By Reason of Insanity Read Free Page A

her. After that the beatings became more frequent.
    On June 24, 1951, Caryl Chessman again made the Los Angeles papers in one of his many legal actions. Sara, glass in hand, read the account avidly. Over the years Chessman had assumed celebrity status for her because of his notoriety. Everyone seemed to know of him; why, she had even seen magazines with stories about him. For her, Chessman was no longer just a rapist; he was a name and a face, someone familiar. Of course he was still a man and therefore to be hated and despised. But at least he wasn’t around to torture her every day of her life, as others were doing.
    By the time Harry got home Sara had had a number of drinks. When the shouting started she turned on him and loudly informed him that he was not the boy’s father. He laughed, and Sara, stung by his derision, blurted out that she had lied to him. “It was Chessman in the car that night, Caryl Chessman, you stupid son of a bitch. And he wasn’t impotent. He’s more of a man than you’ll ever be.” Now it was Sara’s turn to laugh. “You think you’re so good. By the time I let you touch me his seed was all the way inside me, keeping me warm. What do you think of that, Mister Big Shot?”
    She didn’t notice Harry’s eyes getting smaller. “You don’t believe me, do you?” She stormed into the next room, coming back a moment later dragging the boy by the arm. He had been sleeping and his eyes were half shut. “Look at his hair,” she shouted at her husband, “it’s dark. Yours is light brown and so is mine. Look at his mouth, his whole face. Nothing like yours. Not even the skin’s the same.” She grabbed up the paper from the table. “You want to know whose kid he is? You really want to know?” She tossed it at her husband. “There’s his picture, right on that page. Look at it, you poor dope. Look at it,” she screamed at him.
    Harry, deathly still, took the paper and examined the picture. He looked at the boy, who was sniffling now with fright. He looked at the picture again for a long time, then again at the boy. Without a word he gently put the paper back on the table and quietly walked over to his wife and hit her full in the eye. She staggered back and he hit her again with all his strength on the side of the cheek. She fell and lay there. The boy, terrified, stood rooted to the spot. Harry walked up to him and with doubled fist slammed him in the face, knocking him unconscious.
    After three days Harry returned home, unshaven, smelling of liquor and perfume. He didn’t mention the incident. Neither did Sara, nursing a black eye and puffed cheek. Nobody mentioned the boy, who was still sick in bed from the beating.
    Sara knew that her husband would soon be gone for good. But she just didn’t care anymore. She wondered only why he had bothered to return at all.
    That night Sara dreamed about Caryl Chessman. He was chasing her and she couldn’t seem to get away. He was all around her. There were other people in the dream too, crowds of men. But the next morning she could not remember exactly what they were doing. That afternoon she picked up a man in a bar and had illicit sex for the first time since her marriage. It was unsatisfying and she came home tired and defeated. She lay down on her bed and cried bitterly and asked God to grant her wish that all men be horribly killed that very second, all men everywhere, right down to infant males.
    Six weeks later her boy was admitted to a hospital with seconddegree burns covering his left arm and side. An accident, Sara told the doctor. She had been boiling water for coffee and he crashed into the stove while playing. When it was pointed out that such extensive burns would require a large amount of water, she replied that she always made enough coffee in the morning for a small army. “Saves time later on,” she murmured sweetly.
    In the afternoon the hospital administrator and resident physician met with the intern who had admitted the