Dear Hildie:

 

Our friend Leslie sounds like the bearded lady in a three-act circus. Shouldn’t be cruel, but with just a little more wry humor inserted you could probably market this stuff as black humor.

 

I’m sending 2 victims to Plaquemines Parish tomorrow. You know, the parish old Leander Perez said he was going to build a fence around to keep out the “Nigras and communists.” And Uncle Earl Long said, “Whatcha gonna do now, Leander? The fed’s’ve got the atom bomb.” Well, old Leander is dead these many years and the Church accepted him back into its bosom after sufficient reparations were made to the right coffers. Earl’s dead, too, of course. And I keep thinking of what else he said: “One day the people of Louisiana are going to get an honest government. And they ain’t gonna like it.”

 

Take care.

 

Love,

 

 

M

Dear Hildie:

Don’t sweat it about Beelzebub–I mean, your son Murphy. Most of what he’s done so far are misdemeanors.

Well, 52 years ago today I was in New Orleans undergoing an army physical. I’ll never forget how the medic looked at the gap between my big toe and second toe and said he’d never seen anything like that before. I told him all Arabs who wore sandals had it but I’d been born with it. If it was a problem, I said, I’d join the Arab army. That kind of fell flat. Then when they asked about scars I said I had a bullet scar on my right thigh. That really excited them, and one said, “I’ve never had anybody with one of those.” Imagine! New Orleans, 1963. Today it would be rare in New Orleans to find anybody without one or two. Probably a badge of honor. When they swore us in, they handed everybody a little New Testament that some Bible society had donated and said, “Hold up your right hand,” so that, in effect, you were swearing on the Bible. But the Christian Bible. Though raised a Catholic, I always rather resented that (as well as the Character Guidance lectures they made us attend, where, in one, I remember, they “proved” the existence of God through the argument from design, which no decent philosopher has accepted for a 100 years or so). I know we need an army, but they have to be so goddamned stupid?

And, of course, Fort Polk was–and is–a lovely place, nothing but pine hills and poor soil. Hell, they only put military bases in locations that can be blown to bits and torn up and where the surrounding populace is so poor that to them even Hell would be an economic improvement.

Our company commander in training was a 2nd lieutenant education major–man, who wouldn’t want to follow an education major into combat? He told us not to buy ice cream from the vendors who came around because it would rot our guts.

As protected as I’d been throughout my life, that was my first experience with illiterate people. Half the company was Mississippi National Guard, some of whom couldn’t read and write. I guess the theory was that they could either become cannon fodder or members of the legislature. They were mainly a good bunch–When they found I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, I immediately became a home boy to them, though I’m sure a somewhat peculiar specimen.

Well, enough of memory lane for now. Take care.

 

Love,

M

Dear Hildie:

 

What an awful anniversary! 52 years since I left on a bus to join the army!  It was a peacetime army, but I still have anxiety dreams about forgetting to read the first sergeant’s roster and missing an assigned  detail. My God, if I have post traumatic anxiety about that nonsense, what about the poor folks who actually got shot at? As you know, I did basic training at Fort Polk, one of the most god-forsaken holes in the country (aren’t they all, if you served there?). Then in 1995, I was sentenced to return there to do archaeology, though they is damn all archaeology to be done, if you can imagine a place all blown to hell. But the National Park Service is adamant about surveying all these barren areas–keeps their people busy inspecting the archaeologists.

 

 

Now, as to calling your son, Murphy,  Beelzebub, well, I think many one of the lesser demons would be more appropriate. But I’m not up on my demonology, so can’t make any suggestions.

 

I was laid low all over again yesterday from the stomach thing. Could it have come from letting Pierre lick me in the face? Well, from any number of sources, I suppose, from the recalled ice cream we’d been saving, to all the nuts I ate up like I was a squirrel saving for winter (which they say, due to el Nino, is going to be cold and nasty).

 

Have to go now. Take care.

 

Love,

Dear Hildie:

 

To take up where I left off, I parked the ladies at the Ten Bells Pub at Commercial and Fournier Streets, right across from the Spitalfields Market.

 

It’s really difficult to image how this area must have appeared in 1888, when old Jack was active. Today, it’s a bustling, thriving area, with an active Asian population (largely Indian and Pakistani) in the eastern part of the district. Great place to get good Indian food. Back then, it was actually heterogeneous, with everything from middle class to the lowest of the low, as one can see by Booth’s maps from the time. But boy, the lowest were pretty low—like from Dickens. Many of these were poor Jewish immigrants from the Continent. Turns out a substantial amount of London’s tailoring was done by Jewish tailors in Whitechapel, and sold through more “acceptable” outlets in other parts of the city.

 

The day was overcast (Isn’t it always in England?) and at about noon I started up Commercial St., looking for Hanbury Street, which intersects it. Hanbury Street is the site of the second canonical Ripper killing, that of Annie Chapman, on September 8, 1888.  If I’d studied my map more carefully I’d have seen it was at the end of the block where I started—But the sign on the cross street was Lamb (which becomes Hanbury!), so I missed it and walked north almost all the way to Shoreditch.

 

I guess I should pause now for some basic geography: Whitechapel District is slap against the east side of the old City of London, with St. Paul’s and banks and all kinds of hi falutin’  establishments, like bespoke tailor shops. Historically, it was enclosed by a high stone wall, of which very little remains, except at an excavation near the Tower. The inhabitants had certain privileges people outside the wall didn’t, like the right to be hanged with a silken thread when they were naughty. Goes back to the days of the Norman conquest, when they negotiated their rights from inside the wall with old William the Conqueror, who was standing (or mounted?) outside. Whitechapel Road—named after the district, which was in turn named for the white church of St. Mary Matfelon (now destroyed), cuts through the area roughly southwest to northeast. It, in turn, is cross-cut by Commercial Street, and both are thriving thoroughfares, and were back in Jack’s day. Certain parts of the district, such as the area around the Ten Bells (Dean and Flower Street, Fournier Street, etc.) were byways of vice in the old days.

 

Returning, like a fool, I found Hanbury and started east along it. How odd—It looked just like the Google Earth pictures I’d downloaded! But nary a sinister fellow in a top hat and cloak, carrying a doctor’s bag, in sight! Nor, of course, one of those pea-soup fogs—Well, it was high noon! And the folks scurrying along looked like lawyers, businessmen, and students, with some people in Indian native dress.

 

I quickly found the closest spot to where poor Annie Chapman was murdered. Actually, she was found in a yard, and the whole place has been leveled, so the closest I could get was the sidewalk.  Oh, well.

 

Today, the street is lined with little restaurants and shops. Not sinister at all.

 

As I reached a main cross-street, though, a middle-aged English gent in suit and tie accosted me, with, “Is this Hanbury Street?”

 

Amazing how quickly one becomes part of the surroundings and becomes mistaken for a denizen! I replied, “All the way to Commercial Street.”

 

He beamed and replied, “Thank you! Brilliant!” Brilliant being a faddish Limey way of saying, Awesome.

 

I kept on easterly on Hanbury St. And when I got to the end of it, walked south toward Whitechapel Road for a block or so, to where Durward Street enters on the east. Now Durward Street is the current name for the old Buck’s Row, which is where Many Ann (Polly) Nichols was found murdered on August 31, 1888—the first JTR victim (unless you count Martha Tabram, which I don’t).

 

Durward St. is a little seedier than Hanbury Street. Council Housing, as they call it. But, as the housekeeper said in the movie SCROOGE, “…in keeping with the situation.” Plus, there’s construction going on, and the street was blocked right where I wanted to go: All I could do was look over the barriers at the approximate location of the first atrocity. This is an important point: Half of London is a construction zone.   Soon there won’t be anything recognizable left (Well, they already took down London Bridge!).

 

After this fiasco, I walked down to Whitechapel Road, where there are so many sidewalk tent shops set up it looks like a bazaar. Passed the great mosque, from which the recorded voice of the muezzin was calling for prayer, and I stopped to rest in Altab Ali Park, which is where the original white church stood. Did I forget to mention I have to go slow because of a bum leg? That’s another war story entirely. The park was named after a young man who was killed by local thugs a few years ago in what we would call a hate crime.

 

I then walked down to the intersection of Commercial Street and Whitechapel Street and walked south on Commercial (I think they call it Road, not Street, at this point, though why I don’t know), until I came to Henriques Street, the old name for Berner Street. At the end of this street was a place called Dutfield’s Yard, which is where old Jacko was interrupted during his killing of Elizabeth Stride, back on September 30, 1888. Now it’s a schoolyard! Do the little darlings know what happened there so many years ago? Or care?

 

Well, that completes my tour of the sites of the canonical murders. A fairly easy walk—slightly more than, say, half an hour, from the westernmost (Mitre Square, Eddowes) to the easternmost (Bucks’s Row, Nichols).

 

The lesson from all this? I’m not sure. Just that a nondescript, schizophrenic fellow whose name we don’t know can live in popular lore almost solely because some enterprising reporter decided to fabricate some letters to the press and to the Vigilance Committee and sign them JACK THE RIPPER.

 

Love,

M

Dear Hildie:

 

I’ve never blogged before. In fact, as an archaeologist, I thought maybe a blog was a deposit where all those preserved ancient bodies were left. Anyway, I think it’s terribly egotistical to think people want to read all the crap and bombast one puts out there on the airwaves (Woops! Revealing my age), so, as a way of feeling better about doing this, I thought, “Why not just blog the letters I write you?” After all, you get my letters in hard copy because you aren’t hooked up. Plus, you truly seem to want to read this stuff, so I’ll just use you as my foil, poor thing.

 

Early this month we returned from a trip to England and Ireland. The literate members of our party wanted to go see Jane Austen’s house in Bath while I wanted to visit the spots where Jack the Ripper left his victims. All right, so now you know how my mind works.

 

I was never that much of a Ripperologist until Patricia Cornwell wrote her book a few years ago, claiming the artist Walter Sickert was the Ripper. It was such a ridiculous work that I started reading more about old Jack and two years ago, when we were in Britain, I walked over to the Tower souvenir  stand, where a number of Ripper walking tours may be booked. Now, there are any number of JTR tours available, some more complete than others, some led by part-time guides and some led by acknowledged Ripper experts.  I think my guide was one of the former. As I recall, it cost me ten pounds and we only visited two of the sites related to the five canonical victims. These were the Mitre Square site of Katherine Eddowes’ death (No. 4), and the Miller’s Court site of Mary Kelly’s killing (No. 5, the final murder). Mitre Square remains, but the buildings that surrounded it in 1888 and gone. Miller’s Court is now a parking lot and garage. Our guide told us that the other three sites were unrecognizable, partly due to WWII bombing, and partly due to modern development.  He might also have added that they would have drawn the tour out to four hours, from the two it took us, because they are the farthest from where the tour began!

 

Well, I got what I paid for, which included the guide’s opinion that the Ripper was really Dr. Francis Tumbelty, an American.  His evidence? Tumbelty had a bad reputation in the States, was suspected by the Yard, and the killings stopped when Tumbelty was deported to the U.S. After all, he said, serial killers never stop unless they’re caught or killed. I didn’t mention BTK (Dennis Rader) or Zodiac. Or that Tumbelty was deported for homosexual acts, which hardly fit the Ripper’s predilections.

 

The point is that nobody much wants to believe the Ripper was some nondescript madman who  lived in Whitechapel and wasn’t especially noticeable. A couple of recent books have suggested that Aaron Kosminski, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, was the most likely culprit. Now, whatever you think of the so-called DNA evidence said to link him to Eddowes, he certainly matches the FBI profile better than some high profiler person such as Sickert—who probably wasn’t even in the country at the time.

 

Anyway, this trip I left the ladies at the Ten Bells, said to be a pub dear to JTR’s victims, and retraced the route to the sites of the first three murders.

 

My amazing discoveries will be detailed when next I take up computer keyboard.

The Levee has been re-released through MysteriousPress.com and is available for both Kindle and Nook.