insanityBut my wife and I couldn't rid ourselves of another possibility—the caricature of the criminally insane which, like all stereotypes, our folklore, legend, gossip, literature, movies, and television have slowly and insidiously constructed in the dark cellars of our unconscious minds. The words “psychotic” and “schizophrenic,” the label “mentally ill” sparked it to new life, and like the monster of Frankenstein this caricature of the mentally ill climbed unsteadily from its dark hiding place in our rational minds to take its rightful place and assert itself among our supposedly enlightened analyses, plans, and strategies. Was it possible that Wyatt might drive by my house spraying bullets from an automatic weapon? Younger, saner men were now doing such things. Would he try to kidnap and molest my children? Set fire to my house? Sabotage my car? Come knocking at my door with an axe and a grin like Jack Nicholson in The Shining? Wyatt was a man, after all, who believed Charles Manson should be set free! What sort of tidy, fastidious homicides might Wyatt be planning in order to preclude Manson's own unjust fate?
After lengthy and careful consideration, my wife and I decided it best to tell our two children what was going on but not to send them away until the crisis had passed. They were students in elementary school, in fifth and sixth grade, and we thought they should be made aware of even the most extreme possibility and of the potential risk, however slight it might be, to their own safety. Then, if they wanted to stay a week or two with Grandma, that we could arrange. Or was Wyatt both clever enough and in the grip of his delusion evil enough to ferret them out even there? Our two children, too, like their parents, warily negotiated their initial feelings of alarm and then settled into a combination of curiosity, morbid speculation, amusement, and dread. Yes, from one point of view it was funny. Why? Because, well, because it was so crazy! We reviewed as a family what we thought were the possible eventualities, the appropriate responses, told the children what to be on the lookout for, to be cautious, to be prudent, and urged them to call 911 if they had even the slightest suspicions or doubts.
Early Friday morning when I arrived at work I learned there had been a second event. Thursday evening an anonymous caller had rung the night clerk at admissions and records.
"I'm going to get you all!" the caller had warned and then hung up.
The news of the first incident—and now the phone call—traveled quickly through the organizational grapevine. All day Friday—and for weeks and even months after—I heard for the first time stories of similar incidents. In one class, to emphasize and to illustrate her uncompromising intolerance of the mere suggestion of her husband's infidelity, a student had pulled a handgun from her handbag. Other instructors had been threatened or had felt threatened by students upset by class policies, by the prices of textbooks, by assignments too difficult, by final course grades, or by personality conflicts with their instructors. Teachers described their students' aggressive, intimidating behaviors—sobbing, shouting, yelling, curses, demands, promises, warnings, threats. Teachers had been backed into corners. Several had been shoved, bumped like umpires confronted by baseball players and managers enraged over bad calls, and been staggered by the collision of chest against chest. One student had threatened to impale her instructor on a sharpened pencil. With her academic weapon she made menacing uppercut jabbing and stabbing motions and thrusts as she cursed bitterly and slowly approached her teacher at the front of the room. From a pedestrian overpass near the college, someone had dropped a paving brick through the windshield of a teacher on her way to work. Though there was no way of knowing for sure, she suspected one of her students, a sullen man who had only recently expressed his extreme displeasure and frustration with her methods and had hinted vaguely of exacting revenge for the injustices he had supposedly endured at her hand.
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INSANITY to be continued
After lengthy and careful consideration, my wife and I decided it best to tell our two children what was going on but not to send them away until the crisis had passed. They were students in elementary school, in fifth and sixth grade, and we thought they should be made aware of even the most extreme possibility and of the potential risk, however slight it might be, to their own safety. Then, if they wanted to stay a week or two with Grandma, that we could arrange. Or was Wyatt both clever enough and in the grip of his delusion evil enough to ferret them out even there? Our two children, too, like their parents, warily negotiated their initial feelings of alarm and then settled into a combination of curiosity, morbid speculation, amusement, and dread. Yes, from one point of view it was funny. Why? Because, well, because it was so crazy! We reviewed as a family what we thought were the possible eventualities, the appropriate responses, told the children what to be on the lookout for, to be cautious, to be prudent, and urged them to call 911 if they had even the slightest suspicions or doubts.
Early Friday morning when I arrived at work I learned there had been a second event. Thursday evening an anonymous caller had rung the night clerk at admissions and records.
"I'm going to get you all!" the caller had warned and then hung up.
The news of the first incident—and now the phone call—traveled quickly through the organizational grapevine. All day Friday—and for weeks and even months after—I heard for the first time stories of similar incidents. In one class, to emphasize and to illustrate her uncompromising intolerance of the mere suggestion of her husband's infidelity, a student had pulled a handgun from her handbag. Other instructors had been threatened or had felt threatened by students upset by class policies, by the prices of textbooks, by assignments too difficult, by final course grades, or by personality conflicts with their instructors. Teachers described their students' aggressive, intimidating behaviors—sobbing, shouting, yelling, curses, demands, promises, warnings, threats. Teachers had been backed into corners. Several had been shoved, bumped like umpires confronted by baseball players and managers enraged over bad calls, and been staggered by the collision of chest against chest. One student had threatened to impale her instructor on a sharpened pencil. With her academic weapon she made menacing uppercut jabbing and stabbing motions and thrusts as she cursed bitterly and slowly approached her teacher at the front of the room. From a pedestrian overpass near the college, someone had dropped a paving brick through the windshield of a teacher on her way to work. Though there was no way of knowing for sure, she suspected one of her students, a sullen man who had only recently expressed his extreme displeasure and frustration with her methods and had hinted vaguely of exacting revenge for the injustices he had supposedly endured at her hand.
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INSANITY to be continued
