By Reason of Insanity (6 page)

Chessman had made his own arrangements for disposal of the body. It was cremated the following day at Mount Tamalpais cemetery in nearby San Rafael. Caryl Chessman had no known living relatives.

On the day of Chessman’s execution, protest demonstrations were held in various parts of the world and words of condemnation poured into government channels. In a state mental hospital some two hundred miles north of San Quentin, a boy who was believed by his dead mother to be Chessman’s son was still learning to cope with a hostile environment. Now barely twelve years old, he knew nothing of the moment of execution, but in his disordered mind of vague shapes and sinister shadows one bit of memory nevertheless stood out clearly. He had a father whose name was Caryl Chessman. That he once had another father was long forgotten. In the boy’s scarred memory of monsters and demons from hell, of dreadful pain and punishment, of women who suffered and men who made them suffer, his father’s name was always on his mind. He wanted to be just like him.

In the years that followed the boy secretly collected whatever mention he could find of his father in newspapers and magazines. There was not much in the limited printed matter allowed on the ward. But whatever few things he found were treasured by the boy, and he folded them into tiny scraps and hid them in a little wallet he had once been given and which he always carried with him.

Often late at night he would take them out to read yet another time, then fold them again and tuck them away. Over the next decade and more, as the boy grew into adolescence and manhood, learning the ways of the world around him and the ploys necessary to get what he wanted, the few scraps of paper slowly yellowed with age and finally shredded into nothingness.

Outside the walls, the world had changed. Political assassination had become a weapon. The Vietnam war had toppled a government and brought about more than one revolution. Manners and morals had radically altered. A minority race had forged a new consciousness on the country. Men had been to the moon. Everywhere the tempo was faster, more hectic. Amidst all the turmoil and confusion, the name of Caryl Chessman was largely forgotten, though capital punishment had been steadily losing ground during the decade. In many ways the sixties was a time of national nightmare. It was hoped that the seventies would be better; if not better, then at least more peaceful.

On May 5, 1973, radio station KPFA, the flagship station of the Pacifica Foundation in San Francisco, broadcast a two-hour program on capital punishment. One of the participants spoke movingly of Caryl Chessman’s life and death, and of his losing battle against execution. Through local affiliations the program was heard in several other areas of California.

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.