|
Friday, September 17, 2004 -- 11:20 AM
The witness, who sent a letter to the victim,
was interviewed for a second time in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman,
Mississippi. The interview was conducted by Detective Murphy and was
recorded on a portable tape recorder with the witness' knowledge and
consent.
- SM = Detective S. Murphy
- RP = Robert Price
SM: For the record, please state your name, age,
and address.
RP: You know this already.
SM: Don't start giving me a hard time already. You know how
this game is played.
RP: Okay, fine. My name. Robert Price, age 32. My address is
Parchman Farm.
SM: All right, Price, it's just me and you. We're just two
people talking
here, okay?
RP: I don't trust most women, Detective.
SM: Look, this is as much a risk to me as it is to
you. You called us over here and then refused to talk to my partner, so
he's waiting outside and not at all happy about it either. So let's just
get to it.
RP: Well... why are you here? Is this your idea of a joke?
SM: I just want to learn about Corwin Fitz from the man I think
knows him best.
RP: Oh yeah? What makes you say that?
SM: I saw his movies and read his journal. I know he looked up to you.
RP: Ha ha!
SM: Do you think he killed himself?
RP: You never knew him. Y'all can read all his books and
watch all his movies and buy all his t-shirts, lady. But you'll never
know him.
SM: I hear a "No." You don't think he did it.
RP: He would never miss a curtain call. That's all I'm saying.
SM: Well, you may have known him better, but you didn't see him the way
I did. Sprawled out on the bathroom tiles like road kill. It was quite a
sight to behold. Now tell me how you met him.
RP: Who? Corwin?
SM: That's right.
RP: I've always known him. Since I can remember. Always hated him too.
He just didn't match up to my standards, you know. My credo was a little
more than he cared to pronounce. He was a bum.
SM: And he was making films while you were in prison.
RP: Fit for the slaughter, he was!
SM: He did it to himself.... But then who really decides anything.
Isn't that right? Isn't that the way you see it?
RP: You've been watching too many movies, Detective.... It's me.
SM: You?
RP: Yeah
SM: Who?
RP: I'm Corwin Fitz.
SM: You're who? What now?
RP: I'm your guy. The killer and the killed.
SM: You're telling me you're Corwin Fitz?
RP: That's right. I killed myself. Wasn't that your theory?
SM: You're just messing with my head.
RP: No, I'm not; just start thinking like an a******.
SM: Hey--
RP: I'm the film director, Corwin Fitz, and the star, Robert Price.
Hell, I could even be Helen Troy. I'm an entire acting troupe,
don't you know?
SM: If you're Fitz, then who's the other guy? The dead guy?
RP: A proxy, a patsy, a savage little nasty.
SM: What's his name?
RP: What does it matter? He was playing the role of Corwin
Fitz, and
he performed magically. He deserved every f****** Oscar there ever was.
Because, you see, he was acting, always the consummate actor. He so
inhabited his part that he became the director, who is me, the
consummate director. And this is precisely what I expected, what I
demanded!
SM: What are you saying? You staged this?
RP: Being sent to prison was not what I expected. All of this was a
bit of an accident. When they threw me in here and I was suddenly faced
with the possibility that my career had ended before it had even
properly begun, I grew terrified -- mortified -- thinking how I might waste
away in this concrete trap without ever getting to express myself
according to my potential. But they allow you just enough communication
with the outside world in prison to keep producing -- and by that I mean
producing that magic art we call life, freedom. I was the director in a
glass booth, just out of reach but close enough that they still knew who
was boss. It takes actors, man. Only a f****** first-rate, natural born
actor would go through all of that for a good script.
SM: But what's his name?
RP: Don't you see, Detective? You were solving a fictional crime too.
You don't even know who your victim is, much less who killed him. You
have a whole new troupe of suspects. A thousand invisible motives.
SM: I know who did it! Even if you are who you say you are, there's no
way you could have physically killed that man! That's all I'm
after!
RP: What part of the body kills, Detective? The hand or the mind?
SM: Who you are and what you say don't mean anything. I came out here to
find out where she is. Whether or not you
put Helen Troy up to this murder is a different matter. We'll get into all of that when
we find her.
RP: You've become so predatory, Detective. I thought we were
just two people sitting here, talking.
SM: I don't know who I'm talking with is the problem.
RP: It was all a performance. That's all it was. I guess we
all knew that sooner or later, someone was bound to get hurt.
SM: Where is she?
RP: I already told you the last time we talked.
SM: Told me what? Where she is?
RP: She is where women go to be alone. To be together. She's
right in your backyard. Under your nose. The whole time.
SM: She's in Oxford?
RP: She is everywhere. She is nowhere. She is me and I am her.
She is a prisoner the same as I am.
SM: That doesn't answer my question.
RP: She is so close, and yet so far.
SM: What about you? Have you ever been to Oxford?
RP: I am a citizen of the world. Like her, I have been
everywhere. I have been nowhere. Is Oxford one of those?
SM: You're wearing me out with this nonsense. Do you like it
here? You want to stay here as long as possible? Is that the idea?
RP: I cannot be imprisoned.
SM: And yet, here you are. Do you have anything of substance
you want to tell me?
RP: I have told you more than you know.
SM: You're wasting my time and not doing yourself any favors.
RP: I am beyond favors. I am beyond anyone's good will. I face
now, as before, only doom.
SM: Okay. I've had about all of this I intend to take. If you
ever return to the real world and decide you want to tell us something
that makes sense, you let us know.
Interview ends -- 11:49 AM
|
