Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Mexican children running around in the front yards. I found the Clutter house without too
much trouble. In the topic it stood apart from the town, down a shady lane. Now the lane
was lined with houses. There was no sign of occupancy at the Clutter house. The curtains
were drawn. I hesitated for a long time and then went and knocked at the front door, and
frankly was relieved that no one answered. What could I have said? Hello, I'm a stranger
passing through town with a morbid interest in sensational murders and I just wondered if
you could tell me what it's like living in a house in which several people have had their
brains spattered onto the walls? Do you ever think about it at mealtimes, for instance?
I got back in the car and drove around, looking for anything that was familiar from the
book, but the shops and cafes all seemed to have gone or been renamed. I stopped at the
high school. The main doors were locked-it was four in the afternoon-but some students
fromthetrackteamweredriftingaboutontheplayingfields.Iaccostedtwoofthemstand-
ingalongtheperimeterandaskedthemifIcouldtalktothemforaminuteabouttheClutter
murders. It was clear that they didn't know what I was talking about.
“You know,” I prompted. “7n Cold Blood. The topic by Truman Capote.”
They looked at me blankly.
“You've never heard of In Cold Blood? Truman Capote?” They hadn't. I could scarcely
believe it. “Have you ever heard of the Clutter murders-a whole family killed in a house
over there beyond that water tower?”
One of them brightened. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Whole family just wiped out. It was, you
know, weird.”
“Does anybody live in the house now?”
“Dunno,” said the student. “Somebody used to live there, I think. But now I think maybe
they don't. Dunno really.” Talking was clearly not his strongest social skill, though com-
pared with the second student he was a veritable Cicero. I thought I had never met two
suchremarkablyignorantyoungmen,butthenIstoppedthreeothersandnoneofthemhad
heard of In Cold Blood either. Over by the pole-vaulting pit I found the coach, an amiable
young social sciences teacher named Stan Kennedy. He was supervising three young ath-
letes as they took turns sprinting down a runway with a long pole and then crashing with
their heads and shoulders into a horizontal bar about five feet off the ground. If knocking
the hell out of a horizontal bar was a sport in Kansas, these guys could be state champions.
I asked Kennedy if he thought it odd that so many of the students had never heard of In
Cold Blood.
