Qu'est-ce que c'est (Part Deux)

I got a call this afternoon from my friend, Camilla. You’ve all heard me mention Camilla before, right? She’s been having a 18 year affair with her Prince Charming, who happens to be a married man. Camilla justifies her actions because she was dating him before he actually met his wife. He cheated on Camilla with the woman he married, we'll call her Diana, but then continued to cheat on Diana with Camilla all these years. They even have a secret love child together.

Not only does he have a child with Camilla, he has three with Diana and two more with two other women, who “tricked” him for his supersperm, and yes, all of these kids are under the age of 18. He keeps Camilla stringed along by whispering sweet nothings like “of all my babies’ mommas, you are the best” in her ear. Please. Somebody call the Springer show.

Charming has been telling Camilla since the day he snuck off and married Diana that he made a mistake, that Camilla is really his soul mate and to stand by him because he is going to make all of this right for her. He’s been saying this for 18 years now.

A few months ago, though, Diana threw him out of the house after she had him arrested for domestic battery. He says she got stuck in a door and it accidentally slammed while her head was in the door-frame. Sure. Don’t you just hate it when accidents like that happen?

Since he got kicked to the curb, Charming and Camilla have been dating up a storm. She has been working out like a fiend so that she looks picture perfect in their wedding pictures. I keep reminded her that he has to get divorced before she can marry him, but why on earth would she want to? He’s a loser.

This afternoon, though, Camilla was singing a different tune. Since she’s been spending so much time with him, she is finally seeing that he is indeed an ass. She says she is going to end it with him this week, but she is very sad. The world’s greatest love story, she says, doesn’t have a happy ending. I told her I’ve been trying to tell her for 17 years that their entire relationship was nothing other than a “happy ending” and not a love story. I think now she believes me.

It is what it is. Qu'est-ce que c'est.

Ironically, (and you know how I love when things like that happen), when Camilla called, I had just finished reading the controversial “If I Did It”, the OJ Simpson book that was actually published by The Goldman Family. The salesman in the bookstore wasn’t happy about selling the book, but c’mon...a supposed hypothetical confession from OJ Simpson? The Nancy Drew in me had no choice but to live on the edge, so I bought it for her.

Anyway, my point was that OJ ends his memories with “this is a love story, and like a lot of love stories, it doesn’t have a happy ending.” I’d have to agree with you there, OJ. Definitely not a happy ending.

No big surprise, I found the book to be very captivating. It starts off with a section written by the Goldman Family called “He Did It” explaining how, after a judge agreed that OJ had set up a sham company for this book in order to hide income and thereby not having to pay the Goldman Family the money he owes them, they acquired the rights to the book. They also make a compelling argument for publishing the book. I feel for them. I think if I were in their shoes, I would have published this book, too.

The second section of the book is written by the ghostwriter. OJ didn’t write his hypothetical confession himself, he told it to a reporter. This guy swears that OJ read it several times and made corrections and authorized the final copy. Once the judge took the rights from him, though, he started complaining that the final copy wasn’t accurate and was trying to distance himself from the book.

Finally, after reading the two introductions, Nancy Drew and I get to the part I wanted to read...OJ’s hypothetical confession. Actually, that night in question is a very small part of the book, most of his story is about his and Nicole’s relationship and it’s demise.

Nicole is not portrayed in the best of light in his story. She comes off as very short tempered and downright mean, even slapping his housekeeper. She cheats on him, has drug problems and somehow hangs out with people from Heidi Fleiss’ little black book, druggies and drug dealers. He does say, though, that she is a good mother. Well, except for the sex and the drugs when the kids are in the house. When she does these things with the kids in the house, he gets very frustrated.

This greatly upsets OJ who portrays himself as the oh, so patient husband, father of the year and all around good guy, despite repeatedly having the police at his house for domestic battery issues.

That woman will be the death of me, he thinks.

The first thing I noticed reading this book is that OJ is quite impulsive in the woman department. He tells of his first marriage to Marguerite and how on their 10th wedding anniversary, she announces she was five months’ pregnant and she didn’t think their marriage was working any longer. I was a little surprised that he didn’t realize she was that pregnant, but he claims to have been hurt by this and he went to the mountains or something for two days to think. While having breakfast the next morning, he falls head over heels in love with his 18 year old waitress, Nicole Brown.

There is one matter of fact sentence after that saying that he and Marguerite divorced and that the child she was pregnant with when that happened drowned as a toddler. It's odd to me that he sums up two major life events, a divorce and the loss of a child with one sentence.

He then tells that when he and Nicole separate, he decides to “get back in the game” by dating a Hawaiian tropic model. One time, they were actually busy in the bedroom when OJ’s doorbell rang. Two of his friends had dropped by and brought along one of their friends, a model by the name of Paula Barbieri. OJ says he fell in love with her instantly. So in love, in fact, that he got all of them several rounds of drinks and forgot about the Hawaiian Tropic model patiently waiting in his bedroom until his housekeeper reminded him she was still up there.

He then goes back and forth, reconciling with Nicole but cheating on her with Paula and then ending it again with Nicole and going back to Paula, but cheating on Paula with Nicole. Paula is not happy about all of this and stops answering his calls.
My opinion, there is no doubt in my mind that OJ Simpson committed these murders. I’m even more convinced, if that’s even possible, that’s true after reading his hypothetical confession. I believe that Paula not answering his calls was his straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.

On the night in question, OJ describes his thoughts. Terrible depressive thoughts riddled with rage. He expects us to believe that someone he met a few weeks before named “Charlie” shows up at the house and tells him that Nicole was out slutting around with hookers and druggies on a recent trip she took to Mexico. This sets him off and he decided to take Charlie on a ride to Nicole’s house to “scare the crap out of her”. Charlie keeps begging OJ not to go.

OJ keeps insisting that his kids are in that house and Nicole can’t be doing this stuff with the kids around. It’s for his kids, his kids, his kids.....
They go to Nicole’s house and OJ says he puts on a cap and gloves and grabs a knife he keeps under the seat of his car because of all of the “crazies” in LA. Charlie grabs the knife from OJ and tells him he can’t take it in there so OJ goes in to talk to Nicole knifeless. Just as he walks through the gate, Ron Goldman arrives. Ron just got off his shift at Mezzaluna restaurant and was bringing Nicole’s mom’s glasses, which were left behind at the restaurant.

OJ, though, believes that Ron is a drug dealer coming there to drug up and have sex with Nicole when his kids are in the house. Charlie supposedly gets out of the car with the knife to make sure OJ is ok. Nicole comes out of the house and starts yelling at and hitting OJ. He knocks her to the ground and she loses consciousness. Ron Goldman keeps saying he is just there to return the glasses and OJ admits he becomes enraged, removes a glove and grabs the knife from Charlie’s hand.

The next thing OJ remembers is being covered in blood. He keeps asking Charlie what happened and Charlie never really answers, he just keeps saying something like “Oh Lord, OJ, what have you done”?. Charlie does agree to dispose of the bloody clothes, though.

Let’s face it. There is no Charlie. It’s not uncommon for killers to make up accomplices, but Charlie really sounds like OJ’s conscience talking to him. Charlie exists only in OJ’s mind, kind of like my Nancy Drew.

The rest of OJ’s story is completely believable. Not only is it believable, it actually makes sense as to how this happened. Rage. The fact that he doesn’t describe the killings at all and then is asking some imaginary person what happened, actually convinces me that he snapped and probably can’t remember the details because he’s very good with details before and after the murders, including the routes he took to get there and back.

The most interesting part of the story to me is how OJ repeatedly shows concern over Nicole’s actions in front of the kids which is supposedly what led up to the whole thing, yet he murders the two of them while the kids are in the house sleeping and leaves them there. I think his interest in his kids is total BS. OJ was irate because Paula dumped him because of Nicole. That was the final straw with him.

“If I Did It” was an interesting and fast reading book. I know, it’s surrounded by controversy, but if you are into Nancy Drewing into the minds of people who do things like this like I am, this is a good one.

Psycho killer. Qu'est-ce que c'est.