By Reason of Insanity by Shane Stevens Page A

kept in the dark he was not like them. As long as he was not given the key he was in their power. But now he had them. No longer would he be helpless before their laughter, their mockery of him. It was all a matter of the middle of the road.
    Not that it would be easy, he told himself They still knew more than he did, they had infinitely more experience. But he would listen carefully and learn swiftly. Pick a subject, any subject. Food? Sometimes it was better than other times. Football? A rough sport but it had its compensations. Vietnam war? People should be helped up to a point, don’t you think so? That’s it. Play the game, stay away from absolutes, don’t be dogmatic. And never, never tell what’s really on one’s mind.
    Of course he remained convinced of the rightness of his own beliefs. They were the crazy ones, the attendants, the doctors, even the other patients. He was living in madness, surrounded by it, engulfed by it. To get away he had to become like them, he had to become mad. He had already learned how to act like them. Now he must begin to talk like them.
    He knew the food was mostly bad, sometimes inedible. He knew football was disgusting, he disliked any bodily contact. And he knew that he liked to watch all the death and destruction in Vietnam on the TV, liked to hear the daily body count and think of all those people dying. But he was living in a madhouse and he must not stand out with the truth or they would punish him.
    Within six months his key opened certain doors. He was given a battery of psychological tests which he manipulated, showing he was basically of average intelligence with no wide swings of emotion, minimum drive and expectation, and little imagination. He was given a series of aptitude tests which showed that he was just a plodding, somewhat dull person, with all tendencies and abilities within normal parameters—someone who would not fall far or rise high or take large risks.
    For months afterward he would lie in bed going over every delicious detail of how he had fooled them, how he had shown his superiority by beating them at their own game. Over and over he thought of how stupid they would have felt had they only known it was his brilliance and imagination that allowed him to show no brilliance and imagination. The thought warmed him, and he would fall asleep thinking of being free. If they weren’t careful, he would tell himself, he might just come back someday and kill them all.
    In his thirteenth year at the institution Bishop was given a hearing before a group of staff doctors. He was told that the hearing was informal and carried no official sanction, but he knew that their evaluation of him and final recommendation would be required to open the last door, the one at the entrance gate. He wasn’t worried. All the years of daily contact with the attendants and guards had filled him with a bitter hate, yet this paled before his consummate hatred of the doctors. They held the power of life and death, they could inflict immeasurable pain. They were demons torturing the helpless, but like all monsters they were stupid, they could be fooled.
    All that was needed to fool the doctors, to make monkeys of them, was a superior intelligence. As in all things, Bishop believed himself wiser than anyone. He would outwit the doctors just as he had done on the tests. The experience they had with patients dissembling, the years of studying the intricacies of the mind, the knowledge gained over countless such interviews, all meant nothing to him. He knew how to fake emotion and he knew how to fake the mind. He had the keys.
    In January 1972 the hearing was held. The three doctors listened with kindness and patience. For almost an hour Bishop talked about himself, answered questions, smiled warmly, laughed charmingly. Sitting in the brown leather chair he felt like one of them, eminent, respected, successful. When the hearing was over he thanked them politely and left the room. Going back to