“Those weren’t firefighters.”
“What do you mean they weren’t firefighters? I saw their uniforms.” The little man nodded.
“Yes, yes, they were uniforms. Police uniforms. The Fire Department didn’t get there until much later, when it was far too late to save the house.” I shook my head and peered at him. My hatred subsided and confusion slashed at me. What is he talking about?
“Police? What were the Police doing there?” He raised an eyebrow as he looked at me once again, I’m sure wondering whether he should tell me.
“They were there to arrest you.” Wide-eyed disbelief.
“Arrest…me.” Indignation and grim realization. The little man nodded.
“Don’t you remember?” I frantically shook my head.
There must be a mistake.
“No. Of course I don’t. Why would the Police want to arrest me?” I shook uncontrollably. My right hand stung horribly, and I wanted to hold it up and nurse it, but I couldn’t. It was shackled to the floor.
“What’s going on…?” The little man made some more notes and then sat back, dangling his pen in one hand.
“You’ve been arrested for the murder of,” he flipped back in his book again, “Elizabeth Mackenzie and your father. And countless other murders. Don’t you remember?”
“My father’s dead?” Jack killed him. What’s…” I slowly shook my head. Something was terribly wrong.
“No…no.” I steadied myself in my chair by putting my left hand on the table. I tried to remember everything that happened at the house.
“No. It wasn’t me. It was Jack.” The doctor made a few notes, sighed and bit his lip again. He watched for a moment, as if he considered telling me something.
“We’ve been over this before.
“You are Jack.”
I’ll never forget the impact of those words. My entire mind crumbled down around me and the hatred returned. But it was censored by confusion, pain and fear. This was insanity.
“What are you talking about? I’m Malcolm. Goddammit! This is a mistake. Where am I?” Again, I thought about snapping his neck, and I wondered if I could take on the attendant. But even if I killed both of them, I was still inside a secured room and shackled to the floor. I gripped the edge of the table.
“Jack, think very carefully. You know who you are.”
“Jesus! Enough with the fucking games! You’ve got it mixed up! Jack was impaled on the statue. He made his deal with the devil and paid the price. Christ!” My heart pounded in my chest and I feverishly looked around the room.
“No. You weren’t impaled. There was no deal with the devil. Obviously not, since you’re here, sitting in front of me.” As he spoke the words, he placed the pen down on the table as if he no longer needed to take notes. I was infuriated and my fingers dug into an armrest. I found just enough control so that my next words were spoken slowly, calmly and carefully.
“No, no. No. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m Malcolm. Jack did all that horrible stuff, but he’s dead now. Understand, fuckface?” He nodded as if he did understand, but I could tell that he didn’t. What was going on here? Was Jack extracting his final vengeance on me? Was this his final ‘fuck you’ from beyond the grave? I moved my hand, trying to ease the sting.
The little man sighed, shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. It gave me pleasure to imagine him in that same pose, except with his lifeless head limply slumped on his chest. I could even smell the blood that flowed out of his mouth and nostrils.
Today, I know where those feelings came from. But then, I didn’t stop to wonder why I had such an onslaught of violent emotions.
“No. You imagine that you are Malcolm. I believe that’s because you can’t cope with your terrible deeds. You want to associate yourself with the goodness in your life, and the direct association that you had with your friend Malcolm. What was it that you called him? Mal?
“The French word for ‘bad’ or ‘ill?’
“Believe me when I tell you, that we’ll work through this with you. It will take time, but you will remember.” I wasn’t buying this psychobabble bullshit and I squirmed in my seat as I stared at him and scowled with spite in his direction. My words grew frantic out of desperation, and I shook when I spoke.
“Listen, I don’t know who screwed up, but I know who I am. I’m not Jack. He was my friend. I grew up with the guy. We played hockey together. We drank together, and I found him the day after he beat those two girls. Hell, we even fucked the same women.” The doctor nodded as if in agreement.
“Yes, yes, of course you remember doing all those things together. But it was you. You’ve transposed your persona and convinced yourself that you’re Malcolm. I believe you did this because you could no longer cope with the guilt and anguish of your actions. Yes, you did all those things with Malcolm. But you beat those girls, and you killed Elizabeth, Jack.”
“NO! That’s horseshit! I remember everything, vividly. It was him, not me!”
He pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows. I thought that he was becoming frustrated. Later on, I would become quite familiar with that look and realize that he was struggling with the verbal jousts that I was so adept at maintaining. He was trying to find a way to get to me quickly and effectively. Then, as he always did, he nodded and looked directly at me.
“Alright then. If you are Malcolm, then what’s your Social Insurance Number?”
“It’s 369-182-399.” I looked accusingly at him. Why does he think I wouldn’t remember my own Social Insurance Number? The little man checked something in the notebook in front of him. He folded his hands across his chest.
“You’re right. That is your Social Insurance Number. Jack’s Social Insurance Number.”
What?
“No, no…I don’t know, maybe I remember it from when Fred and I were doing the legal stuff…waitasec…” I squeezed my eyes together as if that would help me remember mine. It wasn’t there. Just scrambled eggs of voices and images. When I opened them, he was still looking at me.
He drew a long breath and twirled the pen in his mouth. Thoughtfully. All the while, he stared directly at me. Finally, he raised his hand and gestured toward the attendant, who lumbered over and leaned down to listen, as the little man whispered something to him.
The large man returned to the door, rapped on it three times and waited for several moments before someone opened it. He spoke briefly and then waited for a minute or two.
I looked around the room, tapping my foot as if I was listening to a song in my head. I closed my eyes and wondered what was coming next. If I wasn’t shackled, I would have stood up, for my legs were beginning to cramp, and the pain in my hand made me anxious.
Finally there were three raps at the door and it opened. The person on the outside handed the attendant something and he walked it over to the little man. I raised my eyebrows when I saw what the attendant handed him. It was a hand mirror.
The little man looked at his reflection briefly. I wondered if he realized just how ugly he was. I supposed that he didn’t, but it was obvious to me. I smiled when I thought how I could put him out of his misery, and give him immortality at the same time.
He had no idea of the bliss he would experience. If he would only let me wrap my hands around his neck. I imagined the sound that it would make when I applied pressure. The sound of solid bone and spine snapping, muffled only by the flesh and muscle which surrounded it. I smiled.
He spun the mirror around and held it toward me. As it wavered in front of me, I looked into it. The throbbing in my head and in my hand stopped. I believe my heart did too.
The infectious smile that was more like a grin faded as I looked at my jet-black hair. As always, not one was out of place, even in my present condition. Straight and shiny and parted on my left, it fell almost carelessly over my right eye. I looked at fine features etched onto olive, well-tanned skin. I saw my strong jaw line, a sharp but well-shaped nose with slightly flared nostrils. An
d my cheekbones.
The cheekbones of a model.
But most compelling and endearing about my visage were my eyes. Once glistening blue, they appeared black. And as always, my expressive and even entrancing eyes glinted, but with shock. I had seen those eyes so many times before. But until that day, I hadn’t seen them in my own reflection.
I looked up from the mirror and stared at the little man in desperate confusion.
No. This isn’t happening.
“What the…” He pulled the mirror away. As if a portion of my dream had come back to me, I found myself trying to remember something.
Something about the past…something I did…
A chunk of the dream returned to me in a wave of sudden, disturbing horror. I wanted to puke, but there was nothing in my stomach and I retched slightly as I looked at him accusingly. He held the mirror up to the attendant without losing eye contact with me.
“So whose face did you just see?”
“This isn’t happening.” I coughed out the words lamely and slumped in my chair. This was a trick. I was sure of that. This isn’t right.
“No. This is wrong. I don’t understand…you have to check your information. Something’s wrong! I’m not Jack. I’m Malcolm!” I jumped up and felt a blinding shock of agony shoot through my right wrist as the shackle went taut. I fell back into my chair and screamed in anguish as the big man darted toward me. This time the little man didn’t stop him. He put his huge, burly hands on my shoulders, steadying me as I swooned and looked around the room in dismay. I vaguely heard the little man’s voice as the room became a blur. My ears began to ring and my brain pulsed incessantly in my skull.
“No Jack. The only thing that is wrong is your regrettable perception of the world around you. You are obviously Jack. The evidence is right in front of you, and yet you refuse to accept it. I’m going to help you to deal with that.
“You recognize your own face. The house that you say that Jack built was your house. You built it. And you killed those people.”
I swayed back and forth in the chair briefly, while I tried to digest the words. Then I lost consciousness and fell to the floor.
Chapter 70
After similar sessions with Doctor Phelps – I learned his name in our next session – I wasn’t any closer to accepting the truth. As far as I was concerned, the truth as the rest of the world sees it.
Initially I found our sessions very difficult, for I was cold turkey. No alcohol and no drugs made for infuriated outbursts that frequently landed me in a straightjacket. I vomited repeatedly for the first few weeks and couldn’t sleep at all. I was in withdrawal from intense chemical substance abuse – which in my mind was odd, because with the exception of excessive booze, I only took illicit drugs once.
With therapy, time and medication, I began to calm down. Cigarettes helped too.
Asylums are the most democratic places in the world. I mean, you can’t smoke anywhere anymore without having someone giving you a dirty look or telling you to butt it out. But in here, it’s not only acceptable, it’s encouraged (for smokers). I suppose that it’s just one more useful drug in the war on Psychopathy. My curiously initial distaste for them quickly disappeared. But it took awhile before I understood why I suddenly couldn’t stomach them after I was admitted.
After two months, Phelps pleasantly informed me that we were making progress. For although my improvement was gradual, I began to remember our sessions, my surroundings and events from the past.
I discovered that I was at the Leclerc Maximum Security Penitentiary in Laval, Québec. I was being detained in the Criminally Insane Ward. The Police found me at the house – my house in Nova Scotia – and I was heavily-sedated while they transported me. I couldn’t remember any of it.
When they found a human head at my house in Montreal – I never sold it – an Arrest Warrant was issued. You see, they discovered that I had staged my own disappearance, and it was only a matter of time before they tracked me down in Nova Scotia.
The head belonged to my father…Jack’s father. While I was frequently questioned about the location of his body, I couldn’t tell them, because while I do now, then I couldn’t remember. There was so much I didn’t remember, but after my initial resistance to the undeniable fact that I was Jack, I eventually had no choice but to give in to the Doctor’s incessant ministrations.
During my free time, I thought a great deal about Malcolm and Jack, Jack and Malcolm. It was difficult separating the two. I didn’t know which one was my true identity. For while I looked like Jack and had Jack’s manic personality, my memories and feelings belonged to Malcolm.
Although the therapy progressed, Phelps informed me that I had been living with my psychosis for twenty years. He strongly cautioned me: it wasn’t going to be easy for me to come to terms with the fact that, while I lived in the fantasy world of Malcolm’s mind – a fantasy that was very real to me – it was nothing more than the fabrication of a deranged mind.
In fact I learned a great deal about the criminally insane over the ensuing months. Phelps told me that I exhibited characteristics of ‘Antisocial Personality Disorder’ and that my condition was complicated by a severe form of ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder.’ He used pre-packaged terms to label me. Terms like ‘Sociopath’ and ‘Charismatic Psychopath.’ He suggested all sorts of possible neurological and environmental excuses for my condition, but in the final analysis he concluded that there was no clear explanation for my illness – just catalysts.
‘Criminally Insane’ is the closest psychological bucket that the shrinks can use to explain my condition.
He explained that catalysts for my illness were my mother’s death in my young life and the lack of a benevolent and sustained relationship with my father.
It was further complicated by the abusiveness of our relationship, he explained. The fact that my father suffered from a similar illness was of great interest to him, but he approached the topic with caution. For in his professional opinion, there was nothing to suggest that heredity alluded to my condition. He felt it was purely environmental. And while I was aware that my father had tried to kill me when I was sixteen, he didn’t find it remarkable that I couldn’t remember how or why. ‘Freudian Suppression.’
He spoke at great length about my symptoms: sociopathic and psychopathic activities; a lack of empathy toward others; repeated criminal activity; chronic substance abuse, and a predilection for self-mutilation.
As I grew up, he told me, my fear of close interpersonal relationships and my inability to sustain them manifested into the insane fabrication that became my adult life. At the age of twelve, he explained, I attached myself to Jack’s ‘alter ego’ – Malcolm – as a way to disassociate myself from the traumatic memories that were manifested in my wild and unruly actions.
Eventually, the more time that I spent with Malcolm, the more that I craved to become Malcolm, until I eventually assumed the elaborate fantasy and ‘adopted’ his psyche when I needed it. I listened with great interest when he attempted to dissect my mind. But however convincing his words sounded, it was months before I took his diagnoses seriously.
I was on a cocktail of mind-altering drugs. Phelps cautioned me that there was no evidence to suggest that the use of drugs were an effective treatment, and that they were more to calm me than to cure me.
I underwent EEGs, CAT scans, PET scans and extensive hypnotherapy sessions. I even had several ECT treatments. But Phelps put most of his faith in direct psychotherapy and used several accepted therapy techniques to treat me. He explained that we would be dealing with my inabilities to trust, feel and learn. I found this humorous, for I never considered myself lacking in these abilities. Amidst my scoffing, he assured me that the presence of multiple personalities was a result of my fear and resistance to trusting, feeling and learning.
He used techniques to ‘frustrate’ my wishes to ‘run from the tenderness and pain of human interaction,’ as he put it. I was ‘affected,’ or
so he told me, when as the therapy progressed, I began to suffer from severe depression. It was an incredibly uncomfortable experience for me, but he assured me it was a very good sign that I was making progress.
As part of the therapy, I was stripped of all privileges except for the basic right to be treated as a human being. As time progressed, I was given more privileges in a structured and hierarchical manner. I was also given a great deal of time for reflection, in a small cell with padded walls, a commode, and a small cot.
Time passed, and as I made progress I was finally allowed to have notebooks and writing materials – at first they only gave me crayons, because I did have a tendency toward self-mutilation. This made it difficult for me to write, but I worked with what I had and began to record my thoughts and experiences. As my intensive therapy progressed, the grip that Malcolm held over me gradually released.
Over the next several months, I had visits from Police Officers and lawyers on a regular basis. I looked forward to those visits, because I had little human interaction with anyone other than Doctor Phelps and the tall attendant – a somber and serious man named Jacques.
The Police continually pressed me for information about my crimes. As I regained my memory and the line between Jack and Malcolm began to dissolve, I was able to provide them with some vague recollections of people I had met and murdered.
As best as we could figure, I was responsible for at least twenty-nine deaths of which they could be certain, including Elizabeth; Anastasia, my Italian bride; Lexi; my father; Fred Philips; ‘Tiger Lady;’ at least two people I went to grade school with; my mute manservant Alberto; the skipper of my yacht (he deserved it for fucking my wife), and at least six hookers, including the one I ‘heard’ being murdered on a voicemail that I had left for Malcolm – it wasn’t a joke after all. The ‘play’ was, but I killed her after she and I finished fucking with his head.
The House that Jack Built Page 47