Published Essays
Please, enjoy this sampling of five of my 30+ published essays
Jim Thompson, True Crime Novelist: Teetering on Hell's Doorstep
“Jimmie Thompson convulsed on his bedroom floor; blood poured out of his mouth. His heart raced and beat irregularly. The doctor quickly assessed the 19-year-old's health: complete nervous collapse, tuberculosis, and alcoholism with delirium tremens.”
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“Months later, Thompson suffered a massive heart attack that placed him in a four-day coma. Doctors predicted he would not survive. When he proved them wrong, they called him “Superman.”
Superman, Dostoevsky, Bogart. He was all of these men, and he was none of these men. In his soul he remained the kid at the editor’s desk of the Ft. Worth Press: bruised by disrespect and thriving when offered dignity. In his final days, Thompson could smoke only when a family member was present. Raising two fingers as if holding a cigarette, his unfiltered Pall Mall was placed in the V of his stained fingers. It made him smile from the confines of his bed.
A determined Thompson rallied to attend Christmas at daughter Sharon's home in Huntington Beach. Jim ran through all his old stories - same scenes, same words. He made a simple request to drive to the shore. Quietly, he sat in the car, watching the ocean waves crash against the sand and listening to the hiss on their way out.”
The New Territory, fall 2018
Beno Hall: Tulsa’s Den of Terror
“The monstrous, three-story, steel reinforced, stucco building towered along the western edge of Greenwood. It dominated the landscape at the foot of Standpipe Hill, sporting a bright whitewash, the favorite color of its primary residents. Inside, its members vowed to protect their notion of “100% Americanism.” To become a guardian of liberty, they reasoned, you had to swear to secrecy and seclusion. And you had to embrace intimidation and violence as a way to assert your values.
In January of 1922, the Tulsa Benevolent Association of Tulsa, Oklahoma was officially formed as a holding company for the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Incorporated. Among its founding members was Washington E. Hudson, the attorney for Dick Roland – the young black who was a scapegoat for the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. They provided the financing and leadership to begin building their Klan temple, or Klavern, known as Beno Hall. Locals jokingly called it “Be No Hall” as in “Be No Nxxxxx, Be No Jew, Be No Catholic, Be No Immigrant.”
This Land Press, September 2011
Hidden History of Tulsa, 2014
‘Creepy’ Karpis and the Tulsa Central Park Gang
“Dental records proved the badly decomposed body that washed up on the Crystal Beach shores of Ontario, minus hands and feet, to be twenty-nine-year-old crime-boss physician, Joseph P. Moran, M.D. of Chicago.
So that one bad guy, Alvin ‘Creepy’ Karpis could not be traced to abandoned hotel rooms and cars, Moran had injected Karpis’ fingers with cocaine and successfully scraped off his fingerprints. The doctor also helped launder a portion of the $200,000 ransom money for St. Paul banker Edward Bremmer. While drinking heavily with the gang at the Casino Club outside Toldeo one evening, he bragged, “I have you guys in the palm of my hand.”
Later that night, Moran disappeared. Authorities claimed Tulsans Fred Barker and Karpis had taken him night fishing on Lake Erie.”
This Land Press, December 2011
Hidden History of Tulsa, 2014