The Mask of Sanity

by Hervey Cleckley

  17. Milt

  An incomplete account of this patient will be offered. His behavior and his apparent subjective reactions differ little from those of the patients already presented. He serves, however, as an example of the psychopath who resorts to no alcoholic beverage. Although drinking is sometimes prominent in a superficial appraisal of the clinical picture, nonalcoholic psychopaths are not so rare as the preceding accounts might lead one to believe. Since many observers still tend to explain such patients’ essential difficulties as being caused by drinking and in legal matters stress is put upon this factor, it is, perhaps, worthwhile to consider this case.

  At 19 years of age, Milt was admitted to a general hospital for psychiatric study. His mother and other relatives who bad brought him from his home in a neighboring state expressed the greatest perplexity about his condition. The behavior which had resulted in his hospitalization became prominent about two years previously, but he was described as being sporadically unreliable and unresponsive since the early teens.

  The patient’s family were people of considerable means and had for many generations been prominent and highly respected in a city of approximately 100,000 inhabitants. His male antecedents had been judges, bank presidents, distinguished physicians, and brokers. The women on both sides of his family were almost uniformly charming and responsible members of the community. Four years prior to the boy’s admission to the hospital, his father’s business failed, and in the consequent readjustment it was revealed that the father had disposed of large funds illegally. The family was able, however, to make arrangements which prevented serious legal action, and the father at present is established in another business. Except for this episode the father’s career does not show any evidence of unusual or serious antisocial behavior. Nothing at all in the father’s activities can be found which would suggest the kind of behavior so prominent in the son. However indefensible the misappropriation of funds may be, it is an action based on motives which anyone can understand, though one may not approve of it. Sufficient income still existed for the family to live well. The patient’s older brother, an older sister, and one younger brother were all regarded as normal and attractive young people. The two older siblings had finished college successfully.

  The first thing which caused the parents worry was the patient’s apparent failure to take anything seriously. Milt often became involved in adolescent pranks, but, unlike his playmates, he did not profit by his mistakes. If he, with other boys, destroyed property during the celebration after a high school football victory, he seemed unable to realize his responsibility for the damage. His verbal apologies were magnificent and he seemed in discussion to understand fully that he had been in the wrong. But he would soon repeat the same deed and, if apprehended, would express his regret with the same charming politeness but apparently without any awareness that the continued repetitions robbed his promises of conviction.

  Milt’s mother describes him as having become callous, saying that there seemed to be no way in which she could arouse any actual response. He agreed readily when rebuked, so readily, in fact, that the mother finally began to feel that the meaning of her words did not touch him.

  An incident during the previous year illustrates this young man’s specific indifference to stimuli accepted as basic by the ordinary person. His mother, who had just returned from the hospital after a major surgical operation, found it necessary to attend personally to an urgent matter of business. Our patient graciously volunteered to drive her on this mission in the family’s automobile.

  On the whole he had been thoughtful and attentive to her during the illness, and she had tried to grasp some shreds of encouragement from his apparent attitude on which to build hope again that favorable changes lay ahead. She had recovered sufficiently to sit up and to walk about a little but the surgeon had strongly prohibited any major physical exertion.

  It was necessary to cross a long bridge over a river at the edge of town to reach their destination, and both the patient and his mother were vexed when the car stopped near the center of this bridge, leaving them inconveniently isolated. Milt, who was rather expert in such matters, soon found the cause of the trouble. A fuse had blown out. There being no extra fuse on hand and relatively little traffic at this hour, he offered to walk to a garage less than a half mile distant and bring back the simple article needed. Darkness was falling and it was difficult to estimate when another car might pass which could be utilized to expedite the trip to the garage. Most drivers crossed this bridge at high speed and there might be difficulty in flagging anyone down as darkness increased.

  Bidding his mother an affectionate good-bye, Milt cheered her with the assurance that he would be back in less than fifteen minutes. Someone at the garage, he pointed out, would be glad to drive him back, so she would be left alone hardly more than a moment.

  After a half hour, uneasiness developed in the mother as she waited and wondered about the possibilities of an accident having befallen her son. An occasional car racing across the bridge prompted dreadful speculations about hit-and-run drivers and the much publicized dangers of mutilation and death on the highways. When an hour had passed, Milt’s mother, perhaps still more susceptible to stress than ordinary because of her recent operation, became desperate.

  Her own situation was far from pleasant. The business she had to transact was important, and she had not regained sufficient strength to put up easily with this complication. Forbidden to walk any considerable distance, she found herself unhappily marooned in a spot where it was not unnatural for a woman left alone for an indefinite time to think of unpleasant possibilities, including robbery or personal molestation from night wanderers.

  Her increasing worry about her son diverted her from preoccupation with her personal safety but finally brought her to a point little short of panic. After waiting about an hour, she got out, stood in the middle of the bridge, and at length succeeded in signaling a motorist who drove her home.

  Almost frantic, she telephoned two hospitals to inquire at the emergency room about injured persons recently brought in from the road. She had already sent her younger son with a neighbor who offered assistance by automobile to inquire at the garage where Milt had told her he would get the needed fuse and to search that neighborhood. Before this expedition returned, Milt himself appeared.

  He had, he explained, procured the fuse, started the car, and driven on home. During the next hour he by turns showed vexation at his mother for not having waited until he so belatedly got back and a bland immunity to any recognition that he had behaved irresponsibly or inconsiderately.

  Milt had begun his trip to the garage with commendable haste. Shortly after leaving the bridge, he passed a cigar store. Noting that the afternoon’s football scores were being posted on a blackboard, he lingered for ten or fifteen minutes to check results.

  During this interval he recalled that a girl he knew lived a half block down a side street in this neighborhood and decided to drop in on her for a moment. She greeted him cordially and he spent approximately an hour in her company. There is no evidence that any sudden sexual urge or any other strongly tempting impulse diverted our patient. He had no special liking for the girl, and no attempt was made to gain even the mildest erotic favor.

  Milt chatted with the girl amiably but desultorily about trifling matters. His departure followed the arrival of her date for the evening, whose rights to her company he acknowledged after a pleasant exchange of courtesies by bidding them good-bye and going on his way.

  It is interesting to note that this conduct did not result from absentmindedness, from specific amnesia or confusion, or from some attraction so enthralling or distracting as to delay or divert a person from even a mildly serious mission. He was quite aware all through the episode of his mother waiting on the bridge and seems to have been free from any grudge or other impulse that would influence him deliberately to offend her or cause her hardship. Missing from his realization, apparently, was the evaluation
of her emotional reactions that would in another have outweighed a whim so petty as that which in Milt gained easy ascendancy.

  During his third year at high school he began to practice truancy, one or more times a week not going to school at all but hanging around poolrooms, going to motion pictures, or aimlessly wandering in the streets and parks. His absences were, of course, reported, and, as he could not have failed to foresee, became known each time to his parents. He often began by denying, simply and with the most thorough appearance of innocence, all charges of truancy. After the charges had been obviously demonstrated as true, he gave ingenious excuses. As these episodes continued, his excuses became more easily recognized as absurd or impossible. He always expressed regret, usually admitted himself at fault, and never failed to make convincing promises that the truancy would never recur. Efforts were made by various relatives, by physicians, and by scoutmasters to find out why the boy behaved as he did. lie did not show a particular interest in any hobby or in any dissipation. All were at a loss in trying to discover what could possibly be his motivation. He was apparently frank with those who tried to investigate his reactions, seldom became sulky or evasive, and never showed anything that looked like genuine embarrassment or a realization that he had been caught in a lie. He always stated that he understood the necessity of attending school regularly and seemed from what he had to say about it actually to understand this better than the average boy of his years.

  Meanwhile, he mixed freely with his contemporaries, attended dances, and played football. Sometimes he failed to attend football practice, deciding instead to loll about his room. He was, however, quite energetic when he chose to bestir himself. His ability was regarded as high by all his teachers, though his academic standing suffered from the gross neglect with which he treated his studies.

  Not only his parents but also the two older siblings noted that he began to show less interest in companions of his own social status and to seek the company of boys and girls who were regarded by his friends as beneath him in taste and intelligence. Although many of his new associates were of questionable moral standing, they are described as being depressing or boring rather than actively depraved. He did not appear to be particularly driven by sexual urges for which he might be seeking fulfillment with these girls who were his so-called social inferiors. He did occasionally have intercourse but probably no more often than other boys of his age and class.

  Now and then he failed to return to his home during the night, choosing to stay with some of his new acquaintances. He was never reported drunk and apparently did not use alcohol at all. When questioned about his absence, he usually made glib excuses. When his stories were broken down, he often showed pique and seemed to feel that he was being unjustly bothered. Sometimes he would admit his inconsiderateness with what seemed strong sincerity. But a week later his parents would pace the floor, telephone dozens of his acquaintances, and spend a miserable night of anxiety, only to see him appear the next day with some casual explanation.

  Once after he had remained away for two full nights, the police were called. He was picked up at a dive where slot machines and other gambling devices furnished amusement to mill workers and rustics from the surrounding countryside. He had previously driven over to a nearby city with a casual acquaintance who had gone there in the course of his duties as a traveling salesman. The fact that he had not taken the trouble to inform his mother of his intentions seemed to him a trifle in comparison with what he indignantly regarded as the meddling of his family in asking the police to look for him.

  He showed little regard for the convenience or the property of others, sometimes misappropriating things which he apparently did not mean to keep or sell but which he put to his own use without ordinary regard for the trouble inflicted on relatives, friends, or strangers. An example will illustrate.

  Noting that a family in the neighborhood was on vacation, he tampered with the wiring of their car until he arranged connections by which he could start the motor without a key. Driving off to the house of a slightly younger friend, he explained that an uncle had given him the car and that he was leaving on a pleasure trip to New York. Another fellow, he said, who had planned to go with him had to give up the trip at the last moment. Our patient suggested that the friend come along.

  Everything indicated that the situation was as represented. There was casual mention of details that suggested ample financial provision for all needs. Making hasty arrangements and telling his family of the fine opportunity, the friend joined in the expedition.

  Our patient showed no signs of haste or uneasiness and the other boy’s parents later regarded it as almost inconceivable that he could have been so self-assured under the circumstances.

  Both travelers were surprised when they ran out of gasoline seventy or eighty miles away from town. The fuel gauge was out of order and had given misleading information.

  The boy who had been persuaded to come along soon got other surprises. It became apparent that Milt had only a few dollars on him and was expecting his guest to contribute most of the expense for fuel. Suspecting a good deal now about the situation, the friend refused to give over what he had and decided not to go on.

  Making his way to the nearest telephone, our patient called his family by long distance (reversing the charges) and told them of being stranded in this lonely spot, that he lacked sufficient funds to get back, and that he needed them to come for him at once.

  Milt had apparently hoped to get some money from his companion at the beginning, then to sponge or panhandle along the way, to beat the bill at restaurants and filling stations, perhaps to get additional cash from time to time by playing slot machines or gambling in night spots or by misrepresentations or petty swindling. He thought, too, that, if it became necessary, he could sell the spare tire, a new spotlight, the radio, or other accessories from the car. The patient intended, it seems, not to dispose of the car itself but to return it surreptitiously after it had served his purpose.

  It is interesting to contrast the ingenuity in some features of his plan with the injudiciousness of the general scheme. The talk of going all the way to New York with which he beguiled his companion probably represented a vague hope (if lucky breaks occurred) but the unlikelihood of getting that far did not deter the patient in his actions. Apparently Milt said to himself, well, if we don’t make it all the way to New York, at least we’ll have a good trip and see a lot of other places nearer at hand.

  His parents, who had been deeply worried over his unexplained absence, drove through a hard rainstorm in haste and arrived exhausted and considerably upset. Milt was calm and full of ingenious explanations. His father arranged for the misappropriated automobile to be returned to its owner. The patient seemed not to understand why everyone got so upset and “nagged at him” about what had happened.

  He did not seem to be prompted by strong yearning for adventure or any obvious, formulated, or purposeful criminal bent. Though he frequently stole small sums of money from his family, he did not engage in robbery or any regular and understandable misdemeanors while out on these jaunts.

  He was at this stage sent off to a strict school in Virginia where discipline was stressed more than studies. After many misadventures he graduated satisfactorily. During his time at the preparatory school he showed no real or serious formulation of an aim and no encouraging tendency to change. When at home during vacations he continued his old practices. His family often sought to find out if he misunderstood or resented anything in their treatment of him. He was offered more freedom, a larger allowance, and other inducements to be more cooperative and considerate. He accepted these proposals but always continued to steal money from his mother’s purse, to pawn objects from his home, or to go off for a day or two with the family car, sometimes damaging it or leaving it without gasoline.

  After graduating from school, he entered a well-known military college in the East. For a year his progress in his studies was uneven. He was plainly bright, but he so
metimes failed to attend an examination or to appear at drill. Occasionally he disappeared for longer periods. He gave various and very shrewd accounts of illness at home and of other emergencies. Since the college specialized in reshaping headstrong youths, unusual efforts were made to keep him despite his many irresponsible and absurd capers. He consistently cheated and lied but when rebuked denied all charges with astonishing suaveness and aplomb.

  Shortly before his admission to the hospital he had been expelled, during his second year, from the military college. The events which led to the expulsion were typical of the psychopath. After a long series of irresponsible and often dishonest acts, Milt went downtown without permission when the cadet corps was assembling for a formal drill in celebration of the visit of a high military authority. He remained away all that afternoon and night but returned the next day, quite casual, and gave glib but hollow excuses for his absence. He had not been drinking and he knew perfectly well that he would have to face serious disciplinary action on his return. He was not a forgetful or absentminded person but appeared to be quite deliberate in his failures.

  Shortly after this and while confined to barracks, Milt slipped away again and deliberately started a rumor that he had married a local prostitute. This story came to the school authorities and was for a time believed to be true. Later is was proved false, the patient having thought it a good joke to spread the report. While action on these matters was pending, he slipped out of his quarters again against the college regulations. Two other cadets, responsible in the matter, had to report him. He at once denied their report though the facts were plain and plainly showed him in falsehood. His family was informed that it had become impossible to persuade anyone to room with him and that the student body could not put up any further with him.