Run, Bucky, Run?

[dr_pretentious]

The opening sentence is almost perfect:

Ralph Phillips was a 43-year-old car thief and a burglar with a record as long as his dark ponytail — and, it turned out, a little pluck, too, that everyone missed until the day he ended up in a jailhouse kitchen with a can opener and no one looking.

Almost perfect except for the pony tail. That's a bit excessive, but I'd probably buy the book.

He was serving 90 days for a parole violation. After he escaped from the Erie County Correctional Facility near Buffalo, prying a hole in the ceiling with that opener, people in Chautauqua County, in the southwest corner of the state, just shrugged. Until it was disclosed that Bucky, as he is known around here where he grew up, had only had four days left before he was to have been released, and then they laughed.

But something else unexpected has happened: No one can find Bucky Phillips.

Okay, now I'd definitely buy the book. If there were a book. Alas, there's only this New York Times story. The tale goes on to include a murdered state trooper who may or may not have been killed by Bucky Phillips, local diners selling Bucky Burgers (but only to go), and a massive police dragnet. Just when I thought the story couldn't get any weirder, I hit this bit:

“They say that some shamans can actually change shape,” said Joanne Wiles, 48, a former postal worker now on disability. “As crazy as it sounds, to me it’s the only reason he could keep getting out. He changes shapes. I don’t know how. He could become a bird, or a squirrel.”

Truth isn't stranger than fiction--I've read too much Gabriel Garcia Marquez ever to say again that it is--but once in a while, the Fates conspire with the New York Times to produce something sublime.

EDIT 9/5/06

When I first made this post, Phillips was suspected of shooting a state trooper, but there was still a strong possibility that the shooting wasn't related. Now it's very clear that Phillips is shooting at troopers, and one of them has died. The story is still weird, but it's gone from being a dark comedy to being a tragedy, and everybody's hoping it doesn't turn into the kind of tragedy that leaves the stage littered with bodies in the last act. The original New York Times article is as well crafted as it ever was, which is why I'm leaving this post up, but the events in Chatauqua County stopped being amusing some time ago.

Comments

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

Then again, the Times has been reputed to scout out potential stories based on their literary qualities. The tale is told of the editor who was looking at a map of northern NJ. "I want you to go here," he told a staff writer as he jabbed his finger against a town on the map, "and stay there until you find me a story that I can use with the headline, Hocus-Pocus in Ho-Ho-Kus."