Hidden Valley Road - Inside the Mind of an American Family - Robert Kolker Page 0,35

handsome, and he hoped there was still every chance that he could become the man his parents thought he could be.

He started seeing someone, a classmate named Marilee. Within a few months, they were even talking about marriage. This seemed fast—but not if, like Donald, you were eager to lead a normal life, to have sex without it being considered a sin, to have a family like his own family, to be all right. But the family never got a chance to get to know Marilee. When the couple broke up, Donald was shattered, and he kept the news to himself as he scrambled to make things right. On the phone with Marilee afterward, he racked up $150 in long-distance charges. He couldn’t pay his rent, but he also couldn’t bear to admit that to his parents. Donald’s solution was to search for a place where he could live for free—a place to hide while he figured out what to do next.

In the fall of 1966, Donald found an old, abandoned fruit cellar near the campus—a room with electricity and an old heater, but no water. He slept on a mattress there alone, not sure of how he might climb out of the hole he’d dug for himself. Days turned into weeks, then months—until, on November 17, Donald returned to the health center, reporting, once again, that he’d been bitten by a cat.

When the doctors learned that this was his second cat bite in two years, they sent him that same day for a full work-up with a psychiatrist. It was there, finally, that the extent of Donald’s troubles became clear. He seemed to open up to these doctors in a way he hadn’t before, perhaps to anyone else. The intake notes mention more “bizarre self-destructive things” Donald said that he had done: “Has run through bonfire, put cord around his neck, turned on gas, and even gone to a funeral home to price caskets—all of which he cannot give adequate motivation for.”

A noose, a gas switch, a funeral home. Donald was fixating on death, on ending his life. This disconnection he’d always felt wasn’t going away at college—it was getting worse, manifesting itself in new and frightening ways.

While under observation, Donald’s free fall continued. He told one doctor that he had a notion that he had murdered a professor. Days later, he shared another fantasy—this one about killing another person at a football game. He also talked more about his past, including a new admission that the doctors found especially troubling. The hospital notes were brief: 2 suicide attempts at age 12.

Exactly what those attempts amounted to, no one could say. There was no telling if Donald had ever told anyone else about them—or, assuming they did happen, that his parents had ever known. But the doctor treating Donald had heard enough. Especially after learning what had really happened with the cat.

“He killed a cat slowly and painfully,” the doctor wrote in his notes. “The cat had been living with him for two days, and apparently brought in another cat (probably male) that made the place smelly. The cat scratched him. Doesn’t know why he killed the cat nor why he tormented. Got emotionally upset as he discussed the behavior.”

Donald was more than baffled as he was relating this. He was frightened.

“This boy represents some risk to himself and possibly to others,” the doctor wrote. “Possible schizophrenic reaction.”

* * *

—

IN THE CAR, Donald muttered about God and Marilee and some people from the CIA who were looking for him. Back home, in the kitchen, Donald exploded in a panic—shrieking “Get down! They are shooting at us!” Everyone around him jerked around to see if what he was saying was true.

It was the end of 1966, just as Don had started his new job with the Federation of Rocky Mountain States—the new life for them all, about to begin. The doctor at Colorado State said it would be impossible for Donald to continue in college until he received more evaluation and treatment. Don and Mimi drove to Fort Collins at once to check on their son. When they found him, Donald was washing his hair with beer. They decided to take him home. But now that