"Don't wear your TCU uniform," our nursing instructor told us. "When you go into Lock Ward C. You may come to the unit dressed in scrubs like the staff and don't wear your badges."
She didn't have to tell us why. We knew. Lock Ward C was where Frankie Dearborn was housed. The law says people are innocent until proven guilty, but the police found Dearborn smearing the blood of the man he murdered on his face like war paint. Dearborn had already slaughtered two others--an ex-girlfriend and his landlady--before stabbing Dr. Joe Hayden, a tenured professor of Mathematics at Texas Christian University, to death with a buck knife for flunking him out of his class.
We were told not to make eye contact or talk with Dearborn. Not a problem. I could barely breathe from the first minute I saw him, much less speak.
He looked much like you'd expect a psychotic murderer to look. He was scarecrow thin with greasy black hair that curled past his shoulders. In profile his nose was pitched like an A-frame roof, high, straight and thin. Dressed in prison stripes, he prowled up and down the narrow corridor behind a set of black metal bars, his shoulders pulled forward. He had Maxwell's equation tattooed on his left forearm. There was a smell about him. Dank and musky. Like rotten mushrooms or rancid beef jerky. He mumbled constantly and if you listened closely enough you could hear him spilling out mathematical formulas at a dizzying clip. An insane Pythagoras. Something dark was crusted under his long, ragged fingernails.
Could it be dried blood?
Wow this guy sounds creepy! I liked the way you described him because I felt like I was there in your story, picturing him right in front of me. I liked the way you started your descriptive story with a quote. Enjoyable read!
ReplyDeleteCreepy to the max. Fun to read, could almost smell the blood on this guy...really like the "something dark was crusted under his long, ragged fingernails." You could have left off the "Could it be dried blood?" because I think our imaginations were already onto it. I also liked him mumbling mathematical formulas and the equation tattoo. Made me think he was much more than just any psycho. "An insane Pythagoras." Loved it.
ReplyDeleteEeek - creepy indeed!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how he was introduced characteristically before he was introduced physically, if that makes sense. As if I wasn't already creeped out by his actions, his physical description really sent it over the edge.
Your description of Dearborn was creepy. I can really visualize how he looks and smells. The lines, "Dank and musky. Like rotten mushrooms or rancid beef jerky," grabbed my attention. I agree with Lisa that you could have left out, "Could it be dried blood?" Other than that, great job so far!
ReplyDeleteAwesome description! This post feels like both a character sketch, and a story by itself given how easy it is to imagine just how "creepy" this guy is. In this class we have talked a lot about the need to "show, not tell" - with the preference being to have dialogue and action. But I think that good descriptions can be just as effective if it really makes a character come alive. Very nice.
ReplyDeleteI got the sense that Dearborn was more animal than human as he "prowls" up and down his cell. Anything could set him off it seemed. By describing how everyone else reacts to him, we learn just how disturbed he is.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mind the dried blood line. It reinforced the imagery of the second paragraph.
Hi Laurie, This would be a great start to something longer. Good writing. dw
ReplyDelete