Dear Tim
My Letter To Timothy McVeigh
Well, I guess this is the last time I will be able to write to you—I'm sending this, along with a letter for your family, by Fed Ex to make certain that it gets to you in time. Also, I have written a treatment for the screenplay on which I am working, based on my book, "In the Presence Of Mine Enemy." I have mentioned this manuscript to you before. My method of writing involves structuring the book around the screenplay—every writer has his or her own way of doing things and this works for me. Oh, and in case you think I'm just making this all up or that I really have no intention of finishing my projects, please re-think that----I do not make empty promises, nor do my motives for these productions are somehow self-serving.
Yes, I am a writer with one book under my belt and a column in our newspaper, but I, like you, shun the limelight and the television cameras. I hope you will write and tell me whether or not you approve of what I am doing or have your own ideas on how these writing projects should be handled. I'm always open for suggestion. I've said it before and I will reiterate now: You are not going to be presented as a demented and delusional mass murderer who craved martyrdom and attempted to garner as much public hatred that was possible for your remaining days. That is the Timothy James McVeigh you want to hold tightly onto as the days wind down to a precious few.
I do not plan, under any circumstances, to scramble wildly for my precious fifteen minutes of fame, nor would I ever put anything you wrote to me on ebay for auctioning. I've been screwed in the past, like having my work stolen, so that's not what I am about, Tim. You have to trust me and frankly, if you want to be fully understood by everyone, you need more than essays and letters for newspapers and the Internet. Sure, your words make a great deal of sense and you're extraordinarily bright and articulate, but many Americans will have already pegged you as a ruthless, senseless murder machine, hell-bent on revenge and totally oblivious and unfeeling for the desecration you left behind. It doesn't have to end with a venom-spewing epitaph, written hastily by some close-minded jerks who need to shove that final, bloody nail into your coffin. Any fame I garner will be based upon my creative work, not following on the heels of your story—your ultimate sacrifice. As I said before, the book and film will be disguised just enough to avoid a law suit, but the differences will be practically transparent. I strongly suspect that I'll draw a lot of fire for my work, but so be it. I've never been one to shun negative publicity, so I won't start now. Tim, there just has to be a way for us to make some kind of sense of what happened. That's my assignment and I heartily agree to accept it. I don't believe in "mission impossible."
So exactly why am I able to understand you and your actions? Okay, what I am about to tell you is something extremely personal and, if it became public knowledge, I'd likely be just as reviled as you are. Way back when, in another world and another hell, I got locked up in a so-called hospital for three interminable and miserable years, three years that had me experience everything from gross and unforgiving abuse by nurses and doctors who pumped heavy psycho tropic drugs into me the entire time I was there, causing me to experience excruciating side effects that everyone figured were just an act. Just an act—can you believe it? Anyhow, I was raped in seclusion—a tiny, square room we all referred to as "the box"—when one of the male attendants tied my hands behind my back and viciously raped me. He laughed and said that nobody would believe me over him so I kept quiet. The insensitive and wantonly cruel staff said things like, "You're on the fifty-year program. You are never, ever leaving here, so get used to us."
Then there was this little gem of a prediction, peppered with rude laughter and a smack across my face: "When you hit your sixties, you'll go downstairs with the geriatric patients." Oh, joy, to have been surrounded by zombies who lay, empty-eyed in recliners, drooling and talking nonsense. They're all incontinent and moan constantly and the place smells like feces and urine. Welcome to paradise, eh? The ward on which I was incarcerated went by the name of "Behaviour Modification" and that title brings a painful chill into my heart even to this day. Just think: B.F. Skinner's warped view of "treatment" for people with emotional difficulties was actually put into practice in order that myself and other "victims of cruel and unusual punishment" be subdued and controlled as we were locked up twenty-four seven. I was so very young and they took some of my most promising years from me. Their evil was so palpable that I'd stare at the abusive staff members and vow that somehow, if I ever did manage to be freed from my prison of lost hope, they would have my captors pay for what they did to me and to my friends.
They also kept telling me, "You know, Jane—people like you don't get better and write books that get published." And, "People like you don't ever get to work for newspapers. You just write your silly little stories and use it as a "little hobby." They had labeled me a pathetic loser, a burden on the taxpayers. I overheard one of the staff say to another, "God, I'd rather be dead than be her." That caustic statement was followed quickly by a hard kick in my rib cage as I frantically scrubbed the baseboards of the ward, as it was one of my "punishment duties."
The reason I am deluging you with all this crap is to tell you that I understand your rage at the government that betrayed you and others. I understand your drastic actions only too well, because for several years after I finally, to everyone's shocked surprised, got out of that hellhole, I continually fantasized about blowing that concentration camp to the ground. I read books on building bombs and honestly thought that this was the only way I'd get any satisfying revenge on those that abused me in such horrific ways that I couldn't even tell my family. Some things are better left unsaid. Yes, they all deserved it and if innocent patients were killed, well, so be it.
Then it hit me----the best and most effective method of revenge on my captors was to fool them all and become successful, despite their mocking and the verbal carnage they unleashed upon me.. So I did. I wrote my story and got it published and now I write for our paper. "Little hobby" indeed. So while my enemies walked around free, after committing their unspeakable crimes, I laughed in their faces and told them they had failed in their "Final Solution" for obliterating my existence from the outside world, permanently.
Tim, I wish you had decided to take my route instead of following through with your plan. You're extremely intelligent and articulate and with those talents, you could have done ever so much more to further your cause, had you written about the corrupt nature of your government, including the gross negligence at the Branch Dravidian compound and many other atrocities to which nobody in power will admit to. Like you, I am a news junkie and have taken stock of what the federal government in your country has done to perpetuate the phrase made famous in a Brando film of long ago, "The Ugly American." You aren't the vile terrorist everyone labels you to be—you have learned about that horrific and terribly senseless
Then, as if that were not enough, there was the Falkland Islands fiasco, Ruby Ridge, the Bosnia nightmare and, more recently, the conflict in which you participated, the infamous Gulf War. The average American thumps his or her chest at the "Great Attrition Machine" that is the stamp of warmongering perpetuated further by Ronald Reagan and his "little-boy-knocked-into-giddy-space" Star Wars initiative. Hey, Ronnie-----stay out of movie theatres. You couldn't act your way out of a paper bag. Lose the Hollywood mystique. Well, now he's afflicted with Alzheimer's disease and I have to wonder if he'd begun experiencing symptoms during his final years in power. Scary thought, right?
But there's more wrong with both your country and mine than issues of war and the looming threat of a nuclear holocaust. I joined Ploughshares back in the eighties when the Cold War hit its peak and exercised civil disobedience by jumping over the fence at the Litton plant in Toronto, because they were manufacturing guidance systems for Cruise missiles. I then got roughed up by a security guard for my trouble No, the problems stretch out to include spending billions and billions of dollars on space exploration, while people starve both in the US and Canada, living half-lives on the street with only a sporadic hit of heroin or a bottle of cheap wine to keep them from self-destructing. Something has to be done and that is yet another reason for my book and the film. I am inclosing the treatment for the screenplay with this letter and the letter for your family. I hope you approve, because you are, in a convoluted and ironic way, a true martyr who has the guts to speak out against a world power that seems, for all intents and purposes, to feel it's the dominant country, the finest on the face of this earth.
I read the letter you wrote on the Internet , with regards to your past plans involving the assassinations of Janet Reno, Federal Judge Walter Smith and FBI agent, Lon Hariuchi. Well, Reno has made many enemies and done a great deal of damage since assuming her position as lieutenant governor. I just shake my head and thank heaven I live in Canada, even though my country is no shining example of a fair and democratic nation looking out for the little guy.
Hey, you may not even be reading this far if you figure me to be some kind of bizarre nutcase. I can assure you that I have never been insane----just self-destructive. I so hated myself that I kept trying to shuffle off this mortal coil prematurely, but for some reason, unbeknownst to either myself or my family and friends, I'm still here. But then, everything happens for a reason, so that if you must die as a result of your drastic actions, I want to make sure that something positive emerges from the rubble that represents the last six years of our lives. I am grateful to have survived my most recent suicide attempt of February 29th, 2000 or my voice would have been forever silenced. That also marked the very last time I'd try to take my own life. Hell, I'm too stubborn to die, Tim.
I sure wish you didn't have to go, however. What purpose can possibly be served by this act of cruelty upon you and the people who love you? Oh, and speaking of that, I hope you are still corresponding with your girlfriend on the outside. I got the impression, after seeing and listening to her on that infamous Primetime segment of a couple of weeks ago, that she still really cares for you----she loves you and refuses to see you as some kind of cold-blooded maniac. She sees the good in you, the kindness. I bet you were extremely affectionate to her and I see you have written her many letters. I know she will always keep them and well she should. Anyone who can feel love for another, as you can, is no sociopath. I have misguided friends who fancy me to be right off my proverbial rocker by writing to you, so I don't talk about the letters to anyone anymore. It's none of their business anyhow.
There's so much I want to say to you and so little time. I heard that you get moved from your death row cell a week before the execution to this building called "The Death House." What's up with that? Do they have to try to psychologically torture you—to put you in a tiny cell where you can be monitored and watched twenty-four seven. Is that so you won't hang yourself and cheat the American judicial system out of killing you instead. Well, we sure wouldn't want to deprive blood-lusting savages, would we?
As far as the book and the screenplay go, Tim, I have gotten a good start on both. I sent you the introduction of the book last time. It's being written from your perspective, as I've managed to get inside your head and can accurately read what you are thinking. Your tears for the Waco victims were extremely right and appropriate. I certainly didn't hear anything much about the children who died in that horrifying fire and gas attack. Who bleeds for them? Are some people better than others? Was Orwell right when he wrote "Animal Farm"? "Some pigs are more equal than others" Is that satire being taken literally? I see you read his work too. I often say, with pretend nonchalance, that we have more than a national hate week—it stretches into months and months. The Ministry Of Hate is alive and well in the American judicial system. Ir pissed me off no end that they sullied Orwell's name when that inane and totally asinine "Big Brother" reality show appeared on television. Poor George must have been spinning in his grave after that brazen assault on his masterpiece.
You may think it rather odd that I am writing the book and the screenplay simultaneously. Well, we all have our little tricks of the trade and methods of creating something worthwhile. I don't like to lose sight of the written story part of it and that could happen if I waited until it was completed to begin penning the screenplay.
It's much more likely—quite likely, actually, that the book will be published first. I have a contract with Mosaic Press and they are eagerly awaiting this manuscript on which I've begun. Then perhaps my connections in the screen writing field (I've taken many courses and week-long seminars in Ottawa and have rubbed shoulders with the like of Atom Egoyan, who's arguably the best writer/director in Canada.
Do you know what really convinced me that you are not an evil person? It was learning how you, as a youngster, ran, your feet clad only in socks, ran across a snowy field to your grandfather's house, whereupon you crawled into his lap and cried. No, I do not think that was weak–it takes one hell of a lot to be a male and allow yourself to weep and show a sensitive nature to someone you obviously loved and trusted. Grandfathers are special people—I adored my Grandpa Colerick and still haven't gotten over his death. I used to crawl into his lap too and he was the only family member who could offer me comfort and hope. You are just too passionate for this earth and if your beloved grandfather has passed on, you will see him again soon. He may not look the same, bathed in heavenly white light, but you will know that it is he. Hearing that information about you was a revelation to me that you are not an intrinsically bad person. Sometimes the world can become unliveable and I believe that, in your case, this upcoming execution is, in reality, a state-assisted suicide.
You are not dying in vain. People told me I'd die in an institution and contribute nothing to society. I'd forever be a pock mark on the name of Wanklin and would go to my grave a broken and pathetic woman. But I fooled them all. Now you have a chance at some form of immortality. Look, I don't make empty claims and/or promises. If I say I am writing about you in fictional form with aliases for everyone involved, then you can carry that knowledge to any bank you wish. The dominant message in my work will be that there is so much blatant and disturbing hypocrisy, both in the US and Canada, that they perpetuate terrorist actions when senseless killings continue. Those followers of Koresh believed strongly in what he had to say and for that they have been wiped off the face of the earth. The public's reaction? So what? Big freaking deal. Well, hey, it IS a big freaking deal.
Well, Tim, I am reaching the end of my final letter to you. Just let me tell you that the bombing would never have taken place without the FBI's savage intrusion upon David Koresh and his followers. After all, they were learning about the Lord—they are religious sacrifices, like Jesus Christ. They counted. Nobody but you or I seem to hold that belief, but then, it's been my experience that most people are extremely shallow, thinking only of themselves and reacting with moral indignation when something occurs for which they have no obvious or concrete answers. Like your actions in Oklahoma City.
I won't forget you and, when my current projects are completed, nobody else will either. Remember, if you have a problem with the prospective film's treatment, please let me know. As I said in my first letter to you, your response goes no further than here. I hope you believe that, Tim.
"A criminal mind is all I,
All I've ever had.
Ask one who's known me,
If I'm really so bad.
....I AM.
------Gowan.
Those lyrics are from a Canadian rocker from the eighties, Lawrence Gowan. He produced the single most powerful song and video that I've ever been privy too. In the last scene, Gowan is in a two-foot high cage, laughing manically and writhing about in that prison, while search lights are shone on him. Wow! I hope you've had the opportunity to see it.
"Now they're planning
The crime of the century.
Well what will it be?
Read all about
Their lies and deceptions.
Well, it's well worth the fee."
That song is by another favourite band, Supertramp. Apparently, the only one of their albums to hit it big in the states was "Breakfast In America," which figures, somehow.
Some lyrics from the same album seem oddly appropriate as well:
"Hide in your shell,
For the world is out to bleed you
For a ride.
What will you gain?
Making your life a little longer?
Heaven or hell.
Was the journey cold
That gave you eyes of steel?
Sheltered behind, painting your mind...."
As for my country, the government leaves much to be desired. Ontario's premier is such a pathetic and intrinsically crazy excuse for a governmental figure that I'm surprised no-one has ever taken any potshots at him. He's cut back health care funding and is fervently developing what is known as "two-tier health care," which roughly translates as "Screw the poor and embrace the rich." He's positively dangerous and should be drummed out of the provincial leadership soon rather than later.
Here's a silly little question and answer exercise, just for you:
Question: What's the difference between your assault on the Alfred P. Murrah building and the prospective actions of your executioner?
Answer: The weapon.
Oh, and about my past, nightmarish life in the "psychiatric big house"? I got over it. How? By writing my autobiography. Godspeed, my friend. Your torment is nearing an end. I won't forget you----you possess a great deal of charisma, which is one of the facets of your complex personality that will be discussed in my book. I only wish you were going to be around to read it and see the negative shift toward the intrinsically positive: The positive angle, with regard to the bombing, is that maybe now your government will do a bit more listening and soul-searching, before slamming headlong into sensitive and, at the same time, passionate conflicts both on American soil and abroad. Amen to that.
I have to go. This is quite painful for me. You really could have made such positive strides, had things turned out differently. Your Taurus stubborn streak, something for which I am quite familiar, led you into something bigger than you or I could ever imagine. Would things have been different if you'd been able to become one of the Green Berets?
I hope you leave at least one more letter for the public to hear about. I'd even like it if you'd break with tradition and go on camera, something you've basically avoided all along.
Sincerely and with a certain respect and affection, in spite of it all,
jane
