InsaneJournal

I know someone who was killed like Emerson.

His name was Aaron Echolls. I don't know if he's a movie star everywhere, but back home, he occupied that Bruce Willis/Kevin Costner/Jason Statham niche that made him rich and beloved by all. He posed with his fans and donated to charities. He also had sexual relationships with sixteen year old girls and then bashed their brains out when they threatened to come clean. Alternatively, he used public sympathy from a recent stabbing (another affair, different affair) to minimize the damage he caused by locking another nosy teenage girl into a refrigerator and setting it alight with gasoline (me, of course. What, did the nosy not give it away?).

Because he was rich, white, and male, and because one victim couldn't speak for herself on account of being dead, and the other could speak until she was hoarse and still be labelled a foolish slut in the public eye, he got away with it. "Not enough evidence". Three words to level you flat, right? It's not supposed to end like this. Parents aren't supposed to bury their children. Truth prevails. Evil's punished.

He was shot after he was acquitted. I have my theories who did it, and I don't care. I hope he suffered. I know he didn't. It was fast, clean, and efficient - an execution.

That didn't make it justice. I saw him for years afterward. I still do I wanted him dead and now he's a ghost in my head, because I was happy he was killed that way. Culpable.

If you're fine with the way Emerson died, great. If you're not fine, also great. Also? No longer relevant. His story is finished, whatever comes out about people who suspected, people who helped, people who tried to stop it from happening. We're always going to be what's left. The collateral damage. We screwed up big-time, friends, now where are we going next? Is murder in the shadows our legacy? Has humanity really been so level all these years? I don't know.

But there'll be a next time. The calendar waits for no existential moral panic. Let's do better then. Let's deserve a system that works to protect us. We can think the world's better off without the Emersons and Echolls in the world. But that doesn't mean we're better for it.

This journal entry of angsty over-identifying is brought to you by the letter 'B', as in B-movie and bitter-like-coffee.