Conviction

I can’t be convinced that evil exists, despite the fact that I was a witness to what most would consider pure evil. It’s hard to convince me of anything. I guess you could say I am a man without conviction. My mind—its thoughts, prejudices, beliefs—are in a constant state of flux. Not that I am out of touch with reality. The opposite is true. But I know that reality is mutable, and any attempt to judge it is as futile as trying to carry water in a sieve. Perhaps my only conviction is that conviction is a dangerous thing. In all my life, I have known one man with true conviction, and as you will see, when conviction is given freedom to act on itself, it can be the downfall of even the most intelligent of people. In fact, the more intelligence conviction has, the more dangerous it becomes.

             Three years ago, when I had just become acquainted with Jacob Levine, an incident occurred which, in its own right, clarified to me a strange apprehension I had felt about the man upon our first meetings. These first meetings were unsettling for a variety of reasons. Though he seemed to have many ideas about the world in general, he was never able to clearly elucidate them. He talked a great deal, even eloquently, until he reached a point at which his mind would get ahead of what his heart wanted, or needed, to say, and then he would sit mute, with a troubled expression on his swarthy face. Often, he referred to an “ideology” that was “not yet developed” and which he claimed would change society for the better. He claimed to be “on top” of this ideology, and was “spinning it in the back of his mind.” But when I asked what this ideology was, he would sit silent and dumb.

            Jacob had somewhat of an artistic bent, and he showed me some of his drawings. They were primitive and ritualistic in nature—monsters mostly, with big bulging eyes and sharp flashing teeth. Though they were poorly done—flat and opaque—there was something interesting about them. Perhaps it was the way the eyes demanded one’s attention, as if they were peering out of another dimension, in shock at what they saw in our world. He seemed to be proud of these works, though he dismissed me when I suggested he take up art as a profession.

The real trouble began on a balmy summer day. It had been several weeks since I had heard from Jacob. He had been talking about getting a “real job,” so I assumed that he had found one and was being kept busy with it. But during those weeks I must admit that I found myself thinking of him often. There was something he had said to me in our last meeting that struck me as odd. We had been discussing a film we had seen about a dystopian world in which a certain drug was being administered at hospitals in order to make people suicidal and combat an impending revolution. Jacob was highly impressed with this idea, and kept harping on the fact that so many revolutionaries throughout history had been deemed insane in order to halt the propagation of their ideas. When I asked him if he considered himself a revolutionary, his reply was: “Perhaps I am. But if I am, I have yet to prove it to anyone, even myself. Perhaps the more accurate title for me now is, inquisitor.”

Three weeks later I was out for a walk (I was nearing a pivotal point in my writing and needed to clear my head to think of a character’s next move), when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something very bold and colorful posted on a telephone pole on a busy commercial street. It was one of Jacob’s drawings—a horrifying monster with red and black eyes—and below it, written in bold black letters, was the phrase, “IT’S COMING.”

My first reaction, which surprised me, was to laugh. It was the kind of laugh one makes to distance one’s self from something horrible, something that cannot be comprehended except from afar. I looked at the picture, and for whatever reason, in my mind’s eye I saw images of an army marching through the street at night, fires blazing and a Hitler-like figure delivering an impetuous speech to the masses. Only, this Hitler-like figure looked like Jacob Levine. I wanted to laugh at this as well, but I couldn’t. Instead, it hung heavy like a portent in my mind. This was when my vague initial impressions of the man congealed into something tangible. Here was the evidence of a man whose egomania knew no bounds. Indeed, here was evidence of complete and utter madness, and perhaps, evil. I walked away from the telephone poll feeling heavy-hearted and unsettled. I knew I had to confront him about this, but I had my doubts as to my ability to, because, in all truth, I now felt as if I had absolutely no real understanding of him. He seemed a complete stranger to me now. Unwittingly, I had been drawn into a dark world that seemed to have no cohesion, no solid base from which to draw any rational conclusion. Despite this, I decided to go straight to his apartment.

He lived on the fifth floor of a ramshackle building on the outskirts of the business section of town, which was infamous for housing many questionable characters—drug addicts, derelicts, eccentrics—Jacob, I had decided, was one of the latter. The wooden stairs creaked as I made my way up to his apartment. As usual, I heard music blasting from behind the door—Mozart’s 40th, I think it was. I knocked loudly and waited with anxiety and dread.

He answered the door half-undressed, his long, skinny frame looking practically emaciated in his blue boxer shorts and wife-beater. He had a maniacal bearing—his eyes were fierce and vigilant, as if he had been engaged in some feverish endeavor, and he looked right and left down the hallway, as if paranoid, before noticing me. “Oh, David. It’s you. Come in.”

I walked into his one room apartment, and observed the mess. Papers, some crumpled, were lying all about the floor. His bed was unmade and in disarray. Clothes were scattered about—on the floor, on his bed, and on his desk chair. His desk was covered with books. “I’ve just been going over some old papers of mine,” he said, removing the clothes from his chair and throwing them on the floor. “Please, sit down.” I sat on the chair and crossed my hands over my lap as he sat down on a clear space on his bed. “How’s the writing going?” he asked. (He always asked me about my writing in a flippant manner, leaving me to assume he didn’t care about it at all.)

“It’s fine,” I said. “Jacob, the reason I’ve come…” I stopped because he didn’t seem to be paying attention. He was looking at one of the walls, which was covered with a map of the city, with red tacks placed in various locations. This sight doubled my fears. “The reason I’ve come,” I began again, capturing his attention, “is because…I am concerned about you.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You see, I saw your poster.”

He sat mute. His expression did not change. His dark eyes were wide and glazed over. My guess was he had been doing drugs.

“The one on Ludlow Street. The monster.”

He smiled—a sly, ironical smile that was almost masochistic and hinted at something bitterly profound. “Yes,” he said. “I posted it last night. I was hoping someone might notice it. What did you make of it?”

“I don’t know what to make of it,” I said. “Except that it seems rather odd and presumptuous of you. What, exactly, were you trying to get across? It seemed like a threat…”

“I didn’t mean it as a threat.” He practically leapt out of his seat. “Not at all. It was merely prognostication. Something is coming, you know…”

I was going to ask him what, but he had gone into a kind of trance, with his head tilted back and his eyes half shut. I watched him, curiously.

Suddenly breaking out of his trance, he looked at me, as if furious. “Do you know,” he began in a bitter tone which I had never heard from him before, “that in some primitive cultures, the insane are revered? They believe them to be messengers from the spiritual realm, and they follow their directions in restructuring their society.”

Why he said this I had no idea. I sat motionless. I was beginning to feel afraid.

“The oppression of the mad in our society,” he continued, “is a product of corporate greed.”

He stood up. “War is coming,” he said, “And if I can’t be on the winning side, I will be on the right side. Just think,” he spoke with vitriol, gesturing wildly at superhuman speed. “Our entire historical perception as a nation is based on a fallacy—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, can we justify our lives having destroyed the Native Americans? Can we justify interring the Japanese Americans in World War Two? The only difference between us and the Nazis is that we won the war. And think! We might have ended up remembering Judaism the way the Bubonic Plague is remembered today. And that’s the thing, we now find ourselves in the midst of another great plague…” He paused and looked at me.

“Which is?” I asked, with trepidation but genuine interest.

“Humanity, my friend! Humanity itself!” He began to laugh, but in a manner which was pernicious, and maniacal. He laughed overloud, and I became afraid.

“Of course, you think I am mad,” he said with a gleam in his eye, after he was done laughing. “Don’t worry, though. I take it as a compliment. The mad are the only ones who can save us from ourselves.”

I could tell he wanted to expound on something further, so I waited. 

“That is why war is inevitable. The insane must revolt. They don’t know it, and that’s why I have to start recruitment.”

He began to pace. As I watched him pace, I considered what he had said. To my knowledge, never in the history of mankind had the clinically insane ever organized anything, let alone a full-scale rebellion. I almost decided to ask him why he felt the insane should revolt now, under his leadership, but I thought better of it. He was obviously out of touch, and I didn’t want to feed into his mania. Though his ideas were completely ridiculous, it was apparent that he himself took them seriously. It seemed that he possessed a real sense of duty, and even a genuine concern over an inevitable future event.

We were both silent for a while as he paced back and forth. Finally, he stopped, sighed deeply, and spoke to me, calmly and without much emphasis: “Perhaps you could help me.”

“Me?” I asked, surprised. I thought of asking him why, but decided I better not. “Jacob,” I began. “All of this just seems a bit farfetched. Whatever happened to the idea of just getting a job?”

He smiled. “I’ve seen too much to be a slave. I have to strike out on my own, according to my own principles. If I don’t do this now, I’ll be broken for the rest of my days.”

I had known that Jacob had experienced a lot of hardship the last several years. His mother, apparently, had gone insane and tried to kill his father, a successful business man, in a jealous rage. Apparently, he had been cheating on her for years with his secretary, and later, he had been caught laundering money and doing business with the mafia. Jacob had learned to hate his father over the course of those three years, and worship his sick mother like a saint. He often talked about how the world had cheated his mother out of her sanity, and that he himself would even sacrifice his life to redeem her. 

Of course, I took this as merely bloated romanticism at the time, far beyond his capability. But now, I was beginning to see that there was something serious in it. Again, I looked over at the map with the red tacks on the wall. I asked him what it was for.

“Every revolution needs a strategy,” he said.

When he said this, my dread redoubled, and yet, I couldn’t but help look upon my friend with a sense of awe, and even, respect. I had never expected such determination and industrialism from him. It seemed that my first assumption, that he was merely insane, was completely wrong. Even if his plan was unrealistic, it had all the weight and substance of an actual revolution. Though, as far as I could tell, it was as of yet a revolution of one.

“You can’t expect me to believe,” I began, “that you can actually accomplish anything by all of this. It’s not like the insane make up a large portion of society. There’s no way they could succeed in even making a dent. You know this, don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” he said, with a conviction I found surprising.

“Then…why?”

“Because, I think the insane can make a dent—more than a dent, even, in their failure.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked at me dead in the eye and smirked. “Every society needs martyrs,” he said. 

Suddenly, I understood.

“The insane have always represented the purist aspects of humanity,” he went on. “Even in the case of those who have committed horrible atrocities, it was never done so without a high-minded purpose behind it, even if that purpose was based totally on a delusion. Only the truly insane are capable of the kind of idealism that this society needs. Only the insane can conquer the cynicism and the blind indulgence in material excess. You know the type of idealism I speak of: the kind that in all its qualities invokes pathos and tragedy, the kind that can make the vilest of murderers weep. Yes, only the insane can inspire in us the conviction that man is a tragic and beautiful animal, with all the blind, fiery conviction of a pack of wolves on the hunt and the innocence of a newborn babe. And what do we do with these people? We hide them away! Like the dead, we bury them. But unlike the dead, we don’t even mourn them. Once they are gone, barely a whisper is made in their honor. Not even a whisper! Not even a whimper! And society just goes on, sensing there is something essential missing, but never daring to open their mouths to ask what that something is. That is why there must be a sacrifice made.”

He stopped pacing and grew very solemn and pensive. His eyes closed and he took a posture of deep meditation. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and a wave of energy passed over his figure. He began gesturing with his hands, and speaking in a stilted, forced manner.

“You see, if the insane were to rise up in revolution, and should society be forced to quell this revolution, it would be forced to confront the differences between the sane and the insane for the first time. I don’t mean the clinical differences. Those are meaningless and banal in my view. No, I mean the spiritual differences. They would be forced to confront them, and so, they would finally truly learn from them. They would understand for the first time that the conviction of the human spirit is not meant to better ‘society,’ but God himself, the spirit itself. Do you see?”

There was no doubt in my mind that Jacob was in a hysterical state, and yet, again, I could not help but admit to myself that there was a kind of strange logic to what he said. 

“I do think I understand what you are getting at,” I finally answered after a spell. “But I also think that you are missing a key point. Spiritual growth is not unappreciated at all in society. That’s what religion is for, or great art or spiritual practices. Where you’ve gone wrong is in believing that you need to wake up the public to their spiritual shortcomings. In my experience, people are well aware of them already. Did it ever cross your mind that this whole notion of yours of revolution might be a sign of your own lack of spiritual development?”

He stood silent, pondering again in his own intense, earnest way.

“That might be true. I am not a spiritually advanced man in any way,” he said. “But I never claimed to be. Perhaps that is why I am drawn to the insane. In any case, religion, great art, spiritual practices—all those things are divisive. The only thing people can readily agree on is death. Oh, just think of it!” He grew passionate, waving his arms and nearly jumping off the ground. “Think of what Jesus Christ accomplished through his death as one man. Now imagine millions dying for the same thing. The impact would be so profound! It would bring about a peace that might last for a thousand years!”

I had heard enough. Being with Jacob in this state was like being in the presence of something with a terrible odor. And as with a terrible odor, one can only dance around it for so long before one is compelled to call it by what it is. And so, I did.

“You’re insane,” I said. “Absolutely insane.”

Again, he smiled his sly, ironical smile. “You think so? I was wondering if you would think that. Well, if that’s the case, it puts me among the elite, in my opinion. Besides, how am I to lead the insane if I am not insane myself? You’ve just made my day.” And he laughed his maniacal laugh.

I didn’t know what to say. I just sat there with my arms crossed over my chest, as if to block the reality of the situation from entering my heart, asking myself the question: What is he going to do? I certainly knew that what he was planning was crazy and impossible to accomplish, but did he really have a mind and a heart to try? A horrible sense of foreboding consumed me.

“Jacob,” I finally said, “whatever you’re planning, I advise you not to go through with it. It’s only bound to get you into trouble.”

He had begun writing something in a notebook on his desk. Nonchalantly, he replied: “That is exactly the point.”

I stood up. “Well, I should probably go. But before I do, I’ll make one last suggestion. Before you make any rash decisions, talk to a shrink. At least bounce your ideas off of him or her. You might very well be sick in the head.”

He laughed, continuing to write in his notebook. “Thank you,” he said. “I will make note of that.” I stood watching him write for a moment, hoping he would turn back to me, but he didn’t. I left.

When I got home I tried unsuccessfully to write. Thoughts of Jacob and his ideas kept seeping into my mind. Finally, I gave up and went to bed, but found it hard to sleep, as well. I kept going over different scenarios of what might happen to Jacob. I wondered if I should call the police. That would be the boldest, and probably the safest thing to do. But I was not one to take bold steps unless I felt it was completely necessary. I decided that I would go to see him the next day and ask him more about his plans. Perhaps once I knew the specifics, I’d be better able to gauge what to do. I finally fell asleep past midnight.

The next day, as I approached the door of Jacob’s apartment, I could hear him talking excitedly within. At first, I thought he was talking to himself, and this added to my concern, but then I heard another voice—a soft, feminine voice that seemed to possess a kind of suppressed urgency, as well as anger. I knocked. The door opened and Jacob answered, dressed in a red bathrobe. I went inside and saw a pretty, petite young woman, no older than twenty, seated on the bed. She had wide, nervous dark eyes and an expressive, wolfen brow. She was dark in complexion, with long flowing black hair. Overall, she had the appearance of someone who was constantly keeping guard over her emotions, and whose hidden thoughts were constantly disturbed. She looked at me fiercely when I walked in.

“David, meet Delores,” Jacob said, not without a note of pride. “I met her at the coffee shop down the street. She is an artist with a wonderful mind for revolution.”

I took her small, lifeless hand. Her intense, scrutinizing expression did not change. Jacob offered me a chair and I sat down. “Delores and I were just discussing plans for the revolution.” He turned to Delores. “Jacob doesn’t approve of them, I am afraid.” Delores nodded her head quickly, and looked at me with her piercing eyes. “Unless he’s changed his mind,” Jacob continued.

“I haven’t.”

Delores looked at Jacob closely, as if trying to goad him along.

“Shame,” said Jacob. “But I understand. The status quo is always appealing to those whose legacies depend on the judgment of the masses. Only the rare few get to determine their own legacy. Isn’t that right, Delores?”

“That’s right,” she said, and a subtly pernicious smile appeared on her face. I could sense that there was a strong bond between these two. I wondered who was exerting power over whom.

“Of course, playing it safe can be wise,” said Jacob. “One wouldn’t want to risk his life unless he absolutely had to.” He looked at me, smiling wryly. There seemed to be a note of threat in his voice. “I have a feeling you value your life too much to stick your neck out for anything but yourself. You see,” he turned to Delores. “My friend here thinks our plan is sheer lunacy, that nothing will come of it, except perhaps our own downfall. But he could care less about that. The whole thing, to him, is too ridiculous to take part of or even to try and stop. Am I right?”

I did not answer. I felt an overwhelming sense of dread. Jacob went to his desk and, with his back turned, opened a drawer. He removed something from the drawer and turned around, holding the object behind his back. He walked up to me slowly, with a sinister smile on his face. “Well,” he said. “Am I?”

“What do you have?” I asked, my voice shaking.

He swung his arm around. There was a gun in his hand. He put it to my forehead. “Now,” he said. “I would like your answer, please. Would you or would you not stand in my way?”

“No…of course not. I wouldn’t…”

“Well,” said Jacob, smiling wickedly again. “There is only one way to prove it. Today, we liberate the psych ward at Ambrose Hospital. You’ll be coming with us. Looks like your life will go to good use after all.” 

“But,” I stammered. “It’s mad! Surely you see that!” I turned to Delores, who glared at me. “Don’t you?”  

She spoke as if from rote memory. “The revolution is inevitable. We are merely catalysts. The system can only be repaired by the most desperate acts.”

I looked at Jacob wildly. He smiled back at me. “Well,” he said. “Are you ready?”

Jacob took my phone and gave a second gun to Delores. The plan, as I understood it, was to use me as bait, probably as a hostage. We got into Jacob’s car and began to drive. It occurred to me just how utterly ridiculous this whole notion of “liberating” patients at a hospital was. For one, many of the patients were there of their own accord. And two, most of the patients were not actually “insane,” as Jacob believed, but were actually just normal people with some psychological problems—everyday people who were just there to find a semblance of psychological balance. I told as much to Jacob as we drove, but he seemed disinterested and had an argument for everything. “The purpose of our liberation,” he said, “is primarily symbolic in nature. We are attacking the overriding systemic plague that is the mental health institution. We are attacking the fallacy of ‘sanity’ itself.”

It seemed to me that this response was highly contrived, as if he were making it up on the spot.

“But by doing what you’re doing,” I replied, “you’re not attacking any ‘fallacy,’ as you call it. You’re only feeding into it, because what you’re doing is completely insane! Why don’t you just be honest with yourself? This isn’t about ideals. This is just a desperate act! You feel castigated by society, so you’re acting out in anger, just like all the rest of these nutcases who shoot up schools and movie theatres! You and your twisted logic could justify anything! But it’s all nonsense!”

“Nonsense or not,” he said, “you have no choice but to do what I say.”

I sat back in my seat. I was sitting in the passenger seat. Delores was in the back, staring out the window, brooding silently. I began to visualize what would occur at the hospital. Someone was going to die. It seemed inevitable. What could I do? Then, it occurred to me. I could do something. I had to do something. I noticed the gun in Jacob’s right hip pocket…

As I reached for the gun, I remember hearing Jacob yell: “What the hell?” He took his hands from the steering wheel and tried to fight me off, and as he did so we began to veer into the other lane. I can only remember seeing a red pickup truck heading straight for us, and the sound of the horn, and the crash. Then, everything went black.

I woke up in the hospital. Fortunately, my injuries were minor. A detective came in and asked me what had happened. I told the truth from the very beginning. The detective didn’t seem at all surprised by my story, just saddened. When I asked about Jacob and Delores, the detective told me that Delores had been killed, and Jacob had severe brain damage. Hearing this, I lay back on the pillow and stared at the white ceiling. “You don’t have to worry,” said the detective. “We found the gun on Jacob’s person. And the driver of the pickup is OK. You’re not in any trouble.” Though I felt relieved, I was still stunned. “You should be out of the hospital in a few days,” he said, and left. As I lay there, I realized just how close I had come to dying. I thanked God and wept.

When I was discharged two days later, I went to see Jacob in the ICU. When I saw him, I couldn’t believe it. Wrapped in casts, with tubes sticking out of him, he appeared monstrous, grotesque, to the point that I quickly became uncomfortable. A nurse was keeping watch over him on a stool at the foot of the bed. When I approached him, he looked over at me with a blank stare that was almost like the stare of a dead man. “Jacob,” I said. “How are you?”

“He can’t speak,” the nurse said.

Jacob continued to stare at me blankly. He opened his mouth as if wanting to speak, but only the sound of garbling and groans could be heard. I noticed that a single tear was rolling down his cheek. I took his hand. “I’m sorry,” I said. He gripped my hand very hard, as if trying to crush it. I pulled it back and looked at his face again. In his eyes was a look of intense fear and hatred. He tried desperately to speak, raising his voice to an unintelligible yell, then his eyes rolled back and his lids closed. A shutter ran over his whole body, and he began to yell again, this time his whole body convulsed.

“Maybe it’s for the best that you leave,” the nurse said, getting up to check on him and preparing a shot.

I looked once more at Jacob, who was still convulsing, his eyes open, looking at me with the same hatred and fear as before. As I turned to walk out of the room, I could swear I heard him say, “You’ll die, David! You’ll die!” At first this made me afraid, but as I left the room and began walking down the hallway to the exit, I just felt sad. The sound of a patient moaning in one of the rooms confronted me, if only for a moment, with the unavoidability of death. I hurried my steps in my desire to leave this dreadful place once and for all. As I walked out of the unit into the hospital’s main hallway, with its shiny waxed floors and pristine white walls and idyllic landscape paintings, I felt relief. I even remembered my action in the car, and had the thought that I had done something truly brave, that I had saved lives and protected the world from evil, and that I should be proud of myself. But as I walked beneath the bright fluorescent lights, passing a janitor with his cart and an elderly couple wearing bright knitted sweaters, I did not feel like a hero. Instead, as if I were a criminal, I felt as if I had been given a great burden which I would carry for the rest of my days. The horror I felt upon seeing Jacob in the hospital—those dull, lifeless eyes that for a moment became so terrified and angry, his convulsions, his nonsensical attempts at speech, and the moment I thought I heard him say, “You’ll die, David! You’ll die!” All of it stuck with me, and I knew I would never forget it. What the burden was, exactly, I could not say at first. It took many years for me to process it. The fact that man was capable of such high-minded, one could almost say, noble fallacy; that such misunderstanding could build itself to a point of unalterable and inexorable conviction, and bring a man to the most heinous acts of violence—this knowledge was the burden that I had been given, and indeed I could never allow myself to acknowledge any conviction as anything other than foolishness. Except perhaps for the conviction that one must be hypervigilant with their love, and never let it slip through one’s fingers, not even for one second.