As the Title Implies

Readers expecting the title of T.C. Boyle’s short story “Baby Killers” to be in any way incongruous with the mood of the story will surely be disappointed. Boyle’s storyline is as eerie as its title implies. Rick, a recently-released-from-rehab drug addict has been getting in trouble with the law for pretty much his entire life. His ultimate foil is his brother Philip, an uptight doctor who grudgingly allows Rick to stay with him and his family following his release. Although the dreary Detroit atmosphere described in the first few pages creates a dismal image on its own, Rick’s first day at work with Philip generates a bona fide creepiness that never seems to leave “Baby Killers”. In fact Rick’s first words concerning his new job are, “Liar, thief, crackhead- those were names I’d answered to at one time or another. Murderer was something else.” These bizarre thoughts are in effect to the sinister protesters who stand outside his brother’s abortion clinic roughly 24/7. “Baby Killers”, “Nazis”, they shout as if they were proclaiming the words of Jesus Christ himself. In the midst of this chaos, Rick becomes
fascinated with Sally, a heartrending, frightened, and lonely girl who visits the clinic a few times practically held hostage by her I-mean-business mother. It is clear that Rick identifies with those same emotions Sally so blatantly reveals. Sally seems to offer Rick a little grace in his dreary and motionless life. Boyle’s descriptive details offer important images to the reader, greatly enhancing his message. For example, it is apparent that there are certain bigoted fundamentalists who feel the need to force their views on others. Boyle however, takes his descriptions of the protesters to a more extreme level. Describing a particularly repugnant man, he states, “In all that chaos he just stood there rigid at the bumper of the car, giving me a big rich phony Jesus- loving smile that was as full of hate as anything I’d ever seen, and then he ducked down on one knee and handcuffed himself to the bumper”. The reader realizes exactly what Rick was dealing with and it is far easier to feel how Rick himself if feeling. The graphic descriptions and sense of eeriness harkens back to Boyle’s short story “Chicxuclub”. In both stories Boyle unleashes a sense of dread, shock, and sympathy that combine into confusion concerning what Boyle was really trying to say. Each character is described as almost as equally guilty as the next. In fact, the last actions of “Baby Killers” place Rick on the same playing field as the allegations directed towards him in the first place by the protesters. As such, readers might find themselves experiencing a little bit of that same sense of guilt.