Insurrections (21 page)

Horrified, the young woman screamed and fled the gymnasium. The young man, who had fallen to the ground, feigning a loss of balance, sat on the hardwood floor with what many say was a hurt, almost childlike expression on his face, as if he had just courted this woman and experienced the deepest rejection.

Louis Smith attended District Central Senior High School at the time. The school began drawing up plans to expel him, the default punishment for sexual assault, but Louis and his mother were two steps ahead of District Central and the Cross River Public School System. Instead of fighting his suspension and impending expulsion, Louis's mother simply withdrew him and enrolled him in another school in Port Yooga, where it appears that he kept his Reverse Animalism in check. He returned to District Central the next year as if the incident had never occurred, thus neatly circumventing the school's disciplinary procedures

Upon his return, Louis Smith found District Central a cold and unforgiving place. Said one school official: “He really became an outcast at District Central, like he was marked, with a scarlet A on his forehead if you will. Or, more accurately, a scarlet F, for Fondler.”
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Where there had been friendship, or easy acquaintanceship, according to interviews, Louis now found scorn and cold shoulders. It is reported that he often went entire days without speaking to another person.

Frank, a schoolmate of the same age and racial background, relates an incident that is likely typical of Louis's high school experience as the cloud of Reverse Animalism slowly descended upon him:
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So we're all sitting around the lunch table, me, A——, S——, B——, R——, and Carson. We're all talking shit, clapping on one another, and here come Louis, lumbering over, swaying back and forth. He was a big dude. Imposing, but he was a pussy. He snatched a seat—and up to this point in the school year I ain't say shit to him. I know most of the dudes at the table ain't talk to him neither. It's not like we was offended by what he did. I know I wasn't. I guess I should have been, but you know, I was a kid. Shit, I wanted to fondle D—— too; she looked good. Everybody wanted to fondle her. But we didn't, though. That's the difference between me and him. I guess me and Louis used to be cool. Not really. It's like we grew apart. But anyway, he sits down and everybody gets quiet, starts looking around to one another. Carson is on the other side of the table. Out of nowhere he's like:
So, grab any girls' butts lately?

According to Frank and others, there was laughter all around the table, except from Louis, who just sat there humiliated.
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One of the most frustrating aspects of this case is how little we know about the subject's progression from man to beast. His family, of course, did not maintain careful records, so we are uncertain, for instance, when
he began defecating and urinating in the cat's litter box. We speculate that he may have done this for years and simply hidden the results. A lack of control of excretory and masturbatory impulses are common signs of Reverse Animalism, and in fact the condition is usually discovered because of an inappropriate public display of such impulses. Many interviewed said that, though they thought little of it at the time, Louis's enjoyment of public urination should have alerted them to the problem. He often bellowed or howled while the yellow stream trickled through the open air.
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Evidence of public masturbatory phenomena in this case is slim, though it undoubtedly occurred.

Upon graduating from high school, Louis enrolled briefly in Cross River Community College, dropping out in the middle of his first semester after complaining about the assigned readings, which he described as becoming increasingly difficult for him. Books, he often told Frank and others, were best for keeping his tables leveled. As an elementary school student, Louis had loved reading.

As time passed, his posture became more and more hunched and apelike.

Louis's postcollegiate life consisted mainly of watching television and playing video games, or picking up odd jobs here and there. Later, when his mother no longer allowed him to stay at home during the day, he wandered aimlessly around Cross River. His main focus became clubhopping; he was fast turning into, quite literally, a Party Animal. The club-hopping was an activity he often pursued alone, arriving and leaving unaccompanied. At times he would run into acquaintances from District Central, who would make awkward small talk, mostly about high school.

It has been posited that perhaps the often primal rhythms of the music in the nightclubs awoke something in him. This is an attractive theory oft proposed in cases of Reverse Animalism. People tend to look to outside factors as triggers for the bizarre behavior of BEPs, although external factors ultimately offer unsatisfying explanations. Frank recalled Louis's nightclub behavior in an interview: “Man, you should have seen him dancing, just thrashing all around. He used to get real lost in the music and then he'd start to feel up on some ass, any female ass around
him. He'd be all nonchalant about it and then act surprised that anyone thought he was strange. As if everyone else was off. Sometimes I really do wonder if he knew any better at all. My man A—— says dude knew exactly what he was doing, but I'm not sure.”

Louis was banned from The Garden, a nightclub on Cross River's Southside, after an incident in which he repeatedly inched down his pants while dancing with women.

One wonders if he could control himself at all anymore or if the disorder had completely deranged him. Carson describes Louis speaking in a strange and stripped-down language on the night of his expulsion from The Garden, a language that was choppy and difficult to understand. He spoke in grunts and facial gestures more than words. Just how far along was he?

For those with Reverse Animalism, there is only the present.
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There is no free will, just instinct.

Frank recalls a moment outside Club Illusion in which a shaggy Louis Smith growled like an angry gorilla in recognition of him, as if instinct told him to be wary of Frank.
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In the period after that, Louis most often
roamed the streets, soon building a nest for himself in an alley in Downtown Cross River, near the nightclubs.

His mother said she did not know what to make of his sudden absence or his strange silence whenever he was around; this was as he was becoming a rarity in her home.

The night of August 16, 2004, Louis awakened from a long nap in his alley home, stretched his arms, and growled when the dyed golden hair of a passing woman caught his eye. He drew close behind her, though she did not realize he was there, according to a statement she gave to police. Louis reached out and grabbed some strands at the back of her head. The woman panicked, yanking free from his grip, leaving Louis holding a clump of hair. She screamed and ran. A confused Louis bawled after her, a gut-wrenching primal wail the woman said she associated with the fictional hero Tarzan. He lumbered behind her, still howling. But he soon lost interest in the pursuit and settled onto the sidewalk, where he proceeded to loosen his pants. When the police arrived, Louis was still crouched on the sidewalk, defecating.
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Police circled
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him as he squatted on the ground soiling his torn blue jeans. According to onlookers, it seemed he had long forgotten about the
woman with the dyed golden hair. At that moment, defecation was his whole world.

Cornered by police who looked at him with disgust while speaking a language he could no longer understand, Louis decided, like any trapped animal, to go on the offensive. As they approached, he flung his warm new feces in their direction. Excrement splattered against the officers as they rushed to subdue the bawling Louis Smith. They wrestled him to the ground, cracking his skull and three of his ribs in the scuffle. Louis Smith, that poor confused creature, must have had no understanding of what was going on.

Having gone through this experience, Louis in captivity rapidly sped through the stages of Reverse Animalism,
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often hooting like the primate
he had become. The River Run Mental Health Facility on the Southside of Cross River had—and sadly still has—no procedure for controlling a person who insists on grooming peers who are, no doubt, struggling with mental disorders as serious as his own. Louis often violently attacked other males for supremacy, sexually accosted female patients, and swung through the facility, hopping from wall to wall as if they were jungle trees. Before long he resisted even wearing clothes.

It was a controversial decision to turn Louis Smith loose into the wild to live out his life as a simple primate. Some found this course of action an unnecessarily cruel choice. Many mental health advocates, those with little understanding of the stages of Reverse Animalism, who have often never encountered a BEP, said a round of treatment aimed at bringing Louis back into society or, at the very least, easing some of the symptoms, would have been best. But the decision to turn Louis loose is one we stand by. There is no coming back from this particular descent. Much might have been gained from studying him up close, but was his life created especially for curious researchers? If we were to keep him unhappy and in captivity, how would we be any different from common slaveholders? In addition, we had to think of the safety of the other patients at River Run. Proposals to hold him in captivity at the Cross River Zoo, the Alfred McCoy Museum of Science, or B. J. Arcom's Traveling Parade of Oddities were quickly rejected. Louis Smith is not the Hottentot Venus,
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and we, it is to be hoped, have moved forward as a society from such gross and primitive displays. If we were to return to such a disgusting spectacle, how could we even call ourselves modern men and women? The authors could not answer that question in a way that we were comfortable with. We took what we believe was the most honorable route and released him into the wild where his current mental state tells him he needs to be.
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Louis Smith, or the man who was once Louis Smith, lives in the Wildlands
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on the edge of Cross River, which is home to all types of creatures, according to myth and urban legend.
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The once erudite young Louis Smith now roams naked, but happy and free.
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1
. The disorder is most often called Reverse Evolution. The authors of this study find that term problematic, as it is imprecise and, frankly, politically fraught. We propose the less controversial Reverse Animalism, as evolution, like climate change, is simply a theory and not a unified and complete one. We find it awkward to compare a real condition, albeit one many researchers and psychologists have trouble acknowledging as genuine, to a theory that has hardly been proven. The authors of the study will continue to use the phrase “backwardly evolved person” or BEP when referring to one who is suffering from the disorder, for want of a better term. We find the phrase “reverse animal” condescending and disrespectful, as sufferers of Reverse Animalism are, after all, still human.

One of the frustrating things about researching this disorder is that the scientific community currently lacks an accurate vocabulary to properly discuss Reverse Animalism. Because of a certain dogmatism and mental ossification among researchers, developing politically neutral and accurate terminology has been difficult. We believe that adopting the term Reverse Animalism is a small but crucial positive step toward creating a precise language around the disorder. Readers more familiar with the term Reverse Evolution are reminded that Reverse Animalism and Reverse Evolution are synonymous. Also, it is good to keep in mind that we are discussing a psychological disorder and not the proposed scientific phenomenon that posits a reversal of the so-called evolutionary timeline or a literal reversal of evolutionary biology.

2
. The subject's real name and some identifying details have been changed to protect his identity. He is an African American male who resided on the Northside of Cross River, Maryland (with the exception of his brief time at River Run Mental Health Facility and his days in the Wildlands of Cross River), in the years covered by this study, which runs roughly from his tenth to his nineteenth year. All other names have been either omitted or changed.

3
. The symptoms of Reverse Animalism can vary but often include taking excessive pleasure in excretory functions; a lack of interest in traditional basic hygiene, including bathing, shaving, and combing of the hair; an abnormal, sometime prurient, interest in domesticated and, later, wild animals, particularly mammals, including but not limited to dogs, wolves, bears, horses, monkeys, and apes; and a gradual loss of language functions, beginning with a slow shedding of vocabulary and ending with grunts, howls, and gestures substituted for speech.

4
. Louis Smith earned the sobriquet “erudite” as a child. He had a stellar academic career up until high school, where he experienced a sudden and shocking decline. We now know that this decline can be attributed to his condition, but at the time, to his family, it was quite puzzling. Louis had once won awards for public speaking and for a time studied French and Spanish alongside his native language. Here was a boy who received all As and positive reports throughout his elementary school career, a boy who once placed first in the school's spelling bee and did well in the regional competitions. Suddenly he began failing classes and incurring suspensions for fights. These fights, placed in their proper context, were really, to Louis at least, challenges for male dominance over his peers, who to his devolving mind were really a herd or a pack.

5
. Approximately 1 million people in the United States alone suffer from some form of Reverse Animalism. Most cases are very mild. The vast majority of BEPs are never diagnosed and never know that they are living with Reverse Animalism. In this report we discuss, for the most part, the symptoms and stages of the harsher manifestations of the disorder.