Deranged (15 page)

At first the old man was flustered and refused to speak, but when Albert persisted, his father—eyes flicking nervously from side to side—finally responded. Albert would never forget the old man’s words. “I use them on myself,” he had said in his soft, raspy voice. “I get these feelings that come over me, and every time they do, I have to torture myself with those paddles.”

That was the last word the two ever exchanged on the subject. Albert Jr. couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and he was too ashamed to confide in anyone else, even his brothers and sisters. Throughout his life, he had seen his father do many strange things. And he had learned long ago that it was best just to shut up about them.

Given the old man’s increasingly strange behavior, it had embarrassed but not surprised Albert when his father had ended up in Bellevue the following year. Even the old man’s subsequent run-in with the law hadn’t come as much of a shock.

That one had happened in the summer of 1931, just six months after his father had been discharged from Bellevue. Fish, who was working at the time as a dishwasher and handyman at the Steeplechase Hotel in Rockaway Beach, Queens, had been picked up by the police for sending obscene mail to the proprietor of a local boarding school.

Searching the old man’s room, the officers had discovered additional letters stuck under his mattress. They also found a homemade cat-o’-nine-tails and, tucked inside a dresser drawer, a frankfurter and a carrot, both fetid with decay—and with something worse.

One of the arresting officers, John P. Smith, picked up the little wood-handled whip and asked Fish what he used it for. The old man shrugged. He liked to whip himself with it, he replied, though he didn’t suppose that was anybody’s goddamned business but his own.

Using his thumb and his forefinger as a pincers, Smith gingerly lifted the frankfurter by one end and held it at arm’s length. And what the hell did the old man use the carrot and this damned thing for? he demanded—though the feculence of the two objects made the answer revoltingly clear.

The old man’s sneering reply confirmed what Smith already knew. “I stick ’em up my ass,” said Albert Fish.

Fish was arrested and shipped off to King’s County Hospital, where he underwent another period of observation. This time, he was held for just ten days. He was interviewed only once by a staff psychiatrist, who never bothered to ask him about the whip, carrot, or frankfurter and who concluded his written report by describing the patient as “quiet, cooperative, and oriented.” On the fifth of September, 1931, Fish was set free.

Since then, he had stayed out of trouble with the law. For a long time—at least as far as Albert Jr. could see—the old man had acted almost normal. Maybe those ten days in the mental ward had done him some good after all. Or maybe he was just mellowing with age. Albert had allowed himself to hope that, at close to sixty-five years old, his father had finally managed to lay his demons to rest.

And then, beginning in June, 1934, the craziness had flared up again. This latest scene with the nail-studded paddle was by no means the first indication that his father was getting worse. There had been the business with the black cat, for example. And those needles Albert had found hidden inside that book by Edgar Allan Poe. And the odd newspaper clippings.

And then there was his father’s ferocious craving for raw meat, which seemed to come upon him only at certain times of the month, when the moon was full.

Something bad was going on inside the old man’s head. And Albert Jr. didn’t know how much longer he could take it. He was already thinking of splitting with the old man when the summer was over, of finding his own place and letting his father manage by himself.

It was even becoming hard for him to get a decent night’s sleep, what with all the nightmares the old man suddenly seemed to be having. Just a few nights ago, Albert had been awakened by fearful sounds—violent thrashing and terrified gasps—coming from his father’s bedroom. He had gone in and shaken the old man awake.

Panting and sweating, his father had sat up and looked around wildly. The light from the streetlamp outside the bedroom window spilled across his face. His features were contorted with horror. Staring down at the tormented old man, Albert wondered what kind of dream could have produced such a look.

He couldn’t begin to imagine.

14

The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh. PROVERBS 11:17

She haunted his dreams. In his sleep, she would rise from the depths and come at him, her small face twisted with terror and fury, her fingers curled into claws, her little girl’s voice shrill with her final cry. “I’ll tell mama!”

He would wake in a puddle of sweat, heart racing, God’s own words ringing in his ears, demanding atonement, mortification of the flesh. He would leap from his sodden bedclothes, strip to his skin, and fetch his needles and thimble.

He would squat, reach under, find the place, shove, shove harder, until it was all the way in. The torture was white-hot, agonizing, but the pain made him stiffen, and he would pull at himself savagely, seeing the girl’s face swim before him, hearing the booming voice inside his head: “O ye Daughter of Babylon!”

Afterward, after his suffering, after his release, he would lie on the floor, breathing raggedly, savoring the burning soreness between his legs. Cleansed and clearheaded, he would be filled with a deep sense of his own justification. After all, hadn’t he rescued the girl from the ultimate violation? Her virginity had remained intact. And if the sacrifice had been unrighteous, would not the angels have intervened to save her, as Isaac had been saved?

He thought about her all the time now. Not one of all the other children he had known in his life—how many had there been?—were like her.

There had, of course, been many thrilling experiences since that June day. His marriages, to begin with. And the good times he’d had with little Mary Nichols and her family. He had such fond memories of the games they had played. “Sack of Potatoes Over,” “Buck, Buck, How Many Hands Up?” and the others. She was as dear to him as one of his own children. He still wrote to her whenever he could.

But the Budd girl was different from the rest. Lying in bed sometimes, thinking back to that day and the frenzied week of pleasure that had followed, he could still recall her taste.

On several occasions, he had made his son drive him back to the cottage. But the last time, remorse had overwhelmed him at his first glimpse of the place, and he had been unable to get out of the car. He was beginning to doubt that he would be able to take his secret to the grave.

From time to time, a story about her would turn up in the newspapers. He searched their pages eagerly for these items. Whenever he encountered one, he tore it out and stored it with his other special clippings.

Just this June—exactly six years since the incident—several interesting articles about her had appeared. He couldn’t help snickering at the stories, they were so far from the truth. Poor Mrs. Budd had had her hopes dashed once again. But he had learned an interesting fact from the articles: the Budds had moved to a new address, 135 West 24th Street. He wasn’t sure how or when he might use that bit of information. But he felt certain it would come in handy.

Maybe he’d write to Mrs. Budd one of these days and tell her what had really happened to her daughter. At least that would spare her the pain of future disappointments. After all, she had treated him so nicely, inviting him to Sunday dinner, giving little Gracie permission to go with him to the party.

The least he could do was let her know the truth.

15

The miserable have no other medicine But only hope. SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure

On the afternoon of Thursday, May 30, 1934, a mighty armada—the entire U.S. naval fleet, “the united sea power of the nation”—steamed into New York City’s harbor. It was a stirring spectacle with eighty-one warships, including dreadnoughts, destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers sweeping up the river in a twelve-mile procession.

Overhead, a squadron of planes, 185 strong—“the sky talons of the American fighting eagle,” as the New York Daily Mirror proclaimed—roared above the fleet, wheeling and swooping in a breathtaking demonstration of aerial prowess.

It was the most spectacular display of naval might in U.S. history. Nothing like it had ever been seen before, and the citizens of New York turned out by the hundreds of thousands to cheer the awesome pageant. From Coney Island to Yonkers, Sandy Hook to Hoboken, they thronged the shoreline and waterfront, shouting and cheering as the stately procession cruised past.

From the forward gun turret of the heavy cruiser Indianapolis, anchored close by Ambrose Lightship, President Roosevelt reviewed the fleet with unconcealed pride. At the conclusion of the one-and-a-half hour review, he directed that three pennants be raised on the forward mast of the cruiser, spelling out in naval code the words “Well done.”

For eighteen days, the men-of-war remained anchored in the harbor, drawing massive crowds of sightseers. On Sunday, June 3, more than a quarter of a million people turned out to see the ships. Half that number waited for hours in slow-moving lines for a chance to get aboard. Others viewed the fleet from nearby pierheads, sightseeing buses, or hired boats. Before that sun-baked day was over, nearly forty people had been felled by heat prostration, and a seven-year-old girl had drowned after tumbling over the side of a sightseeing boat. Her father, Arthur Hallowell, the captain of the boat, also perished when he plunged overboard in an effort to save her.

Meanwhile, the city rolled out the red carpet for the men of the fleet. The officers and their wives were welcomed, wined and dined at receptions arranged by Mayor LaGuardia and Mrs. William Randolph Hearst. Special Sunday services were conducted at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. At the Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue, Bishop Manning denounced pacifism as incompatible with Christian doctrine, a position shared by Cardinal Hayes, who deplored the “supreme folly” of “military unpreparedness.” From pulpits all over the city, speakers bestowed their blessings on the fleet and its men, though at least one dissenter decried the gathering of warships as nothing more than a show of “brute force.”

While the officers mingled with the city’s social elite, 22,000 enlisted men swarmed ashore on overnight liberty. A thousand of them spent Sunday afternoon at the Polo Grounds, watching the Giants game as guests of the National League. Others headed directly to Times Square, Chinatown, and Coney Island, determined to make the most of their holiday.

For the next two and a half weeks, the fleet was the biggest attraction in town, and the newspapers covered it accordingly, with daily features and dozens of photos of battleships, cruisers, teeming crowds of tourists (more than 1,400,000 people would eventually visit the fleet), and beaming “tars” enjoying the hospitality of the city.

On Monday, June 4, the Daily Mirror ran a special section of photographs related 10 the fleet as it had every day since the warships put into port. There were shots of the battleship Colorado, of the sightseers lined up behind police barricades, of the blue-jacketed ranks posed at attention on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. And at the very top of the spread, there was a photograph of two young couples—a pair of smiling sailors and their smartly dressed dates—having their picture snapped on Riverside Drive by a “tintype man,” who was apparently instructing them to “watch the birdie.” All of them were obeying his directions, except for the girl on the far right, who was looking not at the tintype man but straight into the camera of the news photographer. She was a darkhaired teenager, wearing a full dress, a big-brimmed hat, and a charming half-smile.

Millions of people saw this photograph when it was published on Monday. And one of these people was a well-meaning soul, a Brooklyn housewife named Adele Miller who, perhaps even more than most New Yorkers, had been engrossed by the drama of the Budd abduction. Contemplating the picture of the two young couples on Riverside Drive, this woman was gripped by an absolute certainty. She became convinced that the dark-haired girl staring back at her was none other than Grace Budd herself, grown into a teenager.