Detour from Normal (14 page)

I looked back only once more to see what I was up against. The janitor was about one hundred feet behind me. He had his radio in hand and was communicating my whereabouts back to someone, who was no doubt rushing out to a vehicle to chase me down. I knew then that it was only a matter of time before the vehicle came screeching to a halt in front of me, so I had to make some quick moves.
If I can slip these guys, nearly everything in central Phoenix is on a one-mile grid,
I thought to myself.
If I can make it to a main cross street, there will be a gas station, shopping center, or something. If I can just get there, I'll be home free. Then I can either call Beth or just take my time walking home once I get
my bearings. There are plenty of places to get water along the way, and the temperature is only in the low eighties—mild by Phoenix standards. I don't need to sleep, and I can get by without food for quite a while. I'll just stay back from the main streets a block or so and they won't spot me.

I cut to the right, running north along the west side of the facility on Thirty-fifth Street, then I turned left onto Harl Avenue. I cut across the street and continued running west, close to the curb. I worked on my rhythm, trying to relax into something I could maintain indefinitely. I counted the cracks in the asphalt, the short chain-link fences separating yards, the air-conditioning units and swamp coolers on the asphalt shingled roofs of the sixties-era, ranch-style homes. I counted the aging Chevys and Fords in the carports. One, two, three...six, seven, eight...I translated them all into the song of my feet on the pavement. I was set to run all day.

A crackle cut through the air, reminding me of the reality of my situation. It was the crackle of the radio behind me. "Sir...sir...please stop running!" the janitor yelled. I would have smirked and yelled back, "Not on your life...," but the crackle was undeniably closer. I was running out of time—fast. My mind was in turbo mode, evaluating every last option around me. I couldn't continue running in a straight line and have any hope that a vehicle wouldn't cut me off, and the janitor was clearly in better shape than I had counted on.

A plan quickly came together in my mind. I would turn north onto Thirty-fourth Street just after passing the house on the corner. Once out of the janitor's field of view, I would run at lightning speed to find cover. The janitor would miscalculate where I might be once he came around the house, thinking that I'd kept the same speed as before. That would create confusion, and he'd waste time looking in the wrong places. At
the first opportunity, I would bolt to a new location, putting more space and obstacles between us as quickly as I could. I'd make my way from hiding place to hiding place, then house to house, until I was far enough away to run again in a new direction. I'd have to keep moving and find a main intersection fast.

As soon as I was next to the corner house, I began a wide arc around it to make it look like I was going to turn right and continue at my same speed. As soon as I was out of sight, I turned on the supercharger and ran as fast as possible. A few houses down, I saw the perfect "spider hole." There was a short, white, block fence only about two feet high. On the other side of it was a scrubby hedge that followed the block fence to the sidewalk near the street. At the end of the hedge nearest the house, there was a gap between the shrubs and the house of just a few feet. The gap and wall would provide a workable minimum of cover; it looked so impossibly small that anyone would miss its potential as a hiding place. From there I could slide back over the wall and backtrack if necessary as he walked by the hedge. The hedge was tall enough to cover such a move if I stayed low.

I felt like a kid playing hide-and-seek again, but to me it was serious. If they caught me, I had no idea what the increase in medication would do to me once I was back at Pinecrest. I dashed for the wall and, placing my hand on it, pivoted off it, leaping sideways over it. I instantly went into a full-tuck position once I cleared it, making myself as compact and hidden as possible.

By the time the janitor rounded the corner, I had vanished. I could tell where he was by listening to the static of his radio. My plan was looking like it had potential, but there was an unforeseen problem: a woman had been raking her yard while I was doing all my sprinting and
scheming. I wish I could have explained why I was doing what I was doing and perhaps she would have remained mum, but that's not the way it played out. It didn't take very long before the janitor was talking to her and she pointed in my direction. As he walked over, I knew my time had run out. I was no longer some kind of glorified rebel. Instead I was just a stupid old man—an escaped psych patient. I didn't show it, but I was crushed. I desperately didn't want to go back to Pinecrest. I stood up, brushed the dirt from my clothes, and, to defuse the situation, I put my fists together and offered to be handcuffed.

"I can't do that, sir. I wish I could. I sure would like to cuff you for making me run my ass off." He smiled, more from relief than anything, but I did detect a little humor. It was the first attempt at humor I'd heard from any Pinecrest employee. Just then a black SUV pulled up to the curb in front of the house. Moments later I was in the backseat of the SUV with the janitor at my side.

"What were you thinking? Why did you try to get away?" he asked.

"I just wanted to get home. I wanted to get home and be with my family," I said.

He looked at me and subtly nodded. It was a rational thing to say, and I think it struck a chord. He looked away, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was wishing he had let me slip away instead of being so tenacious. If his job hadn't been at stake, perhaps he would have let me go. I turned and looked out the opposite window on the drive back. As we rounded Thirty-fourth Street, then drove around to the front of the building, I had my first good look at the place I'd just escaped. It was really the first time I'd seen it well. It was much larger than I'd imagined. My little H was a small fraction of the large, two-story building. I could see the cage as we drove south on Thirty-fourth Street with the
green steel furniture bolted to the concrete. It was devoid of smokers and looked like something you'd see animals in at a zoo. Farther down I could see my room window—two from the end on my leg of the H.

The main entrance was nicely landscaped, and the brown cinder block building with sand accents around the windows had the same earthy color scheme on the outside as it had on the inside. As we walked toward the main entrance, I noticed that my left hand ached. I turned it palm up. It was scraped and bloody. It looked like I'd taken a dive onto asphalt and tried to stop myself with it. The left side of my face stung as well, like I'd been sunburned. I put my hand to it and found that it was bleeding.
I must be a pretty sight,
I thought. All I could think was that I had scraped myself on the wall jumping over it. It had been good fun, though, a real adventure. I couldn't remember ever feeling so exhilarated. If I scarred from those cuts, it would be a worthy reminder of my grand escape attempt and make for some good stories. I smiled.

Chapter 12

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

No one bothered to treat the wounds on my hand and face once I was back at Pinecrest. I just walked around with dried blood and dirt on them. I did manage to command another kind of attention though: if ever I got too close to one of the exits, a menacing team of PAs would block my way. No longer was I allowed to go to the cage, although I couldn't imagine how anyone could possibly escape from there without a cutting torch or dynamite. I spent the remainder of the morning and much of the afternoon in my room. I wasn't allowed to go to lunch or dinner. Later in the afternoon, Dr. Alverez followed through with the increased dose of Seroquel he'd promised. I wasn't exactly sure of the purpose of Seroquel, but I imagined it would make me less able to plot future escape attempts. I was done with that in any case. If I was going to get out of there, it would be by the power of my wife's pen, not by me jogging through the streets holding my guts in. I called Beth around 5:00 p.m. using the wall phone by the glassed-in room and pleaded with her to get me out of Pinecrest.

After that next dose of Seroquel, my mind began to go places it was never meant to go. Perhaps the step-function leap my mania had taken in the early morning hours compounded matters. Everything suddenly
took on a whole new character. It became increasingly difficult to discern whether I was awake or dreaming. I asked questions I'd never before considered such as
Can I become invisible (and cause panic)? Can I walk through walls (and escape)? Can I fly on a magic carpet to Hawaii (with my family)? Can I teleport (anywhere)?
I actually believed these things could be possible. It was as if I had suddenly lost the concept of limitations.

In response I set about reestablishing the boundaries of the real world by trial and error. I started by testing the invisibility theory by sitting very still in a familiar chair across from the staff counter, willing myself to disappear. The staff popped up and down just like before, only more frequently as they wondered what the escape artist was scheming. Next I tried walking through an exit door at a decent clip so I could beat the PAs to it and conduct a "walking through barriers" experiment before they could get to me. I was actually surprised when I wasn't able to slip cleanly through the door and complete my plan of giving them a sly grin and the finger from the other side. I bounced off with a resounding thud and was quickly surrounded. I decided then that I was not, in fact, some kind of superhuman, and the wild ideas subsided. I put off exploring more boundaries for the time being. About that time Beth arrived to set me free.

They allowed Beth to visit me in the cafeteria. She immediately noticed strange behavior and became quite concerned. Then she saw the cuts on my face and hand and inquired about them. I didn't say anything. I don't know why—I wanted to, but the words wouldn't come out. I instead informed her that I was hungry, having had neither lunch nor dinner. She had the staff bring me a sandwich, chips, and an apple in a brown paper bag. It seemed odd that it was in a brown paper bag. Was it some staff person's lunch or dinner?

To make matters worse, my condition deteriorated steadily during the visitation. I was becoming psychotic and delusional for the first time in my life, right before my poor wife's eyes. Beth performed some simple tests on me: she asked presidents' names and what day it was, and made me try to focus on her eyes. I had great difficulty with all those tasks, and she was soon gone, leaving me to my sack dinner.

Beth's journal, May 20, 2011:

I called Pinecrest six times to speak with someone about Ken's treatment. I left messages each time, finally requesting to speak to an administrator. No one returned my calls. Later a social worker left a message on my answering machine requesting that I make an appointment with Dr. Alverez for 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, the twenty-first. When I returned her call, no mention was made of Ken's treatment plan.

Around 5:00 p.m. Ken called and asked to be picked up, stating that no one was doing anything to help him. I was very disturbed by the lack of communication from Pinecrest and appalled that no one was managing Ken's treatment, so I drove to Pinecrest to take him home. When I arrived, I asked the receptionist to get me someone who could release Ken to me. The social worker soon arrived and asked to speak with me in private. We went into a meeting room to talk. She asked why I wanted to take Ken home. After a brief discussion, she left the room, locking me inside for several minutes. When she returned, she told me that if I attempted to take Ken home, the doctor would have him committed. When I asked on what grounds, she told me that he was a danger to
himself. As evidence of that, she told me, "When I asked your husband what he would do when he got home, he told me that was irrelevant."

I was very upset and didn't know what our rights were. I didn't want to leave Ken there but didn't have any alternative. It was just prior to visiting hours then, so they let me see Ken. I was shocked by his appearance and behavior. He had a shuffling gait and smiled blankly the whole time we visited. His skin was clammy, his hands had tremors, and he had nystagmus in both eyes. There was a strong fruity odor to his breath, and he could not focus on his watch to tell time, nor did he seem to know how. I asked him what date and day it was, and he had no idea. I asked him who the president was, and he said, "Washington?" and grinned. His short-term memory was less than one minute. He kept asking when we were leaving. His face and hand were cut. When I asked about that, he couldn't or wouldn't say anything. I learned that he hadn't had a meal since breakfast, apparently as punishment for trying to escape.