Marilyn Monroe

This is what I refer to as the Marilyn Monroe chapter of a book I wrote several years ago titled, In the Midst of Normalcy. It is the story of a typical midwestern family  gathering for a summer reunion. Only, this “typical” family happens to have a homicidal killer as one of its members. In my story, the reunion is held in the home of Tim Coleman, a passionate fan of the late film star, Marilyn Monroe. Tim has a large cutout poster of her in his basement game room, and I have incorporated this into the story. I included this chapter to add a bit of texture to the story, and I think it turned out fairly well. I hope you do, too.

62. Marilyn Monroe

Big Tim Coleman’s life size poster of Marilyn Monroe sat regally in the downstairs recreation room. The thought occurred to him several times during the last couple of days that it was unfortunate she could not speak, for Marilyn was an eyewitness to his cousin’s murder.

Tim thought of his beloved poster as a real person. Not in an unhealthy way but as a symbol of the living Marilyn. The large cut out depicted the famous photo from The Seven Year Itch where a vibrant, smiling Marilyn is standing over a subway grate, white dress billowing teasingly upward with her shapely legs in full view of an admiring public. Tim felt this photo captured the essence of Marilyn Monroe perfectly. The carefree and beautiful Marilyn Monroe, captured forever by a skilled cameraman before time and life’s excesses wore her down.

But, to the killer the large poster of Marilyn meant something else entirely. Tim did not realize, although the killer did know it subconsciously, that in many ways they were mirror opposites psychologically. Tim Coleman, the idealistic optimist, viewed the picture from The Seven Year Itch as representing all of the best in womanhood and humanity at large through his idol Marilyn. The killer saw the world through a darkened, troubled lens and viewed the smiling, teasing Marilyn as something unwholesome and in need of . . . redemption? The killer was not sure but knew that something should and would be done.

For Leann Edgmon’s murderer, the life size Marilyn in Tim’s basement represented something larger than life. Upon viewing it for the first time he experienced what could be described as an epiphany moment. The years of hidden mental instability and sadistic behavior came to a head in the recreation room of Tim and Cathy Coleman’s home. That plans for an “exercise” to occur were already made only served to heighten the killer’s senses. The life size Marilyn and soon to be crime scene were icing on the deranged killer’s cake.

Had she the ability to speak, Marilyn could tell the detectives much. She had seen the quick and horribly efficient demise of Leann. She had witnessed other things as well in her time in the Coleman home. Once, she had overheard Tim II hurriedly and passionately speak to a woman not named Emilee Coleman on his cell phone in the privacy of the rec room. Over time, she had seen the drunken eyes of several of Big Tim’s friends gaze lustily upon her in a way Tim did not. On one occasion, Cathy dejectedly stood next to her silently weeping when granddaughter Erin was running a 105 degree fever and the doctor had informed the family that it may be spinal meningitis. The larger than life Marilyn could write a book about the Colemans were she the real Marilyn.

But the cardboard Marilyn knew nothing of the family secrets. She knew nothing of Tim’s romanticized view of her or of the killer’s darkened, negative passion. She stood day and night, in darkness and light, forever captured in 1955 at the height of her fame and beauty. She was above the battle and emotional turmoil the Colemans were undergoing. As with Leann’s slayer, she did not care one way or the other about the pain and misery around her.

The difference between her and the disturbed Coleman family member was that she was lifeless and exempt from blame or divine judgment.

Tim’s Marilyn could not care. Leann’s murderer did not care.