Top Three Atrocities: #1: The Unbearable

Think of your life.

 Remember the years between 17 and 37 – your twenties, your thirties, your youth, your prime, the memories you’ll take with you to light up the shadows of your old age – first love, marriage, your career taking off, the birth of your children, the glittering priceless illusion of immortality, your body fit and supple, your parents still alive and vigorous, the rich delicious main course of your precious existence.

 Now imagine all of that stolen from you,  crushed and discarded like an old car in a scrap yard. Of course you can’t – and why should you? It’s like imagining the moment by moment existence of your old friend with the terminal illness – how it feels for them when you leave their suffocating hospital room after the mandatory visit and re-enter the sunny, wind-kissed world of the living.  You don’t want to think about their exile or their loneliness, or the years I suffered in the foul snake pit of our mental health system: the drugs that turned my brain to uncooked pastry dough, the electric shock treatments that tortured my body, the cohort of gibbering lunatics, the badgering doctors. The smell of the place! Urine, ammonia, unwashed laundry. The stink of despair.

And why was I stuck in that hell hole? Because I fought back.

I had a plan. It would have worked if not for one little criminal and two drug addicts. The fact that one of those weed junkies was the only woman I ever loved makes the story perfect. No stranger could have betrayed me as absolutely and comprehensively as she did that night.

Jane Stiles. The angel and the devil of my ruined life.

Here’s what happened: in those days the high school had an annual “Lock-in”. The kids spent a night locked inside the school. There were rules and limits – teacher chaperones and student “monitors”; locked gates that circumscribed the sections of the building where the party happened. It had always struck me as the perfect setting for a teen slasher film – all you needed was one killer moving among the trapped boys and girls with a hockey mask and a butcher knife.

Those little monsters needed to feel fear. They needed to know they could die. They weren’t special, they were no better than me. And the school itself was the host of that malignancy. It was an evil place. When I decided to burn it down I wasn’t planning to kill anyone. I had participated in a thousand fire drills. Everyone know how to “make an orderly exit from the premises”. Yes the gates were locked but the teachers had keys. The only real danger was panic and that came from a frightened crowd and the school was holding less than a tenth of its normal population that night. This is what I tried to explain to the shrinks at Bridgewater. Killing them wouldn’t have helped me, it wouldn’t have made my point. I needed them alive and humbled and scared. I needed them to re-evaluate me. I needed them to bow down. I needed them alive.

Of course none of it ever happened. I suppose I killed some of the decorative plantings and the grass around the walls with the gasoline, but that was just about it. I never struck the match. I got caught.

It was a fluke. Sippy wasn’t even supposed to be there! But he had had come for Jane Stiles, and something happened between them -- to this day I have no idea what. He came to see me before the transfer to Bridgewater, but he wouldn’t talk about it. All I know is it must have been bad, very bad, the worst thing ever, from the look on his face when I pushed him to tell me about it.

So that night, Sippy had picked the locks on one of the gates and Billy Delavane saw him do it and he slipped out of the building with Jane. Did Sippy catch them together? Did Billy rescue her? I have no idea. All I know is, I was spreading gasoline from a ten gallon plastic container along the foundation when the two of them came around the corner of the building.

For years I’ve wondered what happened next. The electro-shock “therapy” burned the memory out of me. I remember seeing them, I remember the sirens, and Sippy visiting me in  the holding cell and the next thing I can hold onto is the cockroach crawling over my hand when I was handcuffed to the bed at Bridgewater. That was the beginning of my new life.

But we weren’t alone out there on the night of the Lock-in. The relentless Mark Toland was there, too, filming the exteriors, and getting those stalker-looking-into-the-lighted-window shots for his  movie. He captured the whole scene between me and Jane and Billy. The incident was featured in the film he finally released, his first effort, the notorious “docudrama” High School Confidential with its famously blurry line between fact and fiction. It won something not at Sundance, some little festival inside Sundance, Sunstroke, Slamdance, whatever. Apparently the relevant footage was used at my trial, and was largely responsible for my conviction. 

gtMark Toland, my eternal nemesis.

I finally saw his film last month -- it was streaming on Netflix, and I found a copy of the “cutting continuity” -- that is, the transcription of the finished film, shot by shot -- on Ebay.

So I’ve seen what happened, and read it.

But I still have no memory of my own to claim.

Here’s an exact record of those essential moments. Read it for yourself.

Then you’ll know as much as I do.

EXT. SCHOOL BUILDING - NIGHT

Jane Stiles and Billy Delavane come around the corner of the building as Todd pours gasoline on the foundation.

JANE

Todd! What are you doing?

BILLY

I’d say he’s burning down the school.

TODD

Get away from me. Leave me alone.

BILLY

Whoa. Can’t do that, buddy.

JANE

Don’t do this, Todd. You’ll go to jail, you’ll ruin your life.

BILLY

Besides, your friend’s in there. You want to kill your friend?

TODD

My friend’s at home and I don’t want to kill anyone.

BILLY

Well, unless you have more than one friend, the one I know about -- Bascombe? He’s inside right now.

TODD

Nice try. But he knows what I’m doing. He’d never go in there unless he had a way out. I mean he’d -- oh crap. 

JANE

What?

TODD

Of course he’s  in there. He picked one of the gate locks -- that’s how you got out! How else could you get out?

JANE

He caught me in the science lab.

TODD

He came for you. I should have known. What happened? What did he do?

JANE

Nothing happened, he didn’t do anything. It was fine.

TODD

You don’t look fine.

JANE

Listen --

BILLY

Mr. Hilzenrath is in there. You don’t want to kill Hilzy, do you?

Todd  puts down the gas can, pulls a box of strike-anywhere matches from his jacket pocket.

TODD

I told you -- the teachers have keys. We’ve done a million fire drills, and that was when the school was full. There’s only like fifty people in there now. Everyone can get out easy. No one’s gonna die. I told you that.

Billy takes a step toward him. Todd lights a match.

JANE

Todd! Wait --

BILLY

You don’t know what’s going to happen. Anything can happen. Someone could die from smoke inhalation, or fall and hit their head, or get third degree burns. Then you’re looking at felony assault or even second degree murder, along with destruction of property and arson. You don’t want that.

JANE

You’re not a criminal. You’re better than this.

BILLY

Give it up. We won’t turn you in. No one has to know. The gas will evaporate.

JANE

Like nothing happened.

BILLY

Because it didn’t. It won’t.

Todd notices Billy’s hand in his pocket.

TODD

I heard a voice! Who’s there? Who is that? Come out! Show yourself!

BILLY

It’s no one. You’re hearing voices, Fraker. That’s a bad sign.

TODD

Get your hand out of your pocket! What’s your hand in your pocket for? You come at me with your hand in your pocket? What the fuck.

Billy shows both hands.

BILLY

Sorry -- no big deal. Relax.

TODD

What, you’re talking me down now?

JANE

Todd --

TODD

Run away with me.

JANE

What?

He blows out the match.

TODD

We can torch this shot hole, pack up and leave on the first boat. They’ll be looking for us separately, no one will think we’re together, no one will be looking for a couple. We can do it. Just the two of us.

JANE

It’s – I don’t – I mean, how would that even  -- ?

TODD

We’ll figure it out. We’ll get a fresh start. A clean slate.

JANE

Todd, we’re just kids. We have no car, we have no money, we have nowhere to go --

TODD

Deganawida.

JANE

What?

TODD

We’ll go to Deganawida. Jane Whitefield will help us. She’ll give us new identities

Jane takes a step toward him.

JANE

Okay. Great idea! That could work.

BILLY

Jane Whitefield? What the fuck? She’s in those books you read. She’s a made up character! Jesus Christ!

JANE

Billy --

BILLY

There’s no such place as Deganawida! You read that interview with the guy, the writer. He said --

JANE

Billy, please.

TODD

I get it. You think I’m crazy, too. Humor the psycho. Talk him off the ledge. You liar. Oh Jesus. You dirty lying bitch! You don’t believe a word I say! Well, believe this.

Todd strikes another match and Billy tackles him. They go down and the flaring match hits the grass a fraction of an inch from the pool of gasoline. Jane lunges to step on it.

SFX: SIRENS

They all stop to listen as the wail of the fire trucks grows louder.

TODD

The phone was in your pocket. You pushed 911. How did you do that?

BILLY

It’s just a keyboard. Everybody knows the keyboard.

TODD

They heard everything.  I heard the 911 operator! That’s who it was! They’ve been listening this whole time. Fuck you. Fuck both of you. I hope you die.

Fire trucks and police cars pull into the parking area, light bars flashing. Police officers jump out of their cars guns held out in front of them.

POLICE OFFICER

Everyone on the ground! Now!

I’ll stop there. 

You can read the rest yourself, or watch it on TV. Maybe you already have. The following twenty years I cannot describe and can barely stand to recall . The doctors said talking about what happened to me in high school would help. It didn’t. The halfway house people said that writing about what happened would help. It hasn’t. The time for words is over.

It’s time for action now.