Over Done Tropes—Magic Gunshot Wounds

 

A million years ago, I attempted a respiratory therapy vocational program. Obviously, I didn't make it. However, I did learn a lot, during my one clinical rotation. I treated (means wrote down specific information under the supervision of an actual clinician) a patient who was in a vegetative state after a botched dental procedure. 

So, no. There is no "routine" or "simple" surgical procedure.

There is also no “simple” gunshot wound. Yet movies, television shows, and books persist in using the “just a shoulder/arm/leg/flesh,” wound device. More than simply overused, the device is patently irresponsible and contributes to a fundamental misunderstanding of the life-long effect of gun violence on survivors.

Yes, this is a pro-gun-control piece, read or click away accordingly—also, spoilers

Texas’ best writer of historical fiction, Elmer Kelton understood the importance of facts. Educated as a journalist at the University of Texas, Kelton was a news reporter and editor for over a decade before his first book was published. 

Elmer was also an actual cowboy and worked as such while writing his first novel. So—roping, ranching, and rodeoing—he wrote with boil-lancing honesty about the cowboy life. What Elmer had no experience with was gunshot wounds. In his rare poorly-thought-out line, Lafey Dodge (a hired gunman) is shot in the arm by Rascal McGinty. When escorted out of town by the hero, Lafey states that he’s had worse injuries from opening canned food with his knife.

For context, the Colt Single Action Army (dubbed the Peacemaker) Rascal used was most commonly chambered in .44 (that means the bullet is almost half-an-inch in diameter) which results in a 1-inch wound, (at least). 

NOT just a flesh wound

From at least half-a-dozen movies, most Americans are aware of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Less commonly known is the aftermath where family and friends of the two brothers killed ambushed Marshal Virgil Earp. Virgil was shot twice, in the arm and back, with a 12 gauge. 

Again, for context, (a 12-gauge shotgun shells ejects 12, .33 caliber balls with each shot). Eight balls went through Virgil’s back, settling against his hip. Four hit his arm. Easy-peasy, right?

The four balls shattered Virgil’s left arm, necessitating the removal of his elbow. The only doctor available gave Virgil one-chance-in-five of survival. Ultimately, Virgil would survive but would never use his left arm again.

You’ll note that big flat bone at the shoulder: the shoulder blade. Thing is, the shoulder blade is not flat. With multiple plans/angles if the bullet his the shoulder blade your best possible outcome is for the bullet to pancake and/or become embedded. Otherwise there’s a good chance that the bullet will pinball right into the chest cavity where there are vital organs and multiple avenues to Boot Hill. 

Then there is a major artery, a nerve cluster, and multiple lymph nodes. In short, lots and lots can go wrong with a shoulder/arm wound. Also, clavicals hurt like a fothermucker and take forever to heal. Write accordingly.

...it’s only a scratch…actually, five or six scratches…

Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series was a groundbreaking work of detective fiction. Thoroughly modernizing the private investigator subgenre, Spenser is often far more human than predecessors, Mike Hammer, (Mickey Spillane) or Philip Marlowe, (Raymond Chandler). His world includes tender relationships with his companion Sarah Silverman and adopted son, Paul Giacomin. His world also prominently features characters of all ethnicities and genders, belief systems and sexual orientations, (with mixed results) it all contributes to Parker’s bedrock-solid foundation of street-smart practicality. Until it comes to gunshot wounds.

With gunshot wounds, Parker’s PI is super-human. Rough-and-tumble, Spenser is shot no less than four times over the course of 30 novels. In every single instance, Spencer is successfully treated, makes a self-effacing joke, and then sports the scars as badges of honor. No lasting complications, no trauma disorders, for that matter, no psychological impact at all. 

Part of this is rooted, I’m sure, in Hemingway’s influence on Parker. But Hemingway, (an ambulance driver during the First World War) understood the trauma of injuries. Robert Jordan most definitely dies of his gunshot wounds in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Likewise, Harry dies of sepsis from a minor cut, in The Snows of Kilimanjaro.  

Speaking of sepsis

In the movie Resevoir Dogs, hold-up man, Larry tells his wounded companion, Freddie, that gut shots hurt the most but he’s not going to die. Yeah, maybe not immediately. But with that degree of bleeding, (Freddie paints the the car interior with his blood) and the high likelihood that a bowel was at least nicked if not punctured and now there is fecal matter mixing with the blood flooding his abdominal cavity means he will be in septic shock really soon and really dead soon after that.

Freddie most certainly wouldn’t be alive, (much less lucid) for the multiple hours depicted in the film. 

Good thing you don't need abdominal muscles to do...well, everything.

So, who does it well?

Author Michael McGarity is a former cop. He’s seen gunshot wounds and the aftermath. Hence, his protag, Kevin Kerney reflects that reality. In Tularosa, we meet Kerney, recently retired by a gunshot wound that has left him nearly crippled in one leg. In successive books, we see Kerney’s daily physical therapy regime necessary for him to simply walk. We also see his bad leg fails him more than once. 

Science fiction stories based in war-correspondence fact

Before Karen Traviss hit the big time and substantially contributed to Mandalorian lore she was a BBC defense correspondent. She also served in the army as well as the navy reserves in the UK. That informs the tremendously rich language and command of character we see in her work. It also informs her understanding of wounds. Kal Skirata, a Mandalorian military trainer, (and Traviss’ greatest creation) becomes a drill-instructor on Camino after one of his ankles is shattered, leaving him unable to function in combat. Skirata walks with a pronounced limp and suffers near-constant pain.

“The French call that one ‘courage’...I’d keep that if I were you.” Jack Crawford, Silence of the Lambs

Like Elmer Kelton, Thomas Harris started as a journalist. He also researched deeply with the FBI. He understands wounds. As a result we know that Will Graham didn’t just survive Hannibal Lecter’s attack—mostly by the reference to the colostomy bag he had to wear while recovering from Lecter’s knife work. But he also understands the psychological toll surviving takes. Like Graham, shellshocked by his experience with Lecter and then ruined by his confrontation with Francis Dolarhyde, Clarice Starling does not emerge unscathed by her first firefight. 

Jame Gumb set an ambush for Starling in a pitch-black room. Provisioned with night-vision goggles and etermined to have Starling's scalp (literally) for his collection, Jame lies in wait with the intention of shooting her in the face. Then he cocks the hammer on his revolver. Clarice zeros Gumb from the sound and shoots him dead. Still Gumb gets off a shot. While his bullet misses Clarice, grains of late-igniting gunpowder tattoos her cheekbone like a birthmark from hell.

In the successive book, we see that Starling is haunted by the mark of her trial by fire, even as she takes pride in her mark of courage. 

In writing wounds, make them as heavy (or not) as you chose. Just remember the dramatic potential in logical extrapolation of the severe and the "superficial" wounds our heroes and villains suffer. To do less is lazy, at best.

The photo at the top, Reservoir Dogs movie poster (Miramax Films) and the photo above, shoulder anatomy, (Gray’s Anatomy) do no belong to me. They are used here for educational/instructional purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.

Money Laundering, a How-To for Writers

 

In William Friedkin’s excellent crime film, To Live and Die in L.A., (vastly superior to the Gerald Petievich novel) Rick Masters makes millions from printing counterfeit cash. And, everyone wants Rick’s paper. Even at .20¢ on the dollar, Masters has made enough (real) money to afford a Ferrari lifestyle. 

But how? Friedkin’s detailed treatise on counterfeiting runs lean on how Rick Masters gets to spend his hard-earned money? How did he buy that Ferrari and the ultra-modern house? How does he purchase the incredibly expensive equipment he uses (multiple locations, multiple pieces of equipment) to print his money? 

Not as easy as it looks

In response to the huge amounts of cash that organized crime groups made from the nascent drug trade in the 1950s and 60s, congress passed the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970. Among multiple provisions to prevent banks from being used (or participating in) criminal activity, the Currency Transfer Report (CTR) became one of the most powerful tools to combat money laundering. 

Cash purchases or banking transfers of $10,000 or more require a CTR form be filed with the IRS. From those reports, the IRS could further investigate the purchaser or account holder to determine the origin of money.

However it was the outrageous excesses of the 1980s, (and HUGE amounts of money in non-white hands) when the CTR really became a weapon for law-enforcement and taxation purposes. Drug smugglers, prostitution rings, and even stolen-goods brokers (fences) were swept up in CTR nets. 

So, no more dirty money, right?

“Money never sleeps.” Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

The earliest recorded instances of money laundering predates the common era, (over 2000 years ago). Chinese judicial documents describe merchants, (engaged in smuggling and black-marketeering) using rice stalls, fish stands, and wine shops to launder ill-gotten profits and thereby shielding wealth and income from tax collectors. 

From Han Dynasty, China to 18th Century American distillers to 20th Century drug cartels to 21st Century international cyber criminals, money laundering remains a vital step in the crime cycle.

“I take the seed from Columbia and Mexico and I just plant up a hollar down Copperhead Road” Steve Earle, Copperhead Road 

For 150 years Appalachian Mountain people, laundered and sheltered money made from the illegal production and sale of untaxed whiskey through land speculation. Land title transfers are recorded with the county clerk. As long as the property tax was paid, no one questioned how the land was paid for, (land was regularly traded for livestock, to settle debts, bequeathed as dowries, etc.). And, yes, the land was also sold for legitimate cash.

Even after the inception of the first income tax in 1861, farming, timber production, et al represented legal, clean income for whiskey runners even as they became marijuana runners and meth cooks in the 1980s.

“When I sell liquor it’s bootlegging. When my buyers serve it from a silver tray on Lakeshore Drive it’s called hospitality.” Al Capone

Like the hill people, Al Capone dealt in untaxed liquor. Also like the moonshiners, Capone used real estate to launder his early gains. Then, with his brother Ralph, Capone parlayed commercial real estate and farm holdings into dairy and soft-drink bottling. In fact it was Ralph Capone who originated expiration dates on milk bottles.

Why launder the money at all? Why not just avoid banks and spend cash?

In 1987, I read a newspaper article about a 12-year-old kid who tried to buy a Porsche right off the showroom floor. He had over $50K in cash. But the car dealership would have to deposit that cash in their bank. The bank wants to know where that cash came from for their CTE. Instead the dealership called the police.

"How much money? We spent $2000 each month on rubber bands," Roberto Escobar, The Accountant's Story

In fraud examiner training, they tell you that all you can do with an all-cash income is pay rent, make payments on used cars, and buy groceries. Most landlords will not accept cash so that means if you want to pay rent without a bank account, you have to buy a money order. The money order limit is $1000.

Then there is the problem of where to put your ill-gotten gains if you don’t have a nice secure bank. Pablo Escobar’s accountant and brother Roberto wrote of losing tens-of-millions of dollars to rot when the cash was buried in moist Columbian soil. 

Cocaine cowboy Jon Roberts spoke of going to stash spots only to find that “associates” had already been there and ripped him off. 

“For guys like me, Las Vegas washes away your sins…It does for us what Lourdes does for humpbacks and cripples.” Ace Rothstein, Casino 

David Cay Johnson’s EXCELLENT book, Temples of Chance, details the rise of the gambling industry in the states as well as much of the crime behind the casinos. In ToC, Akio Kashiwagi is described as a “whale,” often betting anywhere from $50K to $200K on a single hand of cards. A self-described real estate investor with a Tokyo office, Kashiwagi could produce no documented holdings for auditors. No purchases, no sales. 

After Kashiwagi lost $10mm (of someone’s money?) he was found murdered. He had been stabbed over 100 times. Someone seemed deeply upset with Kashiwagi, for some reason.

In David Mackenzie’s masterpiece film, Hell or High Water, small-time bank robbers Toby and Tanner Howard run their stolen loot through small-time, Native American casinos. Dirty/stolen cash goes in, a clean check (and tax form W-2G) comes out. 

“Gotta detail shop to cover up them duckets that I make,” UGK, Pocket Full of Stones

James Foley’s film, At Close Range, depicts the real-life Johnson crime family. Brad, (Christopher Walken) buys a car, drives it down the street and sells it to another car dealer for nearly the same amount. While nowhere on earth does money laundering, (or car sales) work like that, the principle is sound. You can still buy cars at auction for cash, many under $10,000. You can set up a car lot and sell those used cars. Will you make a profit? Unless you're exceedingly stupid, yes. More importantly, you have clean paper and declarable income.

“The Internet opens a whole new way to communicate with your friends and find and share information of all types.” Bill Gates

Online gambling is valued at $40bb/annually. In the U.S. you can buy a prepaid debit card, game for a minute or two, and cash out (depending on the amount) with clean cash and a IRS form 1099-Misc. You may pay more than the 15%-20% in traditional money laundering but it’s not like it’s your money.

In Elliot Lawrence’s television series, Claws, a nail shop owner structures deposits from her nail shop (and other businesses) for a Dixie Mafia pill mill. 

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Unknown

Hopefully, this gives you some ideas. Really though there are only two rules to remember when writing money laundering. First: no method is fool-proof. Second: criminals find a way.

The photo at the top, Wall Street promotional poster is the property of 20th Century Fox. Its use here, for educational/instrution purposes is covered under the Fair Use Doctrine.