Ed Kemmick
Just when I thought the endless winter of 2013-14 was going to do me in at last, I was saved by a ray of sunshine from Butte, America.
The sunshine was a story from the Montana Standard, published in the Billings Gazette, that was headlined: “Man accused of breaking into home, ordering porn — again.”
As if that wasn’t good enough, there was a mug shot of the accused attached to the story, and he was wearing this crooked little smile that seemed to say, “Hey, it’s a weird habit, but what are you gonna do?”
It seems that Darwin James Bailey was arrested on Feb. 23 after a homeowner found him in his garage (the homeowner’s garage, not Bailey’s) watching porn and smoking cigarettes.
When Bailey was already in jail on that charge, prosecutors charged him with breaking into another house back on Jan.2 There, they say, he ordered three porno movies on a pay-per-view channel and stole about 20 DVDs.
The Standard continued: “Women’s clothing not belonging to the wife also was found in the bedroom. Authorities believe Bailey’s girlfriend may have joined him for the viewing.”
I think by “the wife,” the Standard meant the spouse of the alleged homeowner. At any rate, what the hell? They’re saying he invited his girlfriend along on this latest outing, and that she left clothing behind?
In the earlier incident, the owner of the garage said that after he confronted the smoking burglar who was allegedly viewing porn, the perp ran down the street wearing only bib overalls and no shoes. In January, in Butte.
But at least he had bib overalls on. Another recent story said that on March 1 in Butte — the high that day was 2 below — a woman was awoken about 3:30 a.m. by a naked man frantically banging on her door.
She reported that the man said to her, “I know I’m naked. This is embarrassing. I was attacked down the street and I’m being chased by a guy with a gun.” I suppose it was reassuring to hear that the man knew he was naked and that he was embarrassed, but still.
The Butte-Silver Bow County sheriff told a reporter that “a male came to the house where this guy was with a female and this guy got scared and ran out of the house naked.” The clincher was that the sheriff also quoted the man as saying, “They said come down to Butte for a good time.”
Anyway, Butte. God I love that town. Heaven knows Billings has enough crime news, but our bad guys tend to be pretty mean, with few redeeming qualities. We have drug rings moving meth into the Bakken, 12-time DUI offenders driving with carloads of kids and a newspaper that runs a monthly online rogues gallery of exceedingly unfriendly mug shots.
Poor Missoula has the newlywed who pushed her husband off a cliff. You know your crime scene is depressing when Nancy Grace is all over a local crime, as Nancy was on this one.
But I don’t recall that we, or Missoula, have ever had a happy-go-lucky, porn-watching, cheap-date burglar like Bailey is alleged to be. Or a guy who is chased down the street buck naked by a gun-wielding cuckold and then laments that anyone ever told him that the city in question was a great place to look for a good time.
So thank you, Butte, and Darwin Bailey and naked man, for bringing a little sunshine into this gloomy and endless winter.
