Novel Meets Evil - Season 01 Episode 07 - MINISODE - "The Lonely Ones" Ray Bradbury meets Orville Weyant

The stories that scare often have a thread of truth in them. Sometimes there's much more than a thread, like when a story is based on a real person or series of crime. You'd never expect truth from Ray Bradbury one of the greats of American speculative-fiction. But in 'Dandelion Wine', Bradbury's debut novel, there's very little sci-fi or spec-fic to be found. He did, however, create one of the creepiest throwaway characters of his career with the coolest villain name: The Lonely One.

As it turns out, The Lonely One was based on a real figure from Bradbury's childhood -- a cat-burglar and boogeyman that scared the you-know-what out of any kids growing up in the area of Waukegan, IL, Bradbury's childhood home. This minisode holds both figures up to the light and we see what's similar and what's unique to each of these creeps. 

Episode Notes:

• NOVEL -  Ray Bradbury's 'Dandelion Wine' [ 00:00-11:15]
• Childhood Boogeymen [11:15-14:10]
• EVIL - Orville Weyant [14:10-27:00] 

Links:

• Check out this great radio play based on this character of The Lonely One.
• Dandelion Wine on Audible
• Free recording of 'Dandelion Wine' on YouTube

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Transcript

Ray Bradbury is in my top five writers

ever to put Finger to typewriter whether

it's a story about men exploring Mars or

time traveling to hunt dinosaurs or

simple

murder it's always about something else

the setting is a bucolic 1950s American

town the Drone of lawnmowers and peewee

baseball games screen doors creaking and

slapping shut over the distant tinkle of

the ice cream truck Flags l in a lazy

Breeze as girls and boys jump to catch

fireflies and bring them home in

jars Bradbury used such a setting to

play out many of his most Sinister

pieces of non-speculative fiction in

several pieces he called it Greentown a

substitute for his hometown of Wan

Illinois but he made it clear that

Greentown could be any small mid-century

suburban American town a universal local

that many many readers will relate to

and an unexpected place for a Horror

Story therefore what better place as an

aside I realized that below the surface

of the idealized 1950s American scene

was an entire culture that was not cozy

or safe because of the color of their

skin where everyday mistreatment was the

norm not Shadows left over from Jim Crow

But continuing in the subsequent decades

getting a little better each year that

is not not the horror story Bradbury

writes about in dandelion wine and in

that sense it is of its

time small American towns have their

boogeymen partly influenced by writers

like Bradbury and Stephen King who use

picturesque settings like King's Castle

Rock as backdrops for Tales of Menace

and horror the key to good fiction

writing in my opinion is to transport

the reader to a new world to take them

someplace they've never been or just see

the normal world in a new way I

see the world differently after a good

story as if I've actually been to some

new place that's why I read and I hope

you get the same magic out of it not

just to escape reality but to add depth

and wonder to our own lives Bradbury is

a master of wonder whether it's a story

set in the ruins of an ancient Martian

City or an unexceptional Midwestern town

where a Madman runs loose the point of

suspense story classic Hitchcock films

TV crime shows cozy murder mystery

novels set in small English fishing

villages is one unshakable thought a

faceless threat could be lurking just

behind your perception around the next

Bend as you walk home alone at night

Beneath The Echoes of your own Footsteps

in the alley crouching in the shadows of

the hedges in front of your house it

could be anywhere and before you know it

you're leaping up the front steps and

fumbling for your key keys and once

you're inside you slam the door and lock

it and wait someone inside says

sweetheart are you okay you look like

you've seen a ghost you have Hitchcock

and king and Ray Bradbury to thank for

that but Ray Bradbury’s dandelion wine

is not a great book but it needed to be

written for him to get to who he would

become it's fine for what it is what

they call a fixup novel consisting of a

collection of short stories Loosely

linked together in a sequel

that makes enough sense but it's short

stories not novels that made Bradbury a

master on par with Alfred Hitchcock even

Hitchcock said as much within the novel

dandelion wine is a Bradbury story that

is not about Martians or time machines

or robot houses coming to life it's a

short story called The Whole Town's

sleeping and it makes the whole thing

worthwhile for this discussion we can

toss the rest of the book and focus on

the story of a killer on the loose where

the women of Greentown your town are

vulnerable and prayed upon by a phantom

known as the lonely one an

excerpt and death was the lonely one

unseen walking and standing behind trees

waiting in the country to come in once

or twice a year to this town to these

streets to these many places where there

was little light to kill one two three

women in the past 3 years that was

death dandelion

wine quick diversion but I promise it's

related this is really Niche but one of

my guilty pleasures is listening to old

radio plays shows like suspense and

Escape think the Twilight Zone but

written for the

radio suspense in the 1950s included

such talented voices as Orson Wells

Henry Fonda Humphrey Bogart Bella Lugosi

Judy Garland Vincent Price Jimmy Stewart

Gregory peek Kirk Douglas Boris Karloff

Bob Hope Bert Lancaster Lana Turner

marlina dietric Ronald Reagan Mickey

Rooney Tony Curtis Lena horn Cary Grant

and Agnes Moorhead remember that

name I've always rolled my eyes at the

dorky collectors of old memorabilia and

comic books but I think I've reached

Peak geekdom with 1950s radio dramas but

just imagine if in the 2020s every

living Oscar nominated actor comes

together making 30 episodes of Black

Mirror written by the best living

writers and directed by Tarantino and

Scorsese and Nolan gathered around a

transistor radio to be whisked away into

imagination by the best living suspense

and horror writers and for free except

for the cigarette and aftershave

commercials Tom Cruz smokes Winston

unfiltered cigarettes because Winston

tastes good like a cigarette should I

was fortunate to stumble upon the August

31st 1958 broadcast of suspense the

whole town sleeping based on Bradbury's

short story The blurb is as

follows the famous story about the

lonely spinster walking across a dark

Ravine at night with a killer on the

loose a small Midwestern Town lying

asleep in the Moonlight of midnight

could anything be more familiar more

peaceful more safe certainly not unless

Ray Bradbury is writing about it for his

is a typewriter of Terror and once again

it has pounded out a tail not only

calculated to keep you in suspense but

likely to cost you a night or two of

sleep the lonely one has already killed

at least 12 women in green toown by the

opening of the whole town sleeping every

mom and dad and kid every vulnerable old

lady is aware of the Ravine in the the

center of town and the killer they call

the lonely one we follow several older

spinsters who had planned a night at the

movies across town until learning that

their friend Eliza Ramel had been found

dead and posed in the open Moonlight

that night in the Ravine one of the

ladies levinia nebs admonishes the

others for being so silly to live in

fear she suggests they go to the movies

anyway the lonely one be damned the

other ladies find levinas joking about

the murder in poor taste and her

decision to walk home alone through the

Ravine to be tempting fate levinia

scoffs and makes for the Steep steps

that lead down into the

Ravine what was

that she hears the echo of her own

footsteps clearly but now there is

something

else another set of footsteps that

disappears anytime she stops

walking she grows more and more

convinced she is being followed and

moves quickly through the dark green

Shadows where more than a dozen women

have been found murdered and she curses

her hard-headed insistence to take this

way home as opposed to the safer way

under the street

lights soon she finds herself sprinting

up The Path on the opposite side still

waiting to be attacked by the lonely one

but she's catching her breath in front

of her house and there's no one

around The Whole Town's sleeping if you

will she shakes her head you silly

girl and descends the steps to her front

door when behind her in the dark someone

clears his

throat later in dandelion wine the

neighborhood boys see a body taken out

of the nb's house and surprisingly it is

not a woman's body but a man's linia had

stabbed him with a pair of scissors the

local boys don't want to believe the

lonely one is dead after all he was such

a perfect

Boogeyman it's also not surprising that

the character of the lonely one was

inspired by a real life Criminal Who

terrorized Bradbury's childhood Hometown

when he was 6 years old welcome to the

evil

section today we're delving into an

intriguing subplot that has perplexed

book dorks and investigators alike

hidden within the pages of a classic

novel that most people have never heard

of dandelion wine by the legendary

author Ray Bradbery in this debut novel

Bradberry introduces is a subplot that

left many of us puzzled and haunted and

it is the best moniker for a villain

I've ever heard even creepier than the

shape in Halloween if you read John

Carpenter's screenplay the character of

Michael Myers was written as the shape

not his name but it's better than the

shape anyway bradberry's novel kind of

sort of revolves around this character

named the lonely one but there's

something most readers don't know the

master of the maab and the Fantastic may

have drawn inspiration from a very real

albeit obscure criminal figure a figure

that struck fear into the hearts of

residents in Bradbery's hometown of Wan

Illinois maybe you could call it

Greentown while Bradberry never

explicitly mentioned a name it was

evident that the lonely one was inspired

by a realife cat burglar who played a

chilling role in the author's childhood

oh being scared to death in childhood

what a magical creative Haze were in as

kids as a creative weirdo kid everything

was so intense like loading your mind

into a giant Daydream slingshot to who

knows where you just better hope you're

aiming at something fun and not

something

terrifying throwing Nightmare on Elm

Street at a 10-year-old kid can be a big

mistake I speak from experience I am an

HSP highly sensitive person which I know

sounds like some woow woo scientific

deepok Chopra but it was a

revelation to me when I learned it

you're not actually a wimp I've pulled

people out of car accidents chased away

a mountain line been held up at gunpoint

multiple times but unexpected things bad

and good hit way harder when you're

genuinely in HSP I should never have

Childhood Boogeymen.]

been exposed to what I'm about to tell

you but it was as the song goes nobody's

fault but my

own my brother had a combination

Halloween 13th birthday party at the

same Mansion where I took oral painting

and piano anal lessons as a kid I was 9

years old one room was dedicated to

playing VHS movies on a loop Halloween 1

and Halloween 2 I've always loved

throwing an obstacle in front of myself

just to see what happens and this time

it wasn't good I can't stress that

enough as the credits rolled from

Halloween 1 I thought you know what you

just did idiot you just created for

yourself two straight years of the worst

nightmare ever I knew this and yet when

Halloween 2 began I sat in the same spot

for 2 hours and just let it stream into

me my creative mind was forming

electrical connections and haunted roads

I spent years of therapy trying to

bulldoze until I realized I could use

them

creatively I wish I had known that early

on for the next 2 years I would keep my

bedroom window cracked even when it was

snowing so I could hear Michael Myers if

he came up my block he never did but I

knew he would when I wasn't looking my

parents and I said prayers before I went

to sleep every night that no knife

wielding psychopath would sneak into my

house and into my bedroom at night now I

lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my

soul to keep something something hold on

let me ask her and for the record she's

getting Michael Myers mixed up with

Freddy Krueger but who hasn't done

that oh my gosh when our son was little

he unfortunately watched a movie he

should never have watched called

Halloween I think it was and he was so

scared of that uh guy um Freddy Krueger

I guess was his name and it was so long

ago I hardly remember the names but

because he has just such a

sensitive Soul it really affected him

tremendously and so every night before

he would settle down to go to bed we had

to say multiple prayers to keep Freddy

Krueger out of our house out of our

neighborhood protect our son uh can't

let him get get to him I was it was an

incredible uh eye opener for us that he

was such a sensitive

guy I couldn't go into a video store for

2 years because Michael Myers was on the

cover of the display VHS tape Michael

Myers the shape my lonely

one but was the lonely one

real check this out Orville Wyant not a

EVIL - Orville Weyant.27:00]

great horor moniker buddy an unassuming

fellow with a penchant for lawlessness

bore a striking resemblance to the

character known as the lonely one in

Bradbury's novel though Bradbury never

explicitly named Wyant the parallels

between the two are undenied iable in

the late 1920s Orville an old railroad

stoker by trade embarked on a crime

spree that saw him break into an

astonishing 33 businesses gas stations

were his usual Target where he lightened

the load of many a till and swiped goods

from stor shelves but what set Wyant

apart from common burglar was the notes

he left behind signed with the ominous

moniker the lonely one yes his modus

operandi was to leave behind three

distinct letters one was addressed to

the business owner a chilling

acknowledgement of their Misfortune

another found its way to the local Press

A sly tactic to ensure that his exploits

received adequate coverage the third and

perhaps most unsettling note was meant

for the police a not so subtle PR urging

them to improve their investigation

prowess this was 40 years before the

Zodiac but he was already zodiac and UNT

fortunately for this crook fortunate for

w Keagan 8 months into his audacious

spree Orville Wan's criminal Enterprises

sort of hopped off the rails in a daring

break-in at a hardware store in Ray's

quaint Hometown Wyant swiped a pistol

but was suddenly cornered by the police

he faced a grim Choice attempt to escape

surrender under the condition that the

wagan police would show him some

leniency in those days law enforcement

had considerable latitude in the

treatment of suspects especially of the

Caucasian persuasion suicide by cop

or just then in a desperate bid to avoid

confrontation he put the gun to his own

head threatening

suicide like any crook caught in this

situation Wyant was probably aware that

some rough handling awaited him on the

way to the station think billy clubs

they call it the old wood shampoo

nevertheless he chose

surrender once apprehended in his

identity revealed the Press unveiled the

full extent of Wan's audacious spree

starting from February 1st 1928 33

businesses broken into and robbed and to

the police department's Chagrin the

public found humor in the apparent

ineptitude of the police in their

attempts to thwart him as pointed out in

his letters think of the wake of fear

left by an honest to goodness local

boogy man the lonely

one after just over a year Behind Bars

Orville Wyant sought parole though Wyant

had occasionally fired shots at the

police his actions on the night of his

arrest were notably nonviolent some

heavy disses by police chief Tom Kennedy

who labeled Orville as nothing more than

a run-of-the-mill punk led to him being

denied

parole there's one more connection of

note that only makes sense in context of

the Orval Wyant story when the levinia

nebs character in the whole town

sleeping within dendelion wine

approaches the Ravine alone at night the

Killer is still on the loose having

killed that very

night who does she run into on the

street one officer

Kennedy and he's

whistling he offers to accompany her

home and levinia strong willed as ever

says no thank you she'll be fine alone

he says okay he tells her to holler if

she needs any help down there officer

Kennedy yeah here's an excerpt just cuz

I love the way he

writes levinia nebs walked alone down

the midnight street down the late Summer

Night silence she saw houses with the

dark windows and far away she heard a

dog

barking in 5 minutes she thought I'll be

safe at home in 5 minutes I'll be

phoning silly little

Francine she heard a man's voice a man's

voice singing far away among the trees

oh give me a June night the Moonlight

and you

she walked a little faster the voice

saying in my arms with all your

charms down the street in the dim

Moonlight a man walked slowly and

casually

along I can run knock on one of those

doors thought linia if I

must oh give me a June night sang the

man and carried a long Club in his hand

the Moonlight and

you well look who's here what a time of

night for you to be out Miss

nebs officer Kennedy and that's who it

was of course I'd better see you home

thanks I'll make it but you live across

the

Ravine yes she thought but I won't walk

through the Ravine with any man not even

an officer how do I know who the lonely

one

is no she said I'll hurry I'll wait

right here he said if you need any help

give a yes H voices carry good here I'll

come running thank you she went on

leaving him under a light humming to

himself alone here I am she thought the

Ravine I do like the book I'm not saying

that I like the way it captures a Young

Person's view on the innocence of Summer

and sunlight and hanging out with

Grandpa and all that stuff but I could

never really understand the meaning of

this creepy subplot or or why the author

included it in the book at all every

small town has its ghost story it's

Boogeyman the thing that keeps kids

awake at campfires Bradbery never came

out and said it never gave a name but

come

on he wrote in the intro to dandelion

wine entitled just this side of

bizantium

was there a lonely one there was and

that was his name and he moved around at

night in my hometown when I was 6 years

old and he frightened everyone and was

never

captured obviously the last part's not

true he had to have known

that true crime enthusiasts literary

afficionados laww enforcement I think we

can all agree that Orval wyant's most

extraordinary Legacy Remains the

handiwork of someone else in this case

his immortalization in the pages of a

pretty good debut novel by a promising

young

writer Mr Ray

Bradbury don't be scared subscribe to

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