Evil Season by Michael Benson Page B

news.
    â€œWe’ve got a match,” she said.
    â€œWhat’s the name?”
    â€œElton Brutus Murphy.”

PART II
    ELTON BRUTUS MURPHY

Chapter 8
    The Orange Groves
    This is the story of Elton Brutus Murphy’s life. For the most part it’s Murphy who’s telling it; and from what we can tell, most of it is true. Murphy admits that he wasn’t entirely candid at times, but it was nothing personal. He knew that prison officials would be reading this book one day and he didn’t want to be “locked up even worse than I am now.” He was very appreciative of the interest in his story and hoped that what he had to say would help contribute to a “dynamic and compelling work of literature.” He wanted you to imagine it was a movie called Invitation to Murder, with special effects, maybe animation, and a soundtrack of mind-blowing Pink Floyd records and the anthems of Bon Jovi. Perhaps the director could squeeze into the soundtrack his favorite song of all time, “Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil.

    Elton Brutus Murphy was born in Wauchula, Florida, on February 3, 1957. He was the son of Elton Murphy Jr. and Betty Jo Murphy. His childhood home was a pastoral scene: a lovely two-large-bedroom cement block single-story house painted a pastel color, nestled under two huge oak trees.
    How rustic was it? “Chickens and roosters roamed our yard,” Murphy explained. “We had two monkeys during my youth, and a female goat that my dad milked daily. Dad would drink the goat’s milk, but the rest of the family preferred cow’s milk. There was a donkey and two horses, one regular and one miniature.”
    His dad drank and his parents fought constantly: mostly verbal, some physical. There was some scuffling with the old man before the firstborn son eventually left the house, no injuries or anything like that.
    â€œI only remember one whipping in my life from my father.” It occurred when he was ten or eleven. “Just on the bottom,” Murphy said. “It wasn’t like my dad beat me up.”
    His dad taught him practical stuff, paid him for the work he did, and made him start a savings account at the bank.
    The fights between his parents were what he remembered most. His parents had endurance and could fight all night. Murphy couldn’t remember a good night’s sleep until he was maybe ten years old.
    Predictably, his favorite childhood book was a forget-your-troubles fantasy entitled The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, written by Eleanor Cameron. It was about the adventures of two boys named Chuck and David who visited the planet Basidium in their homemade spacecraft.
    The family didn’t use “Big Elton” and “Little Elton.” They called the boy “Brutus,” after his middle name. Murphy was known as Brutus to most people for most of his life.
    When his parents fought, it wasn’t just yelling. Stuff was thrown, smashed. One time his mom and dad were arguing and fighting over a .22-caliber pistol and the thing went off.
    â€œI just knew one of them had been shot, but thank God neither of them were,” Murphy said.
    According to Murphy, his father was a drunk and a coward. Another brouhaha when Brutus was ten resulted in Betty Jo calling the sheriff’s department. When the deputies arrived, his dad was hiding beneath the marital bed. As deputies coaxed the father out from under the bed, and then held him at bay, Brutus and his mom packed their stuff and got the hell out.
    The separation didn’t work out. Brutus and his mom were gone for only a few months when they returned with a promise from Elton that he would go on the wagon. Elton went to Alcoholics Anonymous for a while, and stayed dry for a decade, not hitting the bottle until after he and Betty Jo divorced. Once he started drinking again, his health abruptly went south. He was dead within a year. That was 1980. Elton died when he was