WHAT ROUGH BEAST

Lode Star” is a term that comes from compasses, which are magnetic, and so always point generally to the “vein of ore” in the sky: Polaris, Star of the Evening, friend to sailors—geographic north, the pole the magnetite in pigeons’ brains homes in on. Another name for the North Star is “Cynosure,” which is a person or thing that’s the center of attention.

The cynosure for Proofrock in December was Dark Mill South, who prefers to orient his victims such that they face that same magnetic north, when and if there’s time to set such a tableau—as there was with both Jensen Jones and Wynona Fleming, among others.

As you requested, here I will propose a hypothesis for that com-pulsion. But before I do, no—this in response to your notes on my previous submission—until my report card comes in June, my mother won’t even know I’ve done this independent study with you, Mr. Armitage. So, corollary with that is that I have no reason to have told her that you showed me a clip of that recording of Dark Mill South as Dugout Dick in Elk Bend, which I know must have been an effort to acquire, and no small expense.

To reset, here, though: why would Dark Mill South arrange his victims such that they face north? To answer that, we first have to delve into the understory of the internet, and attempt to settle on which version of him we’re talking about, which, as William Hesseltine says, is akin to trying to nail jelly to the wall.

But I’ll do my best.

As near as I can tell, the different origin theories for Dark Mill South settle into two categories: his Native American heritage, and his relationship with other legendary figures.

That Dark Mill South is on the tribal rolls of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa—the Ojibwe I was talking about in an earlier paper, who are really the Anishinaabe—is fact. Or, I should say, “DM South” is on those rolls.

And here our troubles begin, Mr. Armitage.

• The Birth Certificate. There’s various, and variously manipulated, versions of the birth certificate ascribed to Dark Mill South to be found. None of which actually have either “Dark” or “Mill” in front of “South.” However, there apparently was, at one time, a family with that surname on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. It’s presumed that surname is a transliteration of a different and more meaningful name held by someone at the turn of the previous century, when former naming conventions were “normalized” by people not familiar with the culture or the language. Of fervent interest online is the date all of these versions of that birth certificate share—“1912”—making Dark Mill South, if he is indeed “DM South,” 107 years old at the time of his rampage through Proofrock. It’s because of this date that Dark Mill South is often made out to be the Native version of the Wandering Jew, cursed to walk the earth until the Second Coming.
• The Dakota 38, whom Abraham Lincoln ordered hanged en masse—about which we’ve already spoken. Proponents of this theory cast Dark Mill South as one of those thirty-eight, risen to seek justice for him and his wrongly convicted fellow tribesmen. That accounts of that day stop with the hangings, and don’t document what was done with the bodies afterward, only adds credence to this theory for true believers, in that it allows a vast open space from which one lone Dakota can climb up from the mass grave, or the ashes of the bonfire, his chest heaving, his eyes dark, his hands clenching into fists, his murderous gaze roving from sea to shining sea.
• The Boarding School. As is no secret anymore, the policy of stealing Native American children and forcing them into Christian curriculums at residential schools was deplorable, as was the policy to “kill the Indian, save the man” by doling out punishments for speaking Native languages, for wearing their uniforms incorrectly, for practicing forbidden religions—the list goes on. Note that this theory is in dialogue with the previous one, in that it also has Dark Mill South climbing up from the grave he was disposed in—presumably after having died as a result of neglect, starvation, sexual abuse, and loneliness—and then, in a graft from the Birth Certificate theory, walking the earth until he’s gotten adequate revenge on all the “black robes” who killed him, his fellow abductees, and his culture, all in the name of their god. As for how those who would have Dark Mill South be at war with the church explain his seemingly arbitrary, opportunistic killings: a child of the boarding school system, who had never seen white people until the moment of his abduction, would naturally assume that since the clergy abusing him was white, that “white” was then the defining characteristic of the enemy.

Though I of course want to respect Native American tradition and sentiment, Mr. Armitage, common sense dictates that all of these theories have to come down to wishful thinking. I don’t say this to demean or reduce, but to posit the likelihood that there’s a more rational explanation.

But before we get there, we have to get more irrational for a moment:

• The Golem, which is another graft from Judaism. This is the hulking protector or “revenger” that gets pitted against those who would harm or oppress the Jewish people. Made of clay, supernaturally strong, and animated by magic, the Golem is a fearsome presence, to be sure, but also something of a mindless automaton, in that it’s controlled by the wronged and desperate person who raised it—and nearly always, of course, loses control of it, leaving it to, as Dark Mill South does, rampage until forcibly stopped.
• Grendel, the monster of the Old English poem Beowulf. Grendel is less a rampager, more a ravager—specifically, of Heorot, a mead hall and occasional dormitory for warriors. Like the Golem, Grendel can only be stopped with force, by someone pure of heart and intention. Dark Mill South being identified with Grendel, then, is of course an indictment of law enforcement, in that, were any of them pure of heart and intention, then Dark Mill South would have been stopped years ago, rather than ducking into state after state, and killing at will.

However, taking Occam’s Razor into account, we have to ask not what’s the most fantastic explanation, but the simplest? Yes, Sherlock Holmes famously tells us that “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” but I humbly submit that what’s left after eliminating the preceding “impossible” explanations for Dark Mill South is, in fact, not all that improbable.

Monsters happen, Mr. Armitage.

I don’t need to tell you of all people this.

And so I hang my argument on a single, ill-focused snapshot, only purported to be Dark Mill South:

• The Video Store. In this snapshot’s foreground is the intended subject: a brother and sister, probably twins, between eight and ten years old, enacting a tug of war between a clamshell videotape case of The Fox and the Hound (1981). That neither of their hands even slightly covers the title is our indication that this is being posed by a parent. But the children are not our subject, Mr. Armitage. Behind them, left of center, standing behind the rental counter, is a hulking Native American man, for this instant happening to be staring directly into the lens, as if challenging it. Though his long hair leaves most of his face in shadow, his eyes are sharp glints of white in there, and his height, assuming the rental counter is standard, is well over six feet.

This snapshot surfaced online during the first year of Dark Mill South’s trial. Presumably one of these twins, now adults, recognized him on the news, dug through an old photo album from the attic, snapped a picture of a picture, and put it on social media. Early comments surrounding it and its repostings are mostly about trying to fit this video store job into Dark Mill South’s known timeline.

Since that timeline is so difficult to establish, though—he was probably in Minnesota in the nineties, and he was in Utah by 2015, so he must have crossed the vast Midwest at some point, perhaps procuring work in a video store along the way—interest in this snapshot of unknown provenance fizzled, and it became a curiosity, another maybe, and so got relegated to less and less visited pages and sites.

But?

When we take into account the horror movie associations with Dark Mill South’s killings in Proofrock, I submit that this snapshot is perhaps revealing, in that it provides a time in his life in which he could have familiarized himself with the films he would eventually emulate.

So, I said we had to first settle on a version of Dark Mill South we could believe in. This last one makes the most sense to me. Or, at least, it doesn’t break any rules of nature, or require magical thinking. When video rental stores were common, people did work at them. Even Native Americans.

But how does this version of Dark Mill South inform his compulsion to face his victims north?

Though I prefer novels and reading to film and television, I do nevertheless know that a certain novel has been adapted to film multiple times.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).

If the adaptations are faithful to the novel—and I assume they are, as why stray from what works?—then Dark Mill South the video store clerk could well have taken one such adaptation home, and been not just enchanted with it, but programmed by it. In the novel’s final act, Victor Frankenstein pursues the Creature north through Europe, into Russia, and then beyond, onto the Arctic Ocean, after which the Creature would seem to be heading to the North Pole.

Above which, of course, sits a certain star.

Dark Mill South, perhaps already dimly aware that the world was looking at him as a similar “Creature,” could have identified with Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, in that both of them had been ill-treated by the world, largely for their imposing size, and presumed violent natures—Native Americans being attractive in the nostalgic sense so long as they pose no threat.

So, arranging his victims such that they would stare north, then, could be Dark Mill South asking them to understand him, Mr. Armitage. To watch him, lonely and alone, leap from ice floe to ice floe, receding into the cold fog, removing himself from human society once and for all.

But, of course, he didn’t ask just one or two people to sit there and understand his plight.

He needed a whole theaterful.