Free Bestial by Harold Schechter

longer wears restraints when out of doors.
    May 3, 1922: Patient is quiet and well behaved. Appears to have improved as a result of treatment. Eats and sleeps well.
    June 1, 1922: Patient is well behaved and appears to be cooperating in every way in what is done for him.
    July 1, 1922: Doing well. Well behaved. In excellent physical condition. In hospital one year.
    For the most part, as these records show, Earle was a model inmate—cooperative, uncomplaining—during his first year in Napa. Having been foiled in his early escape attempts, he seems to have bowed to circumstances, even experiencingsomething like a religious conversion around Christmastime when he felt he had been visited by a regenerative “blessing.”
    However, by the time of the next entry, recorded in early October, 1922, something had changed. Earle was clearly growing disgruntled again, if not yet openly rebellious. Increasingly, the word
quiet
, which appears so frequently in the preceding entries, is supplanted by the more ominous word
restless
.
    Oct. 2, 1922: Patient remains about the same, has been taking treatment for some time. Seems to be a little excited at times, helps some with work, reads a great deal. Well behaved, except has made several attempts to escape. Was caught with a saw a short time ago.
    Jan. 12, 1923: Patient remains the same. Is quiet and well behaved. Occasionally seems to get a little melancholy and wants to get outside, says he could get along all right. Helps some with work. Reads a great deal. A little restless at night.
    April 2, 1923: Restless, says he will try to escape again soon, that he is not insane. Helps some with work. Bad record—ran away four times. Sleeps restlessly.
    July 23, 1923: Patient has been dissatisfied for the last couple of months. Has been asking for front yard privileges and several other favors. Has threatened to stop working on the ward if he is not granted more consideration. Refuses to take any more 606 treatments, stating he is well. Has a bad reputation. No delusions manifested at present. Sleeps little.
    Oct. 5, 1923: Patient about the same.
    There is only one more entry in this series, made a month later, on November 2, 1923. Given the tenor of the notesleading up to it, it does not come as a surprise. The entire entry consists of a single word:
Escaped
.
    Lillian Fabian and her family were moving to a new, larger house. On the afternoon of November 2, the day of Earle’s escape, she and her husband had been over to the new places getting it ready for the move, which was scheduled for the following morning.
    It was already dark by the time Lillian returned home. Her husband wasn’t with her. He had stayed behind to take care of a few last-minute tasks. As Lillian stepped into her darkened kitchen and reached for the light switch, a funny feeling came over her—one of those strange, unsettling sensations, as though she were being watched. She turned to look behind her. Earle was standing right outside the back door, his face pressed to the glass panes.
    Later Lillian would recall the incident in a tense, breathless style that captured the terror of that moment:
    He had his face right against the glass with a horrible crazy hat on, and I let out one terrible scream because he looked so awfully insane. His eyes were just black, glaring in at me, and the children rushed up to me, and of course, I opened the door because he was my own flesh and kin, and I loved him, and I opened the door, and he came in, and he acted so queer in the house, and I was scared to death of him because of the condition he was in. His legs were all bleeding with no stockings on at all and old ragged shoes that he must have picked up on the ground when he tried to escape there. And I hurriedly gave him a suit of my husband’s clothes and a cap and stockings, and had him clean himself up, and I said, “For goodness’ sake, Earle, get out of here as quick as you can.” I was scared to death of him, and I gave him