Insurrections (22 page)

By some estimates, there has been an almost 1,000% increase in the number of diagnosed cases in the past ten years. This shocking increase has inspired many theories, but no definitive one as yet. Extreme cases, such as the one discussed in this study, are, for reasons not yet fully understood, becoming more common.

6
. R. Burns et al., “Undoing the Descent of Man: New Effective Approaches in Treating Reverse Evolution,”
American Pharmacological Concerns Quarterly
, Fall 2014, 1–14. We find the Meratti report to be a self-serving piece of corporate propaganda that only aims to absolve Meratti of any responsibility toward Smith. After his capture, he was treated with a cocktail of medications and briefly became part of an ill-conceived study of Panofil, an untested Meratti Pharmaceuticals product. This medication, we believe, likely accelerated the progress of the disorder and should not be administered to anyone who suffers from Reverse Animalism without further study. Meratti, Inc., predictably disagrees.

7
. The subject admitted to grabbing the young woman's backside but claimed it was an unfortunate accident. Never having much coordination, he told school officials at the time of the incident, he lost balance during a game of basketball and fell. His arms went flailing about and landed on the young woman's “butt cheeks.” Later he changed his story, claiming that his fall was the result of “horsing around” with other males in the class. In other words, he was pushed. His alternative explanation was that there was a second groper, who took advantage of his fall to stealthily fondle the woman and place the blame on him. These interpretations of the day in question are much disputed by the young woman and eyewitnesses. Several close acquaintances have said that Louis, before he stopped speaking, claimed that he accosted the young woman out of boredom. After a lengthy investigation, a second malefactor was never discovered, and school officials determined that no one else was involved in his fall. Having examined the record and interviewed hundreds of people, both intimately and tangentially connected to young Louis Smith, the authors of this study have concluded that the boredom motive is the most persuasive.

8
. The speaker, who served as a gym teacher while the subject attended District Central Senior High School, is the only DCSHS official who admitted to knowing Louis well, and even he said that their interactions became rare once Louis began to withdraw.

“He seemed like he wanted to be left alone,” the gym teacher recalled. “So I left him alone.”

9
. After some debate, the authors have decided to leave Frank's vulgarities uncensored. We believe that, while potentially offensive, they serve to evoke the world that was slipping from young Smith's comprehension.

10
. Carson has a different memory of the occasion and insists, rather angrily, that it was actually Frank who made the “fondle any girls' butts lately” quip. The authors are not interested in determining who said what on that day. Based on interviews we have conducted, we are satisfied that it occurred in some form and feel that it is a good example of the isolation that Louis Smith felt at District Central after his return. We use Frank's description of this particular incident because it is the most evocative, not because we feel it is more true than Carson's or, for that matter, anyone else's description.

11
. This description is not ours. Like everything else in this study, it is derived from interviews and a careful perusal of available public records.

12
. One of the key differences between animals and humans is that animals seem to lack declarative memory, the memory of facts. There are two types of declarative memory: semantic and episodic. Semantic memory comprises facts that exist independent of time and place—when a person recalls that the Earth is round, she is using this type of memory—while episodic memory comprises facts dependent on time and place; when a person recalls the
moment
he learned that the Earth is round, he is using this type of memory.

Declarative memory is distinct from procedural memory, the memory required to do things that feel relatively automatic, such as walking, sitting, or riding a bicycle. This is the way an animal learns to stay away from a hot stove after a burn, even if that animal lacks the language to describe pain or the understanding of time and space that would allow it to create a narrative out of being burnt.

These separate types of memory reside in different parts of the brain. BEPs appear to completely lose their declarative memory, and their procedural memory also appears to devolve. How or why this happens is not fully understood.

Animals call on procedural memory when performing simple tricks. In fact, we managed to teach Louis, while he was in captivity, to knock twice on the floor to signal his pleasure with a meal and three times to signal his displeasure. Attempts to teach Louis simple sign language, however, failed, as did attempts to have him relearn basic words such as
da-da
.

13
. This is no doubt an example of Louis's procedural memory warning him of danger, as his instincts
remembered
the pain of being shunned by high school peers.

14
. Regrettably, the woman in question declined to be interviewed for this report. We had hoped to discuss the incident with her and achieve a fuller understanding of what actually transpired, but we are able to infer certain things from the police report and interviews with homeless people who witnessed the incident from the moment Louis woke until his arrest. Louis at the time was not completely lost in his bestial personality, as he still wore clothes. According to the description provided by the police, he wore a brown sports coat over a navy blue T-shirt. He also wore tattered blue jeans and nothing on his feet. We assume his clubbing days were behind him.

We cannot be certain, but we believe he did not mean to attack the woman. Primitive humans, like their simian counterparts, often showed affection by grooming one another. This consists in part of picking insects out of each other's hair. It is not inconceivable that upon seeing a pretty woman, Louis rushed to show affection by grooming her. Being a modern woman, she naturally became frightened by such attention.

15
. Circling Louis was a risky move and could have ended disastrously. This is where a better understanding of the disorder is imperative, for it will lead to sounder methods of capture that will be safer for BEPs, rescue workers, and the community. It is not an exaggeration to state that the Cross River police, like many police departments across the country, approach most situations with their guns drawn and their fingers poised on the trigger, particularly if the suspect is, like Louis, African American. If police understand that a suspect is suffering from Reverse Animalism, they can use techniques of capture that do not involve killing or maiming. The authors believe police departments across the country should be trained to recognize the disorder and safely subdue suspects who may be suffering from it.

A 2012 study of the CRPD conducted jointly by researchers at Harvard University and Freedman's University in Cross River (H. A. Colmes and Marjorie Ray, “Trouble in ‘Black Paradise': Examining Race and Violence in the Cross River Police Department,”
CrimCon
26, no. 3 [2012], 42–59) found that officers in Cross River, regardless of race, were more likely to use excessive and deadly force against African American and Latino suspects. It was determined that the CRPD, a largely African American force, was seventeen times more likely to use deadly force against minority suspects than similarly sized police departments. We do not intend to turn this study into an indictment of the CRPD. It is to their credit that Louis was not shot and killed during his capture.

Accepted techniques for subduing a Backwardly Evolved Person are not unlike techniques police already employ to capture wild animals. The use of stun guns, nets, and even tranquilizer darts can be very effective.

16
. The stages of the disorder are the subject of ongoing debate. We have outlined them as we understand them:

• Stage I: BEPs withdraw from social activities. A preference for animal company over humans emerges, as well as an exaggerated empathy for animal suffering coupled with coldness toward human suffering. BEPs start showing a lack of control over base desires. Memory starts to fail.

• Stage II: BEPs may begin to mimic the behavior of domesticated animals. Activities such as eating pet food and forgoing the toilet bowl for the litter box are not uncommon. BEPs often develop a pattern of urinating, defecating, and masturbating in public. BEPs become lax in their hygiene, and their vocabulary begins to slip.

• Stage III: BEPs cease wearing clothing and speaking. They appear unable to comprehend human language. At this point, many researchers agree, forward evolution is unlikely, though there has been some progress with Stage III BEPs in recent years.

17
. The Hottentot Venus was the epithet for at least two African women who were paraded around Europe as part of a traveling sideshow during the nineteenth century. Men were allowed to gawk at and touch their large buttocks, a feature that was a rarity in Europe. The most famous Hottentot was born Saartjie (pronounced SAR-key) Baartman in what is now South Africa. After her death the woman's skeleton, genitals (which Baartman never allowed to be displayed while she was living), and brain were exhibited in a museum in France until 1974. Her remains were returned to her homeland only in 2002, seven years after South African president Nelson Mandela requested their return. It is this type of spectacle that the authors of this study have sought to avoid.

The Hottentot Venus was well known in her time and even after. In the 1939 cinematic version of
The Wizard of Oz
, Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion asks in song, “What makes the Hottentot so hot?” He answers his own question with the word
courage
. The correct answer, though it is not said in the film, would most logically be: her derrière. Or perhaps
Wizard of Oz
songwriters Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen meant that it took a certain measure of courage to live through such degradation.

The authors of this study do not adduce Lahr to be flip. Louis Smth, we believe, bears an uncanny resemblance to Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in both stature and complexion, particularly after his backwards evolution.

Ironically, though we sought to protect Smith from such an undignified exhibition, he would likely have been a big fan of the Hottentot Venus and, had he been living in Europe in the nineteenth century, would have gladly paid to gaze upon and fondle her backside without giving two thoughts to the racist and misogynist nature of such a display.

18
. To be sure, there was much debate amongst the authors of this study about the proper course of action. We turned down a great deal of money to protect our integrity. B. J. Arcom of B. J. Arcom's Traveling Parade of Oddities was particularly aggressive, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars, though he never breached the $1 million mark. We are all proud of our decision.

19
. The Wildlands, as it is commonly known, is a largely undeveloped portion of town that borders several parts of Cross River. Hunting, fishing, building, and other activities are severely limited within its borders; however, there are corporate interests and politicians diligently working to change that. The Wildlands is a fascinating place to study, as much of it remains virtually unspoiled by human hands.

20
. There is some evidence that Louis has even found a mate in Lily of the Valley, a female gorilla who escaped from the Cross River Zoo. She has thus far avoided capture, and one theory is that Lily has a more intelligent accomplice helping her flee.

21
. The authors do not want to give the impression that we have turned a dangerous psychotic out into the Wildlands to terrorize an unsuspecting populace.
We keep track of Louis's progress by the use of an electronic tag implanted underneath the skin at the base of his neck. Often researchers travel to the Wildlands in order to observe his progress. One researcher, the late Dr. Adam Connor, who before his untimely passing left this project to serve in consultant roles at the Cross River Zoo and the Alfred McCoy Museum of Science, wrote an interesting journal entry about his first experience seeing Louis in the wild, from which we would like to quote:

On Seeing Louis Smith: My Encounter with Reverse Animalism

He's a shaggy creature, like a Sasquatch, but not as tall as you'd expect one to be. I first saw him about an hour into my observation
.

With his gritty hands, he clung to the mossy green branches of a tree as if it were a natural thing for a human to do, but he isn't a human, not anymore. . . . Upon seeing me he howled. Perhaps in terror. I've been told that he's come to distrust humans based on his past treatment
.

I was amused by the howl. It rang loud and sounded as if it came from the center of his gut. My mouth hung open upon seeing him leap to another tree like he had been born to perform this feat. I watched the creased bottom of his feet, his dirt-and-hair-covered legs, the scraggly whiskers around his flaccid uncircumcised penis and testicles, the decaying leaves in his nest of a beard. His head had become a forest. Scars and bleeding open wounds covered his body, as if he had just battled a bear and narrowly defeated it, but he did not appear to be in pain. The former Louis Smith was truly a sight
. . . .

Before this point I had never seen him, this man who believes himself an animal. He was like a character out of childhood myth. I had nearly forgotten that I was observing him as part of my job. I reached for my camera, slowly putting it together so as not to scare him. He watched what I did curiously. I wondered if there could be any understanding in him at all now; if he remembered what a camera was; if after his treatment by police, every black object in the hand of a human evoked the baton that broke his ribs and bruised his face. Did he have any memories at all, or did he just have instincts?