James Frey - The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

I could not ignore or displace my other clients or cases, so I went back to the courthouse. As my day moved along, I was informed that Ben had moved into solitary. The next morning he had another seizure and was moved into the secure medical unit. Over the next several days, he seemed to move in and out of seizures. None of the drugs that were given to him were able to stop them. They would stop for a few minutes, start again. He had had no food and no sleep. Psychiatric examinations were scheduled and cancelled. I spent all of my free time trying to find a way to stop the 730, but there didn’t appear to be one. I met and interviewed his mother. She was still in the hospital. She told me about the circumstances of his birth. About his immediate identification as the potential Messiah. About the pressure it had put on her, her husband, her family. About his childhood, where he had appeared normal but was expected to be anything but, and how those expectations had weighed on everyone in the family. I met and interviewed his sister. She told me about the relationship between him and his brother. His brother’s hatred and fear of him. His resentment of him. His feelings of jealousy towards him. She told me about the farm and the life he appeared to be living there. I met his rabbi. He told me about the accident, how he had survived it, the condition he had acquired because of it, and the gift within that condition. He told me about the unreal amounts of knowledge Ben possessed, the languages he spoke, the books he knew word for word. He told me Ben could never have learned all of that through studying, or from school, that it would have taken five lifetimes, maybe ten. I met and interviewed his doctor, one of his lovers, three people who lived upstate with him. I met and interviewed the federal agent who had arrested him, a former preacher who had left the church after meeting him. All of them said the same thing: Ben had changed their lives. He could perform miracles. They believed he was the Messiah.

Normally I’d laugh at the things these people told me. Had I not met him. Had I not seen what I saw and felt what I felt. I would have laughed. Dismissed them as crazy. But they weren’t. None of them were. They were reasonable. They believed. And he wasn’t asking them for anything. He didn’t want people to worship him, or pray to his God, or to follow the rules of a book, or give him anything. He didn’t have a big church. Or a weekly television show. He didn’t want publicity. He told them that he loved them. And that they should love each other. And that nothing else mattered. That God was something beyond our understanding. That we should live our lives in a way that made us happy. And not follow rules simply because we’re told to follow them. Or worship a God that no one has ever seen, or had any contact with. He was telling them things all of us know. We can be redeemed through love. Do not let imaginary characters dictate how we live our lives. Within the context of religion, these ideas were warped. Manipulated. Fucked. And he showed them that.

I checked on his status every hour or so. Called the prison to see if there was any change. After three days he stopped seizing. He was asleep for twenty-four hours after that. When he’d been stable for a day, the court scheduled his exams. It was a much faster process than normal. I tried to stop it, slow it down, but to no avail. The court and ADA were being pressured by the prison. The warden thought Ben was a danger to both himself and other prisoners. He also said the prison’s hospital facility was unequipped to deal with his epilepsy, the source of his mental illness. Ben’s brother supported the action. He told the ADA that he thought Ben was, at the very least, profoundly mentally ill; at the most, a homicidal and suicidal maniac. The situation at the prison was becoming tenuous. Other prisoners were demanding he be released into general pop. Those who saw him at the medical unit all walked out claiming he had changed them. That he could heal people. Make their rage disappear. Make their addictions disappear. Give them peace. What normally might have taken months took days. And I had no defense. Ben would not speak to me about the case, or provide me with any information that would help him. And the witnesses I had interviewed would have worked against him. They would have supported the notion that he could speak to God. That he was the Messiah. That he was somehow going to change, and/or end, the world.

The exams took place at the prison. I was allowed to attend them, but not to participate or interfere in any way. I sat in the back of the room. Ben was shackled to a chair. He refused to answer any questions. He did not acknowledge the psychiatrists in any way. He just sat and stared at them. They asked basic questions. Do you understand why you’re here? Do you understand the charges against you? Do you know who your lawyer is? Do you know what state you’re in? They got nothing. Between sessions, I told him that if he didn’t answer the questions, he would be declared incompetent. He told me that it wouldn’t matter what he said. That he did not believe the court had any rights over him. That by answering the questions, he would be acknowledging that it did. That the system was designed to do what it did. That it would kill him as it had killed, or was killing, millions of others. I also brought in a psychiatrist for an examination. I hoped that Ben would come to reason in some way. He would not speak to my psychiatrist either. I kept asking him to see reason, to be reasonable, to act reasonably. He smiled and told me that he, in his defiance, was the only reasonable person in the entire situation. That no one with any reason would submit to the court, or acknowledge the authority of the criminal justice system.

The hearing itself was swift and merciless. The state brought three witnesses: the two psychiatrists and Ben’s brother. The psychiatrists both said the same thing. Ben would not speak to them, and would not acknowledge the charges against him. They both stated they believed he was incompetent and unfit to stand trial. His brother spoke about Ben’s life. Said there was a long history of addiction, delusions, sexual perversity. He said Ben had believed for most of his life that he was the Messiah. That Ben believed he had powers. That Ben believed he could perform miracles. He said that as a pastor he had been offended by Ben’s beliefs. That he had denounced God. And believed in free love and orgies. He said that as a man he felt sorry for him. That he had tried to get Ben help for many years. That he had prayed for Ben and tried to bring him into the arms of God, Christ. Ben had spurned all of their efforts. He thought he was better than God. Beyond God. He thought he was God. An hour after it began, Ben was declared incompetent to stand trial. The judge was a Christian who sat beneath an American flag and swore people into testimony using a Bible. He ordered that Ben be moved to Bellevue, where he would be evaluated and treated. He also ordered that his brother, Jacob, become his guardian and be responsible for decisions related to Ben’s treatment.

As Ben was led away, he looked at me and said thank you . Those were the only words he spoke that day. He started seizing in the back of the cruiser as they were transporting him to the hospital. He didn’t stop for seven days. Seven days of continuous seizure. When he stopped, he would not speak or acknowledge anyone who worked at the facility. He was put on a unit with other patients. He seemed to calm them, and was seen whispering to them. Fearing some type of issue similar to the one at the prison, hospital staff moved him into segregation. Essentially a rubber room. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with Messianic delusions. He was given massive amounts of psychotropic drugs, but none seemed to have any effect on him. He started seizing again and was given massive amounts of antiseizure medication, but none seemed to have any effect on him. He was kept in segregation and forced to undergo electric shock therapy. It had no effect on him. After three weeks, the physicians at the hospital recommended he be given a temporal lobe resectioning, a relatively common procedure and not particularly dangerous within the scope of brain surgery. They believed that by cutting out part of his brain they would be able to stop the seizures. Again he was strapped down. He was wheeled to a surgical suite. He was given anesthesia. He was given extremely large doses because of his resistance to previous drug treatments. An hour into the surgery, as one of the surgeons was about to begin the resectioning, Ben opened his eyes. His skull had been opened and was literally lying on the table next to his head. His brain was exposed. The surgeon had a scalpel in her hand. The scalpel was just above the surface of his frontal lobe. From her account of the incident, he looked directly at her and he spoke.