The Mask of Sanity

by Hervey Cleckley

  He was considered an intelligent workman during his brief periods of activity and several times advanced in various companies, occasionally attaining promising positions as salesman only to throw them away by neglect or by petulant bickering with his superiors.

  When his country entered World War I, he promptly enlisted. After going to France, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant in the air corps. According to reports, he showed considerable skill as a mechanic. He was, however, reduced to private for going A.W.O.L. before his discharge from the army at the end of the war.

  On returning home he referred to himself as an aviator, implying that he had been an officer and a pilot, and assumed the airs of one who imagines himself a distinguished hero or who means, at any rate, for others to hold this opinion of him. He made no attempt to associate with people his contemporaries found interesting, worked for short periods as a mechanic in local garages, and caused his parents deep mortification and distress by going on periodic sprees either alone or with the most vulgar and uninspiring companions. He continually spoke of his dissatisfaction with the town in which his parents lived, complaining that it offered no opportunities for a man such as himself, and, taking a superior manner, harped exasperatingly on his travels and adventures and his alleged successes afar.

  He soon left home again for Chicago, where he obtained and lost several positions as mechanic or as salesman. He drifted on to Cincinnati and Detroit, following the same career. His father was frequently called on to furnish money when he got into difficulties or was without work. Occasionally he came home for short periods during which he remained arrogant, idle, and full of absurd stories about his own importance, the superior positions he had held, the high and mighty people he associated with, the fashionable gatherings he graced. He sometimes drank until he was in a deplorable condition, staggering home disheveled and rowdy, creating a great uproar in the simple, dignified household of his parents, or from time to time ending up at the police barracks where his father had to come at inconvenient hours of the night to remove him from the filthy and disreputable group of prostitutes, vagrants, and petty criminals among whom he had been confined. When not drinking he showed, in less dramatic form, the same attitudes and qualities.

  During all this time his father supported and protected him with unvarying tact and persistence. Though the public at large knew how disheartening and harassing a burden the son had become and what a particularly bitter change he had brought into his parent’s serene and honored life, they both continued to treat him with dignity and consideration. The whole town regarded Walter as a heartbreaking disappointment, but little of this was learned from complaints by the parents.

  Time after time the father obtained positions for his son; time after time he paid the son out of debt, effected his release from jail, and submitted to abuse for his pains. Although he reasoned with his son and sought in every possible way to influence him, the father did not allow an attitude of hopeless contempt to possess him.

  In some subtle way that is difficult to describe, he seemed to accept his son before the world and, while denying none of the son’s faults, to put his whole attention on offering new opportunities, none of it on lamenting what he had been made to suffer or on throwing this up to the person who caused his suffering. He tried, it seemed, not only to wipe the slate clean of material hindrances to a fresh start but also to wipe it clean subjectively, to let the son start over without the burden of shame that one in such circumstances might be imagined to feel.

  There seemed, however, to be no attempt on the father’s part to deceive this son into thinking his behavior was condoned or minimized. In dealing with such a problem one can err in either one way or the other, and usually one errs in both. He seemed, however, hardly to err at all in the long and trying years of struggle to rehabilitate his son. Numerous psychiatrists who worked with the case over a decade were impressed and considered it a remarkable performance.

  Finally, after several other short sojourns in psychiatric institutions, Walter was sent to a Veterans Administration hospital. He did not want to come. His running up of bills and his small but very spectacular offenses against legal statutes and public taste had become so extreme and so frequent, his trips to jail and his bawdy, argumentative tantrums at home so trying, and his sporadic sprees with drink so extraordinary it was plain that desperate measures should be taken. The parents did not hesitate to make it clear to Walter why he had to come to the hospital. The son knew that the father, by relaxing his protection, could in a few days leave him only the alternative of jail. So he came.

  On arriving, he confessed that he was astonished at his family for sending him to a mental institution. He simply could not understand such an attitude. He said that he had, perhaps, taken a quart of whiskey during the two previous years, behaving as if surprised and very much vexed at the idea that he might have been drinking to excess. He suggested that some vague gossip about his being a user of alcoholic liquors might have started because in the town of his birth, to which he had recently returned, one had to go to disreputable places, extremely unsuitable to his own fastidious tastes and frequented by rough and vulgar people, to get the occasional drink of whiskey that any gentleman might want. His little difficulties with the law about bad checks and swindling schemes he waived aside as if they had been matters too small and too irrelevant for serious discussion. He showed plainly that he considered himself of a type superior to the best people in town and to his parents and dwelt at length on the rarefied social and intellectual atmosphere in which he moved when away. Though assuming an air of condescension in speaking of his father, as if with the chivalrous intention to deal lightly and generously with him, he admitted that he could not but resent his actions. He described his parents as meddling in his affairs and repeatedly interfering with the important plans he outlined for himself. His manner was so convincing that the examining physician thought at first he might really be, despite his bad record, a man of some attainment, since he was plainly a man of intelligence. Had the parents been, perhaps, a little too quick and severe in their action? The social service report cleared up all doubt on these points. During study in the hospital he showed no technical evidence of psychosis or psychoneurosis, His disturbance was diagnosed as psychopathic personality, and he was discharged at the end of a month’s observation.

  On returning home, Walter continued in his old ways, losing each position obtained for him, wandering about the streets at night, or sometimes when drinking, falling maudlin and semistuporous in parks, coal yards, or on the riverbank. He was furnished with money to go to Boston, where he insisted opportunities now awaited him. He soon obtained a position as a salesman of radios and, despite irregularity at work, embarrassing behavior, and periodical sprees of drinking, seemed to do fairly well for a month or two. Then, complaining of discrimination against him at his office, he gave his employers a piece of his mind, threw up his position, and enlisted in the army. Four months later he suddenly deserted and, after wandering about the Midwest obtaining and losing various positions but chiefly making petty troubles for himself and others, came home to his parents. He was quickly discovered and taken into custody by army authorities.

  He admitted that he knew what he was doing when he deserted, said that he had not been drinking at the time, and dismissed the whole matter with the supercilious remark that he left the army because he had some business that needed attention without delay. He was examined by physicians at this time. No evidence of a psychosis was found, but it was noted that he showed “ungratefulness, moral uselessness, a failure to profit by experience, and utter irresponsibility.” He was judged unfit for military duties and, perhaps with some special leniency because of his wartime service, released without further punishment.

  Some months later he was readmitted to the hospital after a series of misadventures in no way different from his earlier ones. He also had gonorrhea, which he was glad to have treated. He was at this time aloof and superior in his att
itude, complained about being confined with psychotic patients, and professed himself disgusted at their table manners. He now admitted excessive drinking but attributed it and all his difficulties to his mother, saying little now about his father. He plainly considered himself a martyr to his mother’s efforts to keep him out of jail and able to work. This he regarded as meddling and seemed to feel that it fully justified his own conduct. After six weeks he was discharged.

  He was back again, however, after a short period of freedom, brought by his father, who in the interval had continued his efforts to get the patient established. Several positions had been arranged for him in the city of his birth, and he had also been sent off and given financial assistance in an industrial center in the North. Always he failed, losing each position or giving it up and roaming the streets, getting into brawls or legal difficulties about debts, lying out in brothels or flophouses until rescued by the police or his father. This time he remained in the hospital for seven weeks.

  When brought before the staff he was quite self-contained and spoke of his misconduct as though he were rather proud of it and considered it a humorous and fully justified sort of retaliation against his parents. He laughed and said that after having got pretty well drunk, he decided that his father might want to send him to the hospital and so continued drinking until this was inevitable. He admitted that his parents had suggested he drink at his own house with them as an alternative to his sodden sprees but could not see that this implied any tolerance on their part. He spoke with satisfaction about slipping away from them, taking the automobile, and, having loaded in several gallons of whiskey, heading out into the country where he would remain for four or five days, at times in thorough stupefaction.

  His tone throughout the interview was brisk, self-assured, and somewhat pompous. He admitted verbally that the whole fault might not lie with his parents, but it was plain that this concession was made only for the purpose of showing his broadmindedness toward them. “Of course, there must be two sides to any question,” he agreed with grudging deliberation, as if gratified and a bit surprised at his own generosity. It was obvious that no real conviction lay behind his words. The following samples are typical of his talk to the staff:

  Since I seem to end here anyway I thought I’d make a party of it. This has been going on for fifteen or twenty years, and I’m sick and tired of being dictated to. My father has a temper which has caused me considerable trouble at times. My career has not been perfect; nevertheless, I play the game on the level. I play it right on through. I was just matching my wits with my father. It just seems that there should be a stop put to this [his being sent to the hospital] because I’m satisfied I’m a kind of nuisance out here.

  He then quoted his father as having expressed ideas of vengeance toward him in profane language and having gloated over his confinement at the hospital. Both the thought and the language were absurdly inconsistent with that grave man’s despair about his son.

  After six weeks he was taken out of the hospital on furlough. Five days later police brought the patient back, peevish, dictatorial, and uncontrollable. A few days later the father took him out again, only to have him escape. Several days passed before he could be found, the police finally bringing him in from the abandoned stables behind an old unrented house where their attention had been drawn by midnight barking of stray dogs who had gathered and were thus saluting Walter as he fumbled about.

  He was returned to the hospital, taken out again by his family, and sent back because of similar capers time after time. His father evidently hoped that the prospect of being confined indefinitely in a mental hospital would curb his activities and tried repeatedly to impress him by this means. Nothing, however, was accomplished, and after eight months spent on the wards and out on furloughs the attempt was abandoned. Walter left again to seek his fortune selling electric refrigerators in a large, distant city.

  After losing a number of positions in various cities, spending many nights in jails over the country, and lying out in low dives or in the woods on prolonged solitary drinking sprees, he returned to his parents. He now began to make himself even more difficult than formerly. After uproarious, obscene, and threatening entrances into the house between midnight and dawn, he would sleep until the early afternoon, then, on arising, make a canvass of the city, calling chiefly on quiet old ladies, preferably close friends of his mother’s, to wheedle money from them. Knowing that he would take whatever they furnished him and use it to make further trouble, these ladies, after giving him a few dollars, would, on the second or third visit, often send word by the servant that they were not at home. Thereupon he would become insistent, saying that his business was urgent, that he would wait until the lady returned. Growing particularly vehement, he sometimes accused the servants of lying, called in a loud voice up the stairs, and made such a commotion that his victim would have to come down and see him.

  On several occasions he even disturbed these lifelong friends of his mother’s from their beds, keeping up his calls until they came to the stairs and spoke with him. He did not readily take no for an answer but continued to beg after repeated refusals. His manner was supercilious and haughty, though his words were sometimes shamefully abject. During these interviews he outrageously and falsely criticized his parents, accusing them of the most fantastic mistreatment and laying all his difficulties at their door.

  Few of his parents’ friends escaped these embarrassing encounters. Respect and admiration for the parents’ prevented these people from calling the police to rid them of such a pest, and most would rather have suffered ten times such inconvenience than let it come to his parents’ attention. Walter himself was a virtual stranger to these quiet old ladies, never having had much to do with respectable people since his childhood.

  On one occasion he accosted the mother of a former playmate as she was walking down the street: “Hello, Aunt Maisie, hello!” he called in a loud, insistent voice from behind her. Superficially polite, but with a discernible swagger, he approached. She had not laid eyes on him for many years and scarcely recognized him. “I say, my car’s just broken down up the street. Could you lend me a couple of dollars?”

  Placing him after a moment, she regretfully said that she had only a little change in her purse. “Well, how much have you?” he countered briskly, smiling in a brittle sham of courtesy. As she opened the purse his eager hands flew to her assistance, mimicking still the action of a gentleman performing a small service for a lady. The few coins were scarcely in her palm before his fingers licked them up. With brief but extravagant words of thanks which had a peculiarly hollow ring, he was off.

  Some months later he was readmitted to the hospital, coming from the police barracks. His father had become afraid that he might, in a fit of temper, actually harm his mother. Though he had often threatened both parents and once had even pulled his mother a few yards by the wrists, neither parent heretofore had seriously feared violence at his hands. He had brawled often in taverns, poolrooms, bars, and on the streets, but he had never shown sufficient violence to suggest that he was really dangerous. He had, however, recently adopted the habit of sleeping with a gallon of whiskey under his bed on which he laid a loaded revolver. His father did not want to take chances on his personal belief that Walter was unlikely to kill.

  Let it be recorded here again that this patient’s father showed no signs of being a victim of parental blindness, of foolish pride in his child, or of perceptible weakness in dealing with him. In discussing the case with physicians at the hospital, he spared no detail of the history, made no effort to whitewash the son’s motives or to excuse him; as ugly as this situation was, he seemed to face it squarely at all times. There was no sign of vindictiveness or personal bitterness, but there was always complete frankness and remarkable insight. His grief and shame seemed almost, but not quite, too much for him. His unfailing devotion to his son as expressed in his actions became steadily more impressive to those who observed. Some of the physicians w
ho dealt with the case felt that this man’s understanding and his adequacy all but matched his son’s spectacular opposite.

  This time Walter stayed in the hospital for nearly three months. He was, as before, supercilious, full of quietly boastful innuendos, and totally unwilling to accept any of the responsibility for his maladjustment.

  This time it was his mother who, by nagging at him and meddling with him, had got him into the hospital. At the staff meeting he came in rather like a lord. With chilly politeness not free from contempt he stated, in reply to a question, that he was an engineer, giving the term a pompous accent that showed his sense of superiority. This statement was based on his former work as a mechanic and was plainly not a delusion but a boastful exaggeration.

  He was extremely dissatisfied on a ward with psychotic patients and incessantly demanded his release. Only the knowledge that his father would refer him at once to the police kept him from forcing the hospital to let him go. He seemed as out of place as any normal man would be, and he was no less impatient to gain his freedom. He was soon tried on parole. This did not last long, for he went off again and almost at once got into difficulties. After several such trials he was again discharged.

  Soon afterward he went to the telephone one morning, called up a man he had known during his childhood, and said he was in trouble and needed help at once. The other man, though he remembered Walter as a child, had not seen him for a number of years. He was busy with pressing matters at the time in a cotton mill several miles from town where he held an important position.