April 2022
Author’s note
From whence cometh evil?
I was raised with a simplistic answer, a religious one. Somehow that answer keeps generating new evils in our world, the evils of arrogant and selfish entitlement with its corollaries of exclusion, hatred and disenfranchisement.
Then I came to the profession of psychology and, if we thought in terms of evil at all, the answer became more complicated, rooted in disorders of personality.
And now, I approach the issue as a novelist. In An Incoming Tide and its yet-to-be released sequel, Undertow, I’ve endeavoured to display human nature with its capacity to adapt, heal and do good in a world that perpetually seems to require those things, a world in which evil seems endemic.
The dynamic tension of An Incoming Tide is propelled by the evil of both a psychopathic character and a narcissistic one. Hey, that psychologist in me never gives up, eh? We even see a bit of evil masquerading as religious piety. But there is another evil character too—an impulsively blundering, obsessively self-indulgent character who just doesn’t get what it means to live with respect for the wellbeing of others.
I recently had a chance to chat with, or should I say listen to this character. Here’s the transcript of that recorded interview.
From whence cometh evil?
I was raised with a simplistic answer, a religious one. Somehow that answer keeps generating new evils in our world, the evils of arrogant and selfish entitlement with its corollaries of exclusion, hatred and disenfranchisement.
Then I came to the profession of psychology and, if we thought in terms of evil at all, the answer became more complicated, rooted in disorders of personality.
And now, I approach the issue as a novelist. In An Incoming Tide and its yet-to-be released sequel, Undertow, I’ve endeavoured to display human nature with its capacity to adapt, heal and do good in a world that perpetually seems to require those things, a world in which evil seems endemic.
The dynamic tension of An Incoming Tide is propelled by the evil of both a psychopathic character and a narcissistic one. Hey, that psychologist in me never gives up, eh? We even see a bit of evil masquerading as religious piety. But there is another evil character too—an impulsively blundering, obsessively self-indulgent character who just doesn’t get what it means to live with respect for the wellbeing of others.
I recently had a chance to chat with, or should I say listen to this character. Here’s the transcript of that recorded interview.
Jimmy's Story
“So, the only way I am going to do this is no questions. And you can’t interrupt me neither. Got it? I need to tell the story my way, so don’t interrupt me.
Agreed?
Okay, good.
And yes, you can record this. It’s for prosperity, right? The life story of Jimmy Murphy. I like the sound of that.
And, I’m really not going to say anything about that Dr. Jackson Horvath neither, hoity toity psychiatrist. You know, how he ended up and all. Nothing.
But there is one thing I want to make clear, about what the police said, that I stole the car. I didn’t. I saw the Escalade out in front of Harold’s house with the keys in it, thought I would go and get him a coffee, like one of the fancy ones from Starbucks. That’s the sort of guy I am. Get an old guy a treat. It wasn’t stealing. It’s not right that they said it was. I was going to take the coffee back to Harold and give it to him, leave the Cadillac in the driveway, take the keys in and tell him that I found them in the car and brought them back in so the Caddy wouldn’t get stolen. That’s what was in my mind. I just wanted to drive a Cadillac, had never had the chance before. That’s all that was about.
Okay then. We’ve got all that clear.
I first met GJ in the back alley behind his house. He was just a kid, Anna’s kid brother. Anna and I were already a thing at the Tomb, that’s Western Canada High. She was just a Niner and I was slowly working my way through Grade 12, for the second time. Or was it the third? Can’t remember. I kept getting kicked out. But, because of my dad, I had to keep going back to get it or he wouldn’t let me come back to work the farm. He had this thing about me going to college, like agriculture or heavy duty, but had to get my Grade 12 to do it. When Wainwright Comp wouldn’t let me back in, that’s when I came to live with my aunt in Calgary.
Anyway, getting back to GJ.
So, Anna said that her dad gave GJ pills. And I asked, what kind? And she said because he’s such a loser. So I told her that I had been on pills like that, but of course, I wasn’t a loser, not anymore. She told me that GJ had told her that he wasn’t going to take them because dad was the one who got them for him. I said, Let me talk to him. If the pills are like what I had, well maybe I can help him with it. Really nice, like. Just trying to be helpful, get an in with her.
Now Calgary is no Wainwright. In Wainwright you can sell pills but people find out, get the RCs involved. But Calgary, if it is the right pills, well, that has some possibilities, you get my drift? Like, maybe I can solve two problems in one.
It turned out that they were.
Now that bitch Leanne, she was Anna’s aunt who was raising Anna and GJ and GJ’s kid sister. Leanne made GJ take his morning pill in front of her. But the noon pill, the one that went in his lunch with him, well, that got me thinkin’.
I didn’t go there right away, like I had to win his trust. Be an older brother to him. Not too much, like, but I did have to win his trust first. Take him out in the truck, cruise with him, make him feel cool, show him the 308 behind the seats, that sort of stuff. I talked to him, real confidential like, about the pills and concentrating and not getting kicked out of school. You know, the wise older brother schtick.
Anna wasn’t onto it at first. I think she was kind of jealous, that I was spending time with him rather than her. Not that Anna and I weren’t a thing, we were. Didn’t go as far as I would’ve liked though, she being such a daddy’s girl. But everyone thought that we were a good looking couple and I was probably doing it to her, so that’s okay, right?
Anyway, after a while I found out that GJ wanted a particular Gameboy, it was an Atari or something, I don’t remember. But he couldn’t get his Auntie to spring for it. And of course, his dad wouldn’t. So, I got him to slip me some of his afternoon pills, the ones he took in his lunch box, they had street value. Simple enough. He got his game.
It was a start, see.
Eventually, we replaced the pills in the bottle that came from the drugstore with Vitamin Cs, you know, the ones that GJ was supposed to take in front of his Auntie in the morning. Then I could sell the lot of what the doctor gave him.
What, you think me criminal or something?
Who was I hurting? No one. Vitamin C was good for GJ, prevents colds, right? And the people I was selling to, well, it did them good if they could pay for it, filled a need. And Auntie was off the hook with GJ’s dad, like she could say that GJ was taking the pills in front of her. All good.
No one was the wiser.
That was really the start of it. The start with GJ. He and I would go on to do really well together, for a while anyway. Our little business grew from there.
Anna, well Anna was another story.
She left the Tomb to go to that other school the other side of the city. Got back into dance, started to fuck with that dance instructor. I can say fuck, can’t I? You can always bleep it out of the tape if you need to. I used to go and see her dance. But then she had them, the dance teacher and his wife, the ones from Russia, and suddenly she wasn’t into me anymore. I caught up to her years later when she was dancing at the Grove. Used to go and watch her, for old time’s sake, you know.
Hey, even saw her dad there one night, watching his daughter dance, wearing that tiny bikini with the snake all exposed. Who’d’ve thought, eh? Creepy. It was mainly old guys there at the Grove anyway, so he fit in.
Yup, I went to see her, even when she wouldn’t have anything more to do with me, especially early on like. That’s how loyal I am. Later she didn’t dance so often, so I kinda stopped going.
Anyway, that whole Horvath family—Horvaths, Caylies, whatever—I really hate that I got all tied up in them, the way it has all turned out, you see. Never should’ve got involved with that family. They’re bad news.
The real problem was GJ’s dad, him getting involved when GJ got charged. Like I had groomed GJ pretty well, got him going in the business, had a pretty good sense of him being, like being loyal to me, being dependable. Then he ratted me out. I don’t think that it was GJ who was behind that. Not the way that I’d handled him. But it was his father, his father with all the money for lawyers and detectives and such. That’s what did it, set this whole thing in motion. Should never had turned out the way it did. But that’s on him, Dr. Jackson Horvath. Well, he got his, eh?
The real victim in this is me mom. She’s now left in the nursing home. Aunt goes down to see her and that’s good. Aunt Donna’s in the old people business herself so she understands mom. She reassures me that she’ll go, whenever she can. Wainwright is a long way from Calgary, but she goes.
It’s not turned out that good for mom. I feel badly at that.
You can stop that recorder now, eh? You’ve got enough.
… Oh, that. Didn’t I say, no questions?
Let me clarify. It was an impulse, that’s all. Just an impulse. I’ve had impulses all my life. And if I followed them, well, sometimes it would turn out pretty good. But that? Not planned at all. The police, they got that wrong too.
I saw him there, sitting in the window and all, looking all spiffy in his work shirt. It’s not the first time that I’d seen him. After rehab, I went to see him real friendly like, to help him get on his feet again, back in the game. He wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Like Anna. She wouldn’t neither. Makes you mad, eh? After all I’d done for him. And him sitting there in the window of the Starbucks, all bright and shiny that morning after I’d got Harold cleaned up and dressed for the day.
Just an impulse. That’s all that was.
I was just going to do an old guy a favour.
But what GJ’s father did. You can’t let that happen, or let a guy like GJ get away with it. It’s not right, you know. Do unto others, and all that, right?
There. Turn that thing off now.”
Agreed?
Okay, good.
And yes, you can record this. It’s for prosperity, right? The life story of Jimmy Murphy. I like the sound of that.
And, I’m really not going to say anything about that Dr. Jackson Horvath neither, hoity toity psychiatrist. You know, how he ended up and all. Nothing.
But there is one thing I want to make clear, about what the police said, that I stole the car. I didn’t. I saw the Escalade out in front of Harold’s house with the keys in it, thought I would go and get him a coffee, like one of the fancy ones from Starbucks. That’s the sort of guy I am. Get an old guy a treat. It wasn’t stealing. It’s not right that they said it was. I was going to take the coffee back to Harold and give it to him, leave the Cadillac in the driveway, take the keys in and tell him that I found them in the car and brought them back in so the Caddy wouldn’t get stolen. That’s what was in my mind. I just wanted to drive a Cadillac, had never had the chance before. That’s all that was about.
Okay then. We’ve got all that clear.
I first met GJ in the back alley behind his house. He was just a kid, Anna’s kid brother. Anna and I were already a thing at the Tomb, that’s Western Canada High. She was just a Niner and I was slowly working my way through Grade 12, for the second time. Or was it the third? Can’t remember. I kept getting kicked out. But, because of my dad, I had to keep going back to get it or he wouldn’t let me come back to work the farm. He had this thing about me going to college, like agriculture or heavy duty, but had to get my Grade 12 to do it. When Wainwright Comp wouldn’t let me back in, that’s when I came to live with my aunt in Calgary.
Anyway, getting back to GJ.
So, Anna said that her dad gave GJ pills. And I asked, what kind? And she said because he’s such a loser. So I told her that I had been on pills like that, but of course, I wasn’t a loser, not anymore. She told me that GJ had told her that he wasn’t going to take them because dad was the one who got them for him. I said, Let me talk to him. If the pills are like what I had, well maybe I can help him with it. Really nice, like. Just trying to be helpful, get an in with her.
Now Calgary is no Wainwright. In Wainwright you can sell pills but people find out, get the RCs involved. But Calgary, if it is the right pills, well, that has some possibilities, you get my drift? Like, maybe I can solve two problems in one.
It turned out that they were.
Now that bitch Leanne, she was Anna’s aunt who was raising Anna and GJ and GJ’s kid sister. Leanne made GJ take his morning pill in front of her. But the noon pill, the one that went in his lunch with him, well, that got me thinkin’.
I didn’t go there right away, like I had to win his trust. Be an older brother to him. Not too much, like, but I did have to win his trust first. Take him out in the truck, cruise with him, make him feel cool, show him the 308 behind the seats, that sort of stuff. I talked to him, real confidential like, about the pills and concentrating and not getting kicked out of school. You know, the wise older brother schtick.
Anna wasn’t onto it at first. I think she was kind of jealous, that I was spending time with him rather than her. Not that Anna and I weren’t a thing, we were. Didn’t go as far as I would’ve liked though, she being such a daddy’s girl. But everyone thought that we were a good looking couple and I was probably doing it to her, so that’s okay, right?
Anyway, after a while I found out that GJ wanted a particular Gameboy, it was an Atari or something, I don’t remember. But he couldn’t get his Auntie to spring for it. And of course, his dad wouldn’t. So, I got him to slip me some of his afternoon pills, the ones he took in his lunch box, they had street value. Simple enough. He got his game.
It was a start, see.
Eventually, we replaced the pills in the bottle that came from the drugstore with Vitamin Cs, you know, the ones that GJ was supposed to take in front of his Auntie in the morning. Then I could sell the lot of what the doctor gave him.
What, you think me criminal or something?
Who was I hurting? No one. Vitamin C was good for GJ, prevents colds, right? And the people I was selling to, well, it did them good if they could pay for it, filled a need. And Auntie was off the hook with GJ’s dad, like she could say that GJ was taking the pills in front of her. All good.
No one was the wiser.
That was really the start of it. The start with GJ. He and I would go on to do really well together, for a while anyway. Our little business grew from there.
Anna, well Anna was another story.
She left the Tomb to go to that other school the other side of the city. Got back into dance, started to fuck with that dance instructor. I can say fuck, can’t I? You can always bleep it out of the tape if you need to. I used to go and see her dance. But then she had them, the dance teacher and his wife, the ones from Russia, and suddenly she wasn’t into me anymore. I caught up to her years later when she was dancing at the Grove. Used to go and watch her, for old time’s sake, you know.
Hey, even saw her dad there one night, watching his daughter dance, wearing that tiny bikini with the snake all exposed. Who’d’ve thought, eh? Creepy. It was mainly old guys there at the Grove anyway, so he fit in.
Yup, I went to see her, even when she wouldn’t have anything more to do with me, especially early on like. That’s how loyal I am. Later she didn’t dance so often, so I kinda stopped going.
Anyway, that whole Horvath family—Horvaths, Caylies, whatever—I really hate that I got all tied up in them, the way it has all turned out, you see. Never should’ve got involved with that family. They’re bad news.
The real problem was GJ’s dad, him getting involved when GJ got charged. Like I had groomed GJ pretty well, got him going in the business, had a pretty good sense of him being, like being loyal to me, being dependable. Then he ratted me out. I don’t think that it was GJ who was behind that. Not the way that I’d handled him. But it was his father, his father with all the money for lawyers and detectives and such. That’s what did it, set this whole thing in motion. Should never had turned out the way it did. But that’s on him, Dr. Jackson Horvath. Well, he got his, eh?
The real victim in this is me mom. She’s now left in the nursing home. Aunt goes down to see her and that’s good. Aunt Donna’s in the old people business herself so she understands mom. She reassures me that she’ll go, whenever she can. Wainwright is a long way from Calgary, but she goes.
It’s not turned out that good for mom. I feel badly at that.
You can stop that recorder now, eh? You’ve got enough.
… Oh, that. Didn’t I say, no questions?
Let me clarify. It was an impulse, that’s all. Just an impulse. I’ve had impulses all my life. And if I followed them, well, sometimes it would turn out pretty good. But that? Not planned at all. The police, they got that wrong too.
I saw him there, sitting in the window and all, looking all spiffy in his work shirt. It’s not the first time that I’d seen him. After rehab, I went to see him real friendly like, to help him get on his feet again, back in the game. He wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Like Anna. She wouldn’t neither. Makes you mad, eh? After all I’d done for him. And him sitting there in the window of the Starbucks, all bright and shiny that morning after I’d got Harold cleaned up and dressed for the day.
Just an impulse. That’s all that was.
I was just going to do an old guy a favour.
But what GJ’s father did. You can’t let that happen, or let a guy like GJ get away with it. It’s not right, you know. Do unto others, and all that, right?
There. Turn that thing off now.”