By Reason of Insanity

by Shane Stevens

  In one of the wards of a large fenced-in hospital in the northern part of the state, the broadcast marked the actual beginning of a murderous reign of horror and destruction that would shake the sanity of the nation. The ward, radio blaring on that fateful May evening, was the home of Thomas William Bishop, né Owens, age twentyfive.

  Two

  THOMAS BISHOP shut off the radio by his bedside and propped himself higher on the pillow, pounding it into shape. He looked around at the other men in the beds near his, silent figures crouched in sleep under sheets and blue blankets. His eyes closed, affording him escape from his surroundings. He stayed like that a long time.

  “Chessman.” He repeated the word, then a third time, and again and again until the words slung together, exploding from his lips. One eye opened, rolled back and forth in its orbit suspiciously, and snapped shut. The mouth parted, tongue wetting dry lips, then closed tightly. His hands shot up suddenly to cover his ears. With lowered head he formed a litany of the word and while he silently chanted in rhythmic time, his mind raced down strange and devious paths.

  Bishop was fair-haired, the coloring slowly turning lighter over the years. He was of medium height and weight, and handsome enough in a delicate way. His engaging smile, his friendly manner, his easy laugh—when he was disposed to turn them on—all gave him that slightly spoiled youthful male look that modern mothers seek for their daughters and advertisers for their products. That he could also be vicious, coldly calculating and menacing was less noticeable.

  Constant self-evaluation had literally been forced upon him through most of his years in the institution. By trial and error he gradually discovered what attitudes and positions, what facial expressions and voice intonations would bring him what he desired. His intelligence and quick cunning served him well, and there came the time when he believed that he had learned all the rules of survival. But he practiced constantly, always on the alert for some new rule, some new twist he couldn’t understand that would bring him punishment.

  Late at night in the privacy of his bed, alone in the bathroom or on the grounds, wherever he had a moment to himself, he smiled and laughed and raised his eyebrows and puckered his lips and widened his eyes and made all the gestures of friendliness and innocence and sincerity as he had observed them in the attendants and other patients, and on his obsession, TV. Whatever brought reward he adopted, whatever brought disapproval he discarded. In time he was thought to be improving, at least in his adaptability and social performance.

  For all that he gained, however, there was an equivalent loss. He had no spontaneity, no feeling for the moment. His emotions were not tied to his body. He could smile while raging inside, he could laugh while in great pain. Sudden shifts in attitude or meaning always perplexed him and he had to be constantly on guard, ever watchful of others. He was a human robot who reacted to the emotions of others but could never act on his own feelings. In truth, he had no feelings and felt nothing. Except hatred. His hatred was monumental and encompassed virtually everything and everybody. But most of all, he hated where he was.

  For the first four years of his stay at the hospital Bishop had given little indication of any awareness. A ten-year-old who acted much like an infant, he screamed and howled and cringed and noticed nothing of his surroundings, or so it seemed. By the end of the fourth year subtle changes had taken place and he began to open up, to become receptive to outside stimuli. Officials quickly congratulated themselves, without giving most of the credit to the simple passage of time. Whatever the cause, another year and he was seemingly as normal as any fifteen-year-old in matters of obeying orders and taking care of himself

  Eventually there were those who came to feel that he was curable, if not already cured of his youthful insanity. Special attention was given to him, wider areas of knowledge were opened for him. He learned swiftly, of people and places beyond the institution, of history and culture and government and law. It was an exciting time and he was a good student. But it was all useless in the end and served only to frustrate him almost past endurance. He had learned to duplicate emotion, to portray feelings he did not feel, as he had seen on TV, as well as in people around him. He had not yet learned how to conceal what was in his disordered mind. One by one those who had held hope for him reluctantly gave up.

  Then the spasms began. Violent, uncontrollable rage shook his body. He was taken out of the children’s wing and put in an adult ward. He was given numerous shock treatments and vast amounts of drugs. All helped, nothing cured. For two years his body raged. Then, as before, some inner resource took hold of him. The rage subsided, the spasms stopped. Once again he smiled when required, laughed when expected. He was once again a “good boy” who caused no trouble. He was twenty years old.

  At an age when young people look to express themselves, to tell others what is on their minds, Bishop began to study how to conceal what was on his. He found it infinitely harder than faking emotion. There were no patterns, no signs, nothing to tell him if he was doing well or not. Lying didn’t work; it was too easily discovered. Nor did he yet really know how to lie. And he could never be sure of what people wanted to hear. A key was needed, a key that would unlock the mystery of what was expected of his mind. He almost despaired before he found it.

  Like most severely disturbed people who see the world in absolutist terms, Bishop accepted extremes as the way of life. White or black, hot or cold, yes or no, stay or go: it was always one or the other. Opposite poles always had ends, or extremities. To discover, suddenly and without warning, that the center of the pole was considered normal and acceptable and safe; to learn, not through life’s mistakes but in a single instantaneous flash, that people suspected extreme positions, were uncomfortable with them and labeled them unbalanced, set off within Bishop an explosion of insight that quickly fed his animal cunning.

  He had found his key. Moderation, balance, the ability to see both sides, the willingness to compromise. All was suddenly clear. For twelve years he had struggled in darkness, a blind man unable to see the rules. No one had told him, they didn’t want him to know. As long as he was kept in the dark he was not like them. As long as he was not given the key he was in their power. But now he had them. No longer would he be helpless before their laughter, their mockery of him. It was all a matter of the middle of the road.

  Not that it would be easy, he told himself They still knew more than he did, they had infinitely more experience. But he would listen carefully and learn swiftly. Pick a subject, any subject. Food? Sometimes it was better than other times. Football? A rough sport but it had its compensations. Vietnam war? People should be helped up to a point, don’t you think so? That’s it. Play the game, stay away from absolutes, don’t be dogmatic. And never, never tell what’s really on one’s mind.

  Of course he remained convinced of the rightness of his own beliefs. They were the crazy ones, the attendants, the doctors, even the other patients. He was living in madness, surrounded by it, engulfed by it. To get away he had to become like them, he had to become mad. He had already learned how to act like them. Now he must begin to talk like them.

  He knew the food was mostly bad, sometimes inedible. He knew football was disgusting, he disliked any bodily contact. And he knew that he liked to watch all the death and destruction in Vietnam on the TV, liked to hear the daily body count and think of all those people dying. But he was living in a madhouse and he must not stand out with the truth or they would punish him.

  Within six months his key opened certain doors. He was given a battery of psychological tests which he manipulated, showing he was basically of average intelligence with no wide swings of emotion, minimum drive and expectation, and little imagination. He was given a series of aptitude tests which showed that he was just a plodding, somewhat dull person, with all tendencies and abilities within normal parameters—someone who would not fall far or rise high or take large risks.

  For months afterward he would lie in bed going over every delicious detail
of how he had fooled them, how he had shown his superiority by beating them at their own game. Over and over he thought of how stupid they would have felt had they only known it was his brilliance and imagination that allowed him to show no brilliance and imagination. The thought warmed him, and he would fall asleep thinking of being free. If they weren’t careful, he would tell himself, he might just come back someday and kill them all.

  In his thirteenth year at the institution Bishop was given a hearing before a group of staff doctors. He was told that the hearing was informal and carried no official sanction, but he knew that their evaluation of him and final recommendation would be required to open the last door, the one at the entrance gate. He wasn’t worried. All the years of daily contact with the attendants and guards had filled him with a bitter hate, yet this paled before his consummate hatred of the doctors. They held the power of life and death, they could inflict immeasurable pain. They were demons torturing the helpless, but like all monsters they were stupid, they could be fooled.

  All that was needed to fool the doctors, to make monkeys of them, was a superior intelligence. As in all things, Bishop believed himself wiser than anyone. He would outwit the doctors just as he had done on the tests. The experience they had with patients dissembling, the years of studying the intricacies of the mind, the knowledge gained over countless such interviews, all meant nothing to him. He knew how to fake emotion and he knew how to fake the mind. He had the keys.

  In January 1972 the hearing was held. The three doctors listened with kindness and patience. For almost an hour Bishop talked about himself, answered questions, smiled warmly, laughed charmingly. Sitting in the brown leather chair he felt like one of them, eminent, respected, successful. When the hearing was over he thanked them politely and left the room. Going back to the ward, he did a quick two-step and clapped his hands. The attendant, amused at the nonresponsive act, thought him just another nut.

  The doctors had not been amused, nor were they fooled by Bishop. They quickly saw through his deception, his carefully planned pose of impartiality and middle-of-the-road common sense. Tired, defeated in their jobs after the early idealistic years, each thinking himself a failure in his profession and neglected by his peers in private practice, they resented the patient’s obvious belief that he was smarter than they. Beneath the rehearsed exterior they glimpsed the trauma that had gone largely unhealed, the threat of insane violence that lay under the surface. They recognized the faked emotions too, and regarded this as particularly ominous. A man without feeling for his fellow creatures, without a standard of moral conduct, a man raging inside with a lifetime of repressed anger, psychically scarred by years of horrendous suffering in the most formative period of life—such a man, desperate, unpredictable, was no candidate for normal society. Whether he ever would be was highly doubtful. The doctors concurred in their evaluation. Homicidal tendencies, possibly dangerous.

  Bishop was so sure of his performance that he spent the next two days congratulating himself. He had done it, he had again proved his cleverness. Calmly, dispassionately, he had told of his childhood, what little he remembered of it. With huge, innocent eyes he had said there was no anger left in him. Man should live and let live. Killing was wrong, except, of course, when it wasn’t wrong. When was that? Why, when the authorities said so, of course. As for his years in the hospital, he had only praise. He had learned much, he would always be grateful. What had he learned? That people should love each other. He loved everybody, though of course some were easier to love than others. He smiled, his face open, honest, sincere. Yes, he loved everybody.

  When he was told that the doctors had recommended his continued incarceration, he thought a mistake had been made. Someone got the names mixed up. He checked with a staff member. No, no mistake. He couldn’t believe it. Had he not performed brilliantly? Had he not proved he was one of them? The doctors, he felt certain, must surely know that he was as sane as they were. It was all just a silly mistake, it had to be. It had to.

  That night he dreamed of monsters feeding on flesh, and woke up screaming. The monsters were still with him as he ran hysterically through the ward. He was quickly sedated.

  When the realization came that no mistake had been made concerning him, Bishop’s rage was boundless. He thought only of killing. The doctors would be first, those demons who made him suffer so. Kill them. Then the attendants and guards. Kill them. The other patients, the hospital, everything and everybody connected with it. Kill them all.

  His mind dwelled on death and destruction. In his mind’s eye he saw them all dying, painfully, horribly. Again and again he looked, laughing, smiling. He sat on a throne behind a big desk pressing buttons sending pain shooting through them screaming at his feet. He stepped on their heads, crushing them flat like broken eggs oozing on the floor. When he saw enough he just changed the scene but it was always the same. He had the power now, and he was doing all the killing.

  Two days later he set fire to the ward. After bunching some beds together and piling the linen in the middle, he lit matches and fed the flames. The blaze was roaring by the time an attendant raced in. Bishop attacked him with his bare hands, struggling the man to the floor. When they pulled him off, he was still banging the head on the wood slats.

  A half year passed before he was returned to a ward. Locked away in isolation, he made no reply when told that the attendant had suffered a fractured skull. Nothing seemed to matter to him as the spasms once again wracked his body, contorting his features and causing him to howl like an injured animal. During such times he would attack anyone near him and was kept mostly in a camisole. He was given more shock treatments, more chemotherapy. After several months the spasms subsided and gradually disappeared. He had somehow learned again to control his rage.

  His new ward was on the other side of the main building and on a higher floor. A maximum-security ward, it housed those patients who had acted out their homicidal inclinations. Massive doors were always kept locked, the steel-frame windows were iron-barred. Guards with leather thongs seemed to be everywhere. For eight months Bishop lived in that prison, ate its food, cleaned its floors. He thought he was living in hell itself For eight months he slept next to demented animals, and was surprised to find himself alive each morning. When he finally left for another ward in February 1973 he vowed never to return. He would die first.

  Hospital officials, noting his good behavior since the rampage of the previous year, put him in an experimental ward in a new two-story building. Here each bed had a foot locker underneath and a night table. Six-foot plastic partitions separated the rows of beds, giving each man some bit of privacy. And here Bishop lay each night thinking about the mistake he had made, going over it again and again in his mind. He had trusted people to act fairly, to set him free if he became one of them. He had learned to talk like them, learned all their games. But nothing worked for him because they did not want him free. They were afraid of him. He was too smart, too clever to be set free.

  He knew now that he would never get out. They would keep him locked up until he died. There was no hope. And so, hopeless, he began thinking of escape.

  Bishop had been lucky in at least one way. The previous year his spirit had been broken in isolation, but only temporarily. Though some attendants thought it permanent because of his new docility and willingness to cooperate, he knew better. The answer to his problem, he now saw, was not to be like them but to be subservient. Then they would not be frightened of him, not be antagonistic. It was a lesson he did not intend to forget.

  After his release from isolation he became more subdued, more respectful of authority. In the maximum-security ward he promptly carried out the orders of the guards. When others caused trouble he moved away quickly. It was once again an act he was performing, but this time it worked because his new role fit their expectations of him. By the time he was transferred to the new ward it was believed that he had accepted his fate and was settling down to a peaceful existence.

&nbs
p; In his new home Bishop rapidly became a group leader, responsible for the daily actions of several fellow patients. The job pleased him, he had a certain flair for organization. It also gave him more freedom of movement to look around the hospital grounds.

  Had he been an ordinary homicidal maniac or, in the psychiatric language of the hospital staff, a severely disturbed patient with homicidal tendencies, he would have been bothersome perhaps but not particularly dangerous. There were dozens of such men in the institutions. But he was much more. His mother, Sara Bishop Owens, and his father, whoever he might have been, had created a creature with a wonderfully devious brain in a marvelously resilient body. Fate then had turned the boy into a shrewd cunning animal, trapped and badly wounded. By the time he reached his majority Bishop had become brilliantly clever at normal disguise and an expert tactician in matters of survival. He had also become an authentic monster, with no true feelings except hatred and no real goals except destruction.

  In his views of the world and himself Bishop was as insane as would be expected from his tortured life. But when his mind turned to solving a specific problem, his quick animal sense and calculated contempt for normal behavior were as frighteningly precise as a surgeon’s scalpel.

  Propped up on his bed this early May evening, his lips silently chanting Chessman’s name, the problem of escape looked insurmountable to Bishop. He touched the still-warm radio for assurance. All the programs came from outside; even Chessman was outside—he was dead. He would be outside too, but he wouldn’t be dead. No matter how impossible it seemed at the moment, he would escape. His superior mind would do it. He would somehow find a way past the bars and the guards and the gates. He would plan carefully, pick his time and then disappear.

  With eyes closed in concentration, he sorted out the problem in his mind. It divided into three parts: first was to get out of his locked building at night; second was to get across a hundred yards of open lawn to the gate; and third was to get through the gate, always kept locked and guarded. He felt certain he would solve each part. What was not at all certain, once free, was how he would escape detection.