After graduating from college in 1991 I worked as a newspaper reporter in Southern California. Often the newspaper's sole reporter, I covered a variety of beats. Looking back on the work, though, the stories I remember the best are the ones I covered as a police reporter. On that beat you see the best and worst of people - well, more often the latter - and are left with memories, some good and some bad. You can figure out which type this is.
Part One
It was a soccer ball. Lying about ten feet away was one sole soccer cleat.
Officer Cryer came up behind me and explained, "It was a soccer team. They were on their way to a game." They were from Redlands, a town we didn't cover. By the time I got there they had removed the body, thank God. I heard crying behind me and I was dreading what I had to do next — talk to witnesses, who in this case were passengers in the van.
It was a simple story, really: another car accident on a highway where there was at least one fatal a week.
It had become a scary pattern. I drive from Riverside to Hemet on Saturday and when I'd see the road blocked, I ignored the blocks and drive to the inevitable accident. Sometimes it was a fatal crash, sometimes not. We always wrote a story.
This time it bothered me because I had been thinking about my days on the youth soccer team as I was driving in. I shocked myself later when I realized I hadn't lost my appetite so much that I missed lunch. I was becoming desensitized and I didn't like that one bit.
Later in the day there was another accident. I went to check it out. It was only a few hundred yards from the other one. It didn't look too bad at first. A motorcyclist lost control but while he looked shook up there wasn't much blood. I was starting to wonder if the editor would even want a story on this one.
"Looks pretty bad, don't it," the police chief said.
"I don't know," I started to say.
"You don't see it, do you," he said. He walked me closer and pointed to the bottom of the man's leg.
It was sticking out of his pants. The leg was at a 45 degree angle or so from the rest of the leg. I gagged and turned gray.
Article comments
1 - green man
i dont get it !!!
2 - duane
Well, green man, Scott wrote an essay, based on his own experiences, describing circumstances that created an inner struggle that pitted his need to preserve and protect his feelings of humanity against desensitization in the face of situations where desensitization can, and maybe should, play a vital role in maintaining an even keel. He hints at the emotional toughness of men and women who witness death and mayhem on an almost daily basis, but seems to express some gratified relief that he got out before he abandoned his sympathy and empathy. It also hints at our perverse, but all too human, proclivity to be fascinated by the misfortunes of others, sometimes at the expense of the victims and their loved ones.
The essay was written with a, let's say, 'staccato' string of understated sentences, and a sense of immediacy was conveyed by writing in the present tense, although tenses do get mixed here and there. The vocabulary was by intention kept simple. There was no omniscient narrator to explicate the proceedings from a detached point of view, which allows the reader to more easily insert himself into the scenes presented.
Quite effective.
3 - Scott Butki
Thanks a lot, Duane. I think you put it better than I did.
4 - Scott Butki
I think I'm going to ask Duane to follow me around to explain all of my pieces.