SECTION F
IVEsm
COLUMN
FORTY-NINE, SEPTEMBER 1, 1999
CULTURAL EQUATIONS
Paul McKinnon is a 42-year-old Canadian living in the southwest corner of his country. From 1984 to 1994, he lived in Victoria, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Banff National Park, Tokyo and The Yukon. During that time he also visited the U.S. (Hawaii, Alaska, Seattle, San Francisco, The Grand Canyon, Los Vegas), Mexico and parts of Europe (England, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Spain and Portual).
During that time he worked as a dishwasher, a waiter, a cook, an English teacher, a groundskeeper, a courier, a hotdog salesman, a chauffeur and, of course, a writer.
In 1995 he became a father, cut his hair, and got a real job. He continues to write, and is currently the co-editor of THE NEPENTHE JOURNAL, an online 'zine that features travel stories, short fiction and pop culture analysis. NEPENTHE can be found at http://www.freespeech.org/tumbleweed.
"There's a hole in Daddy's arm where the money goes."--- John Prine
As far as mid-life crises go this one was a bit extreme. You may
have heard about it on the news. After 12 years of "straight time"
Semi-Famous-Bank-Robber-Turned-Writer Stephen Reid went haywire and pulled another armed
robbery.
Apparently Reid was a little out of practice---this one didn't go as smoothly as some of
his earlier heists---after a car chase and shootout with the police---Reid and another man
were captured.
Reid now faces 10 criminal charges including robbery, unlawful confinement, and four
counts of attempted murder.
It's a strange story indeed.
What makes it even stranger is that some of Reid's fellow writers are raising funds for
his legal defense.
They've got to be kidding!
Or perhaps they're simply delusional. Self-delusional.
Writers are a funny lot.
And West Coast Writers are a VERY funny lot.
I know- I live here.
I think these folks view "The Stephen Reid Story" as a Romance instead of a
Tragedy.
A little background:
Back in the '70s Reid was a member of "The Stopwatch Gang"---three guys who
robbed dozens of banks and were eventually caught and incarcerated.
While in jail in the early '80s Reid wrote his novel, Jack Rabbit Parole. He also
began corresponding with Susan Musgrave, one of the Canadian West Coast's favorite poets.
I bet you've heard or can guess the rest---Steven & Susan get married, he gets out of
jail, they have a child and write happily ever after.
Well not quite.
Recently it seems that while working on a play entitled Heroin Elvis Stephen Reid
did a little bit too much "research"- and I'm not talking about his Elvis
impersonations.
What was going through Stephen Reid's mind when he figured out he needed to return to his
life of crime is anyone's guess, but chances are good he was pretty out of it at the time.
We can always blame the drugs I suppose, but I can't help thinking that with this reckless
spree Reid not only put people's lives in danger (and I have friends living in the area
where the police chase & gunfire took place, and often take my daughter to the same
park these armed men used as part of their unsuccessful escape route), he also betrayed
his family, his friends, and the West Coast Writing Community.
You see, Stephen Reid was, until recently, the hope many people have that "art"
(in this case "writing") can redeem a man. He had "paid his debt to
society," "put the past behind him" and all those other cliches.
Writing had "saved" Stephen Reid.
But it hadn't, really. Not in the long run.
And so I can understand why many of the people who believed that writing could save
someone from rather nasty habits (many of them Stephen Reid's friends and contemporaries
in the art-lit scene) want to help him now. But I think their loyalty is more than a
little misguided.
And they're not getting a penny from me.
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