her off coldly. Who was she to control me, or what I believed to be controlling. I believe I even told her I hated her. Looking back, the defiance was rather childish, but at the time I felt like an adult.

That day, I was at the diner with Keith when I met one of his old friends, Darryl. Keith had known Darryl during one of his many times when he had been a guest of the state. Darryl was on and off drugs, and he had gotten so bad at one point his dealer had apparently cut him off. He looked like someone who had been through the mill. His hair was brown and scraggly, combed over to hide the fact he was balding at the top. The shirt he wore was too big, probably torn off of a corpse somewhere. The shorts he wore were too tight, hot pants. When Keith asked Darryl where he found this fashion collision of hell he replied, “The lost and found of the flophouse I am staying in.”
We laughed, as Darryl revealed a mouth with missing teeth, probably from hitting the pipe a tinge too hard. The teeth in his mouth were black from decay, which would have been the nightmare of any dentist there was. Nonetheless, despite the fact his face was eaten by years of wear and tear from hard living, he seemed like an okay dude. 

We sat outside where Keith and Darryl could both smoke. Keith and Darryl both needed the nicotine seeing that they were trying to kick respective drug habits. While Keith was more successful, Darryl was struggling. Both men bitched about the law, the prison system, parole, and life following the law. Keith reminisced about the cat burglaries he committed, and Darryl regaled us with stories about the car radios he used to steal while living in the Bronx. I sat silent as the third wheel companion.

Finally, the subject of David Berkowitz came up. It was after some man, crazy as hell, came running down the block screaming about a dog giving him orders. “It is certainly hot enough that I could kill, dog speaking to me or not.” I said laughing.

“Actually, he was the minister once when I was in prison.” Darryl told me.

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s a serial killer turned minister. I never bother with serial killers. I steal, don’t kill. Too much blood.” Keith said as he took a puff from his cigarette. Despite the worn out look he had from years on the street, Keith had a machismo about him that was dead sexy.

“You guys knew Son of Sam?” I asked in disbelief.

Both men shook their heads. “Yeah, he was a good guy. After being imprisoned, he became a Born Again Christian. I became skeptical at first, but then I saw him preach and said, ‘I could get into this.’ So I started going to church whenever he was preaching in chapel. He was good to hear.”

“Wow.” I said, “Did you guys ever talk?”

“All the time. Once he told me I had anger issues.” Darryl replied.

Both Keith and I burst out laughing. “That’s like Robert Downey Junior telling you that you have a drug problem.” I said.

“Or Kate Moss telling you to eat.” Keith countered. We all laughed again.

“Yeah, he said that once I managed my anger I could manage my life.” Darryl told us.

“But he takes his orders from dogs.” Keith reminded Darryl. I shook my head in agreement.

“I know. I told him this and instead of fighting with me, he leveled. He said that he was doing a bunch of LSD, had a psychotic break, and that the dog talked to him and told him to kill. Really, the LSD opened the door because he couldn’t keep a lid on his anger.” Darryl said.

Keith and I sat silently for a minute. That was intense, heavy, and ultimately strange. “That was a memorable defense he had in court. Never had one like that.” Keith said.

Just then I looked down at my phone. My mom had called twice. I wasn’t talking. There was nothing to say. “Who called?” Darryl asked.

“My mom.” I said contemptuously. “She’s nagging me again.”

“Mom’s do that.” Keith said.

“Yeah, but she’s being a pain in the ass.” I growled and proceeded to tell them the story.

Instead of an agreeing audience, I got two people who stared at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. When I finished, Keith proceeded to tell me how hard being a parent was. While his eighteen year old son was not speaking to him at the moment, he said he missed his kid and was ashamed of getting arrested and being away. And he also told me he wondered if things would have been different if he had a mother that nagged him. Maybe he wouldn’t have started committing burglaries at ten years old. Then maybe he could be there for Keith Jr., instead of constantly worrying about whether or not his son was okay.

“My mother makes me so crazy I think I might start taking orders from dogs.” I said, still not convinced they understood.

That’s when Darryl decided to lay the proverbial smackdown. “You think you know everything and you want to live your own life don’t you? You think you can just hang up on your mother and it will be okay. Well let me tell you, after years of fucking up my family won’t speak to me. At least you have your family calling you to nag you. Stop being such a little brat and call your damn mother and apologize.”

“It’s late.” I whined.

“I’m sure she would love to hear from you, especially thank you and I’m sorry.” Darryl snapped. “And maybe I love you would be good. Your mother just doesn’t want to see you screw up your life. Shame on her for being a good person and caring about her child and who she hangs around with.”

I nodded. “Can I go around the corner?” I asked as I threw down five dollars.

Keith handed it back to me. “I got you.” He said.

I bid both men goodbye and then called my mother. To my pleasant surprise she was up. We ended up having a fifteen minute heart to heart conversation where I apologized and told her how grateful I was that she was my mom, but most importantly that I loved her. She told me she just wanted to know who I was with so I would be safe, and that’s all she wanted. What was best for me.

When I hung up the phone I realized in my quest to prove I could be my own person, I had made plenty of bad decisions. I had almost married a nightmare, and dated plenty more after. The best part was that while I was being my own person, guidance was only one dial away. Sure that guidance might not have always approved of my male company, but she supported me in anything I did. She was my mother and my best friend, and I was blessed to have her.

After that evening I never saw Darryl again. I heard through the grapevine that he had relapsed and was locked up again. Maybe he never got the whole living sober thing, or got the memo on how to live a so called successful life, but he taught me one of the most important lessons of my young adult life:

Your mother is always your mother. You may not agree with her on everything, but she always has your best interest in mind. Don’t treat her as an enemy.

Love

April