R. Budd Dwyer was the Treasurer of Pennsylvania and in December of 1986 was convicted on a single charge of bribery. He was awaiting sentencing, a maximum of fifty-five years, although a co-defendant in his bribery case was only sentenced to one year. Still, Budd claimed “Doomsday” was upon him in a letter he wrote to President Reagan asking for a pardon. On January 22nd, 1987, he called a news conference in Harrisburg to give “an update of the situation.” It was being broadcast live on Pennsylvania news outlets. He made a brief statement, passed out three manila envelopes, and then opened his own. He pulled out a .357 magnum revolver, and in the midst of reporters and staffers screaming at Budd to put the gun down, he shot himself on live television. He died instantly. He was forty-seven.
I shared a room with my brother growing up. He has his side of the room and I had mine. He was in control of the clock radio on the nightstand we shared. I’m not entirely sure if he set the alarm, or my father did, but the alarm was set to wake up on KYW Newsradio 1060. We went to sleep to that station on the sleep timer, usually to hear the sports scores. The night of Budd Dwyer’s suicide, I did not watch the local news. Various TV news outlets did not show the entire suicide. Some freeze-framed right before he pulled the trigger. Some cut the video but kept the audio. Others didn’t show anything at all. Now, I didn’t watch the news, but I heard the report on KYW. They played the farewell speech, I heard the cries of “Budd, don’t do it!” and “Budd, listen to me!” right before he pulled the trigger. The gunshot. The profanity-laced shock from everyone who had gathered. It was positively terrifying. How incredibly traumatic that must have been! To hear a live suicide over the radio and have a child process that and hear it over and over again. Especially since I had to make up all the images in my head and imagine the scene. How the hell was I supposed to know what it looked like for real? All I know was that it was bad and he was dead. My imagination was supported the next few days with watching the news, seeing images of Budd before he shot himself, more audio from that news conference, and sounds getting replayed in my head. I knew the guy died. He wasn’t a piece of fiction I could imagine. This guy was now a full-fledged ghost, and now he was coming to get me. Budd Dwyer became the monster in my closet. I had just turned seven years old.
Ok, I didn’t believe that monsters lived in the closet or under the bed. I just thought he came out in the dark. I don’t recall ever mentioning to my brother or my parents that Budd Dwyer, specifically, was coming after me, I just had his face pictured in my brain as the ghost that was going to come out and somehow get me if the lights were out. I don’t even recall how long I was afraid of the dark. But from time to time, the street lights would shine into my room just so, and create a shadowy figure I couldn’t make out. Budd Dwyer! He’s going to get me. Now, I do remember saying those words to myself. “Going to get me.” Exactly what he was going to do to me, I don’t know, but damnit, he was gonna do something. And this went on for a few years, but I kept it mostly to myself. Budd Dwyer was my sworn enemy. The Price of Darkness. I do remember one day that I turned out the lights in my basement intentionally with me standing in the middle of the room. I was standing in the dark and nothing happened. No Budd Dwyer, no random monster came out, no boogey man. And just like that, I was done being afraid of the dark and Budd Dwyer.
I don’t know how the idea came to me, but I was in the computer lab at Penn State Abington in 1999 when I suddenly remembered ol’ Budd. There was no wikipedia back then, so yahoo! search returned some articles about the events leading up to his grand exit. Then, starting at me in the search results, was the video. The news footage that was aired only a handful of times, uncut, uncensored. I had to. I put on headphones and watched in horror. The blood pouring from his nose, the cursing and retching off-camera. No wonder I was scarred. Plus, I found out it inspired Filter for “Hey Man, Nice Shot”. In some perverse way, it was exorcising the Budd Dwyer demons by watching what rattled around in the corners of my mind, in audio form, all these years. I had no nightmares from it, no lasting ill effects. God Bless the Internet.
I do wonder if my nephew will have his Budd Dwyer moment in his young life. For a bunch of youngsters, and even adults, September 11th was ten thousand Budd Dwyers rolled into one. Images from that day still float in and out of my brain from time to time. But Budd was the first. You never forget your first, right? Every now and then when I do turn out the lights, it does catch me for a split second. I don’t worry about Budd Dwyer coming to get me and showing me how his head exploded that Thursday morning in Harrisburg. But I am reminded of how it scared the living shit out of a seven year-old boy that night.
