Excerpt from "The Collector" by Geoffrey Guthrie of The Mount Airy News
I have collected since my youth. I was a young boy once with the hobby of all young boys - collecting objects of no known value other than to be a pirate's treasure in the eyes of the young. There were rocks, marbles, pieces of twine, jacks, toy soldiers, and sticks I called "fancy sticks" that became swords or pokers and staffs. I liked to display my found objects in my bedroom with labels and information about the object and where it was found. My mother said I was going to grow up and be a museum curator or a librarian, she talked with pride of my collection.
I had many questions, and I read many books at the time to help me answer my questions. I created a museum/library in my bedroom and made library cards for my family so they could check out items and observe my growing collection. My brother thought it silly, and I learned everyone did not find my collections as satisfying as I did. I became busy with other pursuits. The museum/library soon shut down. My mom who thought the whole thing was "adorable" and "creative" kept her library card, with her hand drawn photo, on the refrigerator for years.
I soon grew bored with collecting inanimate objects, both lifeless and spiritless by nature, so I began to collect life. Small creatures at first; they are rarely missed - guppies, bugs, toads, birds, and later, family pets. Other people's family pets. I knew even then - nothing too close to home. Occasionally, there was the poster:
Missing: Our dog "Cooper".
Corgi/Beagle mix.
Part of the family.
Afraid of loud noises. Ran away July 4th,
Reward offered.
The lost dog poster was posted on telephone poles at four way stops. If you know the Corgi breed, you know their legs are only a few inches long. I found Cooper four and a half miles from home still in a dead run the day after the fireworks. Remarkable stamina. Though his eyes were beautiful, almost clear, blue eyes, I returned Cooper. He had the good sense to run when he sensed danger and to be part of the family.
I began to experiment with other found or captured creatures. I am intelligent and knew at a young age my thoughts and desires were not normal. I knew I was deranged.
I began to experiment with torture and, as a means to an end, death. All types of macabre death, quite horrifying and gruesome, even to me sometimes.
Needles and safety pins and staple guns were my tools. I learned to sew things back together, not always where they once were in their original state. I practiced my boy scout knots from which nothing could escape. Sharp fancy sticks were poked into the eyes of birds. Always a reason or question to be answered. How long can a blinded bird survive? Not long. If not so sad, quite amusing to watch a bird try to right itself and fly without the ability to see where it is going. There, picture that in your head. Pitiful, most certainly. Amusing, yes.
There were other experiments. There was a dissected puppy with the same internal organs as a cat. They are very similar by design. A rabbit. A squirrel. Beautiful in their design and immensely functional, but, all just leave a mess to clean up.
After slow death, I became intrigued by fast demise. I bashed in brains with rocks, strangled while I looked into eyes, and drowned in a variety of water sources - a bucket, a river, the lake. Once, I drowned a kitten in the bathtub and left it floating while I relaxed in the warm water and almost dozed off.
I felt nothing. No remorse. No fear. No compassion. No sentiment. No pleasure. Nothing. I determined I was not a serial killer in the making because I gained nothing, no thrill other than the experience and a vast knowledge of covert tactics, hunting skills, and deceit. There was no pattern to my killings, no sexual gratification, nothing. Just a quest for knowledge and a need to know answers to my queries.
I was relieved that I was not a serial killer. Nothing against them, there is a time and place for them, but my thirst in my youth was for enlightenment, not death.
My collection led to other hobbies - photography and taxidermy. Photography was interesting, especially the before and after shots, but I could not share these. They became more of a way to chronicle my feats for my own records and for my own contemplation, rather than photography as art.
Taxidermy was a little different. I was able to share some of this. After several un-lifelike failures, I presented a racoon to my father that delighted him.
"However did you catch it ?" he wanted to know. "Those are ferocious creatures". He beamed with father pride. He stuck the racoon on the fireplace mantle.
My mother moved the racoon out to the back porch with a, "We don't want to frighten our guests."
I liked having the attention of my parents, and I did not like sharing the attention with my siblings. I do not like sharing. Never did, never will. I was born an attention seeker, and I thrive in the limelight. I strive to be the center of attention to those I love. I suspect for all my eccentricities, this makes me most like my fellow humans.
When I was young, I tried to think of ways to excel. To be the smartest and to be the most favored child. I did have the wherewithal to know most of my interests did not interest my parents and were not topics you discussed in polite company or at the dinner table. I realized I was good at something that needed to remain invisible.
I was bored easily. I was restless. I thought about my dilemma. I was always happiest when collecting. I remembered an incident of happiness as a small boy. My cousin had a cat's eye marble he prized above all marbles in his collection. He won it in a school yard shootout and considered it his lucky marble. I took it. It was not the stealing of the marble that gave me pleasure. It was the knowing the marble was in my pocket while my cousin searched the house for it. And talked about it. And asked his friends and me: Have you seen it? My satisfaction was in hearing and feeling his loss. It was knowing I had something someone else wanted. Something that gave them joy. Something missed. Something worth crying over.
I began to think of a new collection.
I did learn a lesson early in my collecting career. I learned some things I snatched were not worth the trouble or the attention, no matter how much they enhanced your collection, or how much someone wanted them back. I learned this when I took the baby.