Crack-Up (18 page)

I glared at the inmate in line behind Fu Manchu, as if to say, “You’re next if you say a word.”

“I’m sorry, Argus!” Sarah said in my ear.
 
“I’m so sorry it has to be like this!”

At last I found my voice.
 
“Et tu, Sarah?
 
Et tu?”
 
I slammed the phone down in its receiver, stepped over the flesh heap on the floor, and walked away, not even caring as I realized that Sarah probably hadn’t caught my allusion.

I couldn’t go home no matter what happened in court the next day.
 
Now the whole world was a jail.

Chapter 18

My arraignment filled the courtroom’s gallery.
 
It felt strange being the focus of the crowd’s attention, rather than vice versa.
 
It felt unjust too.
 
Before the proceedings began, I had to fight an urge to stand up and shout to the courtroom that I’d been set up—deliberately driven mad.

Insanity expert Les Cravey represented me.
 
The key part of my arraignment happened near the end, when Les raised the subject of bail with the judge, Robert Smithers.

The district attorney, Millard T. Barnes—the
T
stands for
Tenacious
, he’ll say in front of the cameras, but it’s actually for
Theobold
—verbosely declared himself, as well as the District of Columbia, opposed to the idea.

Millard T. told the judge that if released, I’d pose an imminent danger to society because I was a paranoid schizophrenic who’d recently demonstrated an inability to take my anti-psychotic medication.
 
He presented to the judge a copy of my blood work from the psychiatric unit, along with a statement from Doctor Woods.

“My client,” Les said, “disputes the allegation.”

“On what grounds?” asked the judge.

“We’re, uh, currently investigating the possibility that his pills were somehow . . . rendered defective.”

Millard T.’s red-hued glare bypassed Les in favor of myself.
 
“Sounds like paranoid talk to me.
 
Have you stopped taking your pills again, Mister Ward?
 
Have you?”

“Mister Barnes,” said the judge.
 
“You’ll direct your comments to the bench.”

“Yes, your honor,” Millard T. said.

“Your honor,” Les said, “it’s well-established that most paranoid schizophrenics are not violent, whether they take their medication or not.
 
If it were otherwise—”

“Most!” Millard T. said.
 
“Most paranoid schizophrenics!
 
But the District has ample reason to believe Mister Ward an exception.
 
Furthermore . . .”
 
He searched his table top, locating a few sheets of paper stapled together, and waved them at Les.
 
“I have an article here, written by a Doctor Geoffrey Van Heusen, an eminent psychiatrist from
Johns
Hopkins
University
, arguing that when violent themes—Violent themes!—enter into the delusions of paranoid schizophrenics, they become very dangerous indeed!”

“Let me see that too,” said the judge.
 
Millard T. made another delivery to the bench, his arms and legs pumping with a strange, robotic grace, his big belly jiggling.
 
A gnat could ski jump off his tie.

“Your honor,” Les said.
 
“Is this really necessary?
 
For decades, my client amassed an unblemished record for being a peaceful and upstanding resident of the state of
Virginia
and the
District of Columbia
.
 
So clearly, when Mister Ward takes his medication, he poses no threat to society.
 
Why not release him, your honor, but require weekly blood tests?”

The judge lifted his bushy-browed eyes from the article he’d just been handed.
 
“Mister Barnes?”

“Too risky, your honor.
 
It’s beyond dispute, within the mainstream psychiatric profession, at least, that schizophrenics will often refuse to believe they are in fact schizophrenics, particularly during periods of relapse.
 
So we can hardly expect that Mister Ward, under his current condition, would abide by the terms suggested by defense counsel.
 
We must wonder whether he would even show up for his blood tests, much less remember to take his pills every day.
 
And therefore, we must conclude that releasing him back into the community would pose a great danger not only to himself, but to the rest of us.”

“Your honor,” Les said.
 
“The district attorney is clearly exaggerating the—”

“I’ve heard enough,” Judge Smithers said and cleared his throat.
 
“Mister Ward’s recent, documented failure to take any medication for his paranoid schizophrenia, when considered in light of the grave charge against him, makes my decision an easy one.
 
Request for bail is denied.
 
The court orders that the accused shall remain in the custody of the District Jail pending his trial for murder.”
 
Bang went the gavel.

I took apologies from Les and a peck on the cheek from my tearful, yet obviously relieved spouse, and soon I was flat on my back on my bunk in my cell, a stunned, open-mouthed, docked fish.
 
My cellmate, for the first time in days, dared to speak.

“I’m a good listener, Argus.
 
A trained listener, with loads of experience too.”

My eyes found Reverend Sam sitting bench-warmer style on his bunk, staring down at me.
 
“I told you never to speak with me, or else.
 
I won’t warn you again, Perv.”

“I’m not a monster,” Reverend Sam said.

“I’ll sure as hell make you look like one.”
 
Sitting up, swinging my feet to the floor, I found anger a splendid relief.

“I’m not even a hypocrite, like they all say.
 
I’ve failed my God, to be sure, but I’ve also served him with a true heart, served him often that way, and nothing can ever change that.”

I stood.
 
Rather than cower, the reverend stood with me, toe to toe.
 
But not to fight.
 
With his arms held limp at his sides, the reverend waited on his beating like a martyr, like the patron saint of all degenerates.
 
He smelled like sour oatmeal.

“I really don’t want to touch you,” I said.

“You’re not a monster either, Argus.
 
You’re just a man, whom God loves unconditionally, like any other.”

“Just a man,” I said.
 
“Not a monster.”

I’d always wanted to believe that.
 
Yet I’d never fully done so, despite what I’d tell myself, and the idea now had never seemed more like a delusion.

“And God loves you,” Reverend Sam said.

My bottom lip trembled.
 
Then more of me trembled, and I wept, and I fought weeping, my hands balling into fists.

I was a mere instant away from lashing out violently when, with pathetic gratitude, I accepted a hug from someone who buggered little boys.

Chapter 19

The next day, more desperate than ever for a single ally, now that I was stuck in jail, I phoned my psychiatrist, Doctor Shields, in
Charlottesville
,
Virginia
, planning to use up all of my daily-allotted minutes with him.

“Say you were trying to drive me insane, Doctor.
 
The first thing you’d do is interfere with my meds, isn’t that right?”

“Whoa, Argus, whoa now, whoa.”

“You could break into my home, if you had to, and switch my pills for look-alike placebos.”

“Placebos.
 
Oh, my soul!
 
Oh, oh, oh!”

“It would work, wouldn’t it?
 
I’d go insane, right?”

“What’s this all about, Argus?”

“Please, Doc, just answer the question.
 
They only give me five minutes a day on the phone in here.”

The doctor cleared his throat.
 
“Using layman’s terminology for ‘insane,’ it’s very likely, given time.
 
A few days, possibly.
 
More likely, weeks.
 
For some, it could be months, even a year.”

“That’s what happened to me, Doctor.
 
Someone switched my pills on me.
 
You’ve got to believe me!
 
You’ve got to help me!”

“I’m here to help, Argus.”
 
But like all the rest, he didn’t believe me.
 
He suggested that my recovery wasn’t yet complete, that all the memories I had of taking my pills each morning were a fabrication, caused by residual paranoia.
 
“Who, after all, would be out to ruin you, Argus?”

“I don’t know.
 
I have no idea, in fact, but shouldn’t that tell you something?
 
If I was still paranoid, I’d have loads and loads of suspects, right?”

He sighed.
 
“It tells me you’re quick, Argus, and quite intelligent, and that you’ve had enough sessions with me over the years to sometimes understand my questioning.
 
It tells me you’re trying to manipulate me with your responses.
 
But I’ve heard that one before.
 
Now let me ask you, how do you feel about—”

I hung up on Doctor Shields.
 
Gave up on him, in fact.
 
Gave up on finding any allies at all.

Why did I feel so sure of my own convictions?
 
In the face of total disbelief from others?
 
Even my loved ones?
 
One factor, I can admit now, was fear.

For more than two decades, I’d lived with the fear that one day I would end up a kind of mental invalid, relying totally on others for my survival.
 
So it was very important to me to believe I could still trust my own mind.

Another factor, and the most significant, was that I hoped to share the blame for the murder I’d been charged with, to wash away some of John’s blood from my own hands.
 
Exactly how much of the blame remained mine alone—if my theory proved correct—I hadn’t worked out yet, much as I tried.

“Sure, I’m able to kill,” I said to Reverend Sam while going through the lunch line the next day, “in self-defense, or in the defense of others, but plain murder is not an easy thing for me to admit I could do, not under any conditions.”
 
With our plastic lunch trays full, we took seats across from each other at one end of a crowded cafeteria table.

“Sane or insane,” Reverend Sam said, “you’re completely capable of murder, Argus.
 
So’s everyone born since Cain.
 
Though few living outside these walls will admit it.”

Quickly, we found ourselves shunned by the inmates we’d joined.
 
One by one, the others inched down the benches in the same direction until a full Teamster’s butt-width had opened to my left and to Sam’s right.
 
It was the pedophile thing, of course.
 
Even criminals had their moral standards, be they drug dealers, thieves, pimps, rapists, or murderers.