Bestial (5 page)

One year earlier, in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip gunned down a visiting dignitary, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, and plunged the Western world into chaos. Less than two months after the assassination, Europe was at war.

The United States declared its neutrality, but during the years of Earle’s imprisonment the country was drawn inexorably closer to the maelstrom. In May 1915—the very month of Earle’s arrest—a German U-boat torpedoed the British ocean liner
Lusitania
off the southern coast of Ireland, killing nearly 1,200 passengers, including 128 Americans. This “act of piracy” (as former President Theodore Roosevelt branded it) provoked a widespread clamor for war.

President Woodrow Wilson, however, managed to resist the outcry, and in June 1916—just weeks before Earle’s first anniversary behind bars—he was renominated by the Democrats under the slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War.” By then, however, even Wilson had begun to acknowledge that the United States could not remain “an ostrich with its head in the sand” forever.

The turning point came in February 1917, when Germany launched a ruthless campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare against all shipping, including American merchant vessels. On the third of the month, President Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany. Around the same time, the British Secret Service intercepted a coded telegram from the German foreign minister, Dr. Alfred von Zimmermann, to his ambassador in Mexico. Zimmermann, who clearly foresaw America’s impending involvement, wanted Mexico to enter the war on Germany’s side. In return, the kaiser’s government would reward its new ally not only with “generous financial support” but with the reacquisition of Mexico’s “conquered” territories—Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona—once the United States suffered its inevitable defeat.

The outrage provoked by the “Zimmermann telegram”—which was blazoned on front pages from coast to coast—proved to be (in the words of one historian) the final nail “in the coffin of American neutrality.” Clearly there were no limits to German perfidy. On April 2, 1917, President Wilson, proclaiming that “the world must be made safe for democracy,” asked Congress for a declaration of war.

When Earle Leonard Nelson emerged from San Quentin just a few weeks later, George M. Cohan’s rousing ditty seemed to be on everyone’s lips:

Over there—over there—
Send the word, send the word
Over there—
That the Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming ev’rywhere!

Like millions of his contemporaries, Earle was infused with patriotic fervor. No sooner was he released from prison than—using his birthname, Ferral—he enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army and was sent to a training camp in northern California.

It would seem, however, that Earle was not cut out for the rigors of military life. Across the sea, millions of young men were enduring the terrors of humanity’s first mechanized war—the hell of the trenches, where soldiers wallowed in foul slime while rats gorged on the flesh of the unburied dead; the horror of mustard gas, which left its victims drowning in the bloody fluid that inundated their lungs; the unspeakable mutilations caused by machine-gun fire and artillery shells. As one medical orderly wrote, recalling the aftermath of a typical engagement, “It was difficult to select the most urgent cases. Men had lost arms and legs, brains oozed out of shattered skulls, and lungs protruded from riven chests; many had lost their faces and were, I should think, unrecognizable to their friends… . One poor chap had lost his nose and most of his face, and we were obliged to take off an arm, the opposite hand, and extract two bullets like shark’s teeth from his thigh, besides minor operations.”

For Earle Leonard Ferral, on the other hand, even the most minimal demands of army life proved too onerous. After just six weeks in uniform, he went AWOL because he was forced to stand guard duty one night in the cold.

Among the various religious works Earle had read during his stint in San Quentin was a life of Joseph Smith. Following his desertion, he made his way to Salt Lake City. His interest in Mormonism came to nothing, but—for unknown reasons—he decided to give the military another shot. Enlisting as a cook in the navy, he soon found himself back
in his hometown stationed at San Francisco’s Mare Island Naval Base.

This second fling at military life, however, turned out to be no more successful nor long-lasting than his first. Once again, he deserted after a few weeks because of chores he regarded as too oppressive.

Less than two months later, however—in July 1917, not long after the first American troops arrived in France—Earle enlisted once again, this time as a private in the Medical Corps. He lasted six weeks, deserting because (as he would later explain to military psychologists) he was bothered by “burning about his anus” from his hemorrhoids.

He was back in the navy in March 1918—around the tune that the German army launched a massive assault on the Western Front, where American doughboys were fighting shoulder to shoulder with their French and British allies. This time Earle did not desert; he simply refused to work, preferring to pass his days reading the Bible and spouting apocalyptic prattle about the coming of the Great Beast whose number is 666. Earle found himself shunned by his shipmates and assailed by his superior officers. Nothing, not even a tortuous, two-day confinement inside a stifling coke oven, could force him to fulfill his duties.

On April 24, 1918, after complaining bitterly of headaches and refusing to leave his cot, he was placed in the Mare Island Naval Hospital. After three weeks of observation by a hospital psychologist named Ogden, Ferral was committed to the Napa State Mental Hospital, arriving on May 21, 1918, just nine days after his twenty-first birthday.

In the papers he forwarded to Napa, Ogden summed up his reasons for recommending commitment. The subject, he wrote, “continually reads his testament or gazes fixedly into space; answers questions slowly; takes no interest in what is going on about him; shows some mental deterioration. Due to refusing to work, he was put in coke oven for two days but still would not work. His reason for not working is that he did not want to serve the adversaries of the Lord. He believes the beast spoken of in Revelation as being #666 is either the pope or the kaiser. He does not think he is crazy.” Ogden’s conclusive diagnosis was “Constitutional Psychopathic State.”

*    *    *

Immediately after his arrival at Napa, Earle was examined by Dr. J. B. Rogers, who would oversee his treatment for the next thirteen months. Physically there seemed to be nothing anomalous about the robust, well-nourished young man except for one ocular peculiarity: his right pupil was notably larger than the left. His teeth were also (as Rogers wrote in his report) “remarkable” in their perfection, so strikingly square and even that they would have been the envy of a matinee idol.

From interviewing Earle, Dr. Rogers learned that the young man had contracted both syphilis and gonorrhea in early adolescence. (Subsequent blood tests confirmed the presence of both diseases.) Earle confessed that he had masturbated daily between the ages of thirteen and eighteen but “not since then.” He also claimed to have overcome his “addiction to liquor,” swearing that he had not had a drink for seven months. He described his childhood life as “pleasant,” insisted that “his mind is all right,” and declared that he was perfectly capable of “making his way in the world.” He had, he said, no “history of trauma or previous mental attacks.”

After putting various pointed questions to the young man for about ten minutes, Rogers concluded that Earle was not disoriented, paranoid, or abnormally depressed. The patient (Rogers wrote in his report) was “correct for place, month, and year—did not think anyone was trying to harm him—was not despondent, nervous, or apprehensive and did not think he should have been sent here. Denied illusions or hallucinations. Cheerful at time of examination. Denies being irritable. Says he approves of sociability very much and enjoys himself to a reasonable extent. Could take an interest in an occupation—is very fond of his family and is so fond of them that he feels bad to be away from home.”

“Would you say you’ve noticed any changes in yourself since joining the navy?” Rogers asked, to which the young man replied, “Well, I have a stronger tendency to seek higher ideals and sensible things than I used to.”

Next, Earle was subjected to a battery of intelligence tests, most of which he performed well on. “Test of Memory Pictures in General good,” reads Rogers’ report. “Memory of Ideas in Series good. Knowledge of Arithmetic excellent.
General Knowledge correct except for the name of the Governor of California and rate of interest a bank usually pays. Memory of Recent Past good. No Disturbance of Idea Association. Orientation good.”

When Rogers related the fable about the wolf who disguises himself as a shepherd but gives himself away when he opens his mouth to speak, Earle offered a reasonable summary of the moral: “It shows that when a person is not always truthful they suffer for it.”

Earle insisted “that it was not difficult for him to think.” When Rogers asked if he “experienced any peculiar thoughts,” Earle replied, “Well, not exactly—not any more than a first-class intelligent person would.”

“Do you believe you’ve done anything wrong?” asked Rogers.

“Yes,” said Earle. “I blame myself for enlisting in the navy.”

Rogers then asked if the young man was afraid of anything.

“Only God,” Earle answered. Then, fixing Rogers with a meaningful stare, he said, “If you don’t serve Him, you should be afraid, too.”

Exactly whose God Earle believed in at the moment is somewhat ambiguous. For unknown reasons, his commitment papers record his affiliation as Jewish. It is possible that Earle, who was always flirting with different religions, was going through a brief Judaic phase. It may also be the case that Dr. Rogers assumed (in the casually racist manner of his day) that Earle must be Jewish because of his swarthy complexion and broad nose. If so, this is not the only mistake Rogers recorded on his written report.

The other, far more serious, error appears just a few lines down from the misstated religion, where the psychologist concluded that Earle Leonard Ferrai was “not violent; homicidal; or destructive.”

Several weeks after his transfer to Napa, Earle received a visit from his Aunt Lillian and Uncle Willis. We do not know what words passed between them, though Lillian would later testify that her nephew, who was dressed in his sailor’s uniform, was unhappy with his treatment. Exactly
what that treatment consisted of is also undocumented. The record shows, however, that on June 13, 1918, Earle managed to escape.

He was tracked down and returned to Napa on July 11. Six weeks later, on August 25, he escaped again. This time, he remained at large for over three months. When he was brought back to Napa on December 3, his obvious gifts as a breakout artist earned him the ultimate tribute from his fellow inmates. They began calling him “Houdini.”

As soon as the United States entered the war, the great “escapologist” himself had registered for the draft. But at age forty-three, Harry Houdini was too old for military service. Determined to do his part, Houdini immediately declared that he would cancel his vaudeville bookings and devote himself to patriotic causes. For the duration of the war, he staged a string of highly publicized benefits for the Red Cross, the Army Athletic Fund, the widows of the young men who had died aboard the torpedoed troopship,
Antilles,
and more. At one point, he put his talents to a novel use, teaching soldiers how to escape from German handcuffs should they ever be captured by the enemy.

Breaking out of handcuffs, of course, was child’s play to the world-famous “self-liberator,” who could work himself free of the most fiendish restraints human ingenuity could devise—sealed and buried coffins, padlocked milkcans filled with beer, tightly nailed wooden crates submerged in rivers. During one public demonstration in the nation’s capital, an enormous crowd—the “biggest ever assembled except for the inauguration of a president” (according to the
Washington Times
)—watched him wiggle out of a straightjacket while, hooked to a rope, he dangled from his heels 100 feet above the sidewalk.

After enjoying one of his performances, Woodrow Wilson paid a call on Houdini. “I envy your ability to escape from tight places,” remarked the president. “Sometimes, I wish I were able to do the same.”

In spite of his new nickname, Earle’s feats were, of course, on an infinitely smaller scale than Houdini’s. Still, they were impressive in their way. The very day after his return to
Napa, he escaped yet again. Hauled back a few months later, he managed one final “elopement” (in the language of his official records). Altogether he pulled off no fewer than four escapes during his thirteen-month incarceration.

By the time of his final breakout in May 1919, the war had been over for six months. The Paris Peace Conference was underway at Versailles and millions of veterans were struggling to readjust to civilian life. For ten million other young men, life’s struggles were over.

This time, the navy, which had been paying for Earle’s treatment at Napa, did not even bother pursuing him. He was simply written off, formally discharged from the service on May 17, 1919.

On his hospital record, his supervising physician, Dr. Rogers, made a final entry as wildly mistaken as his earlier observation about Earle’s harmlessness. Describing the patient’s condition upon his discharge from service, Dr. Rogers noted simply that Earle Leonard Ferrai was “improved.”

†

Lillian Fabian, referring to Mrs. Mary Fuller, her niece by marriage

She’s almost like a mother to him, you know, as she’s twice his age. Often he would leave her flat, and she wouldn’t hear from him for months at a time. But she understands him, and he is much better off married to her than to a flapper.

H
e returned to his Aunt Lillian’s home and within days found work as a janitor at St. Mary’s Hospital. At that point, before the navy decided to cut its losses by simply discharging him, Earle was still a fugitive. As a precaution, he took the job under a pseudonym, the first of many he would assume in the coming years: Evan Louis Fuller.