Crumb Page #11

and he went up to the bathroom.

I said, What are you doing?

He pushed the bathroom door open.

Mary was standing there naked

and she screamed.

She slammed the door.

I said, Maxon, come away. I tried

to pull him away from the door.

He was completely in a trance.

He pushed the door open again.

Mary yelled again.

Then Maxon fell on the floor...

had an 8-minute seizure.

What's with these Oriental women

you were into in this phase?

- You were attracted to Oriental women.

- I was when I first started doing this.

When you were in that phase.

The phase of molesting women

and getting in trouble with cops.

- Were you actually raping these women?

- No. I didn't get that much into it.

He'd goose them and run away.

You've got to do a lot of molesting

to get to rape.

If you do a couple years of molesting,

you'II get to rape.

I started molesting when I was 18.

I started with Chinese women for some

crazy reason on subways in Philadelphia.

I went through different periods of it.

But I'm out of it.

It's too much passion, too much animal.

Didn't they put you in some kind

of psycho ward for a few weeks?

Two weeks on Haldol will cure anything.

You'll do anything they tell you

after two weeks on Haldol.

For a sensible person

it's just terrible.

You get heavy into molesting.

It's a violent crime thing.

I get to the point where I start

pulling girls' shorts down.

I'm walking around this district

by the Marina, a shopping district.

This beautiful Jewish-looking girl...

with obscenely brief shorts on...

goes into this drugstore.

I'm in a fit. I gotta do this

to this broad. She's just too much.

I've gotta risk my whole life

just to do something to this broad.

So I go in,

cold sweat all over the place.

She doesn't notice. She's casually

looking over some shampoo.

I'm trying not to be obtrusive.

She goes up to the counter. It's like

this complete, personal struggle...

about this moment

I gotta pull this risky trip.

I walk up behind her while

she's paying for the shampoo.

I grab the bottom of her shorts

and go...

They go all the way down, and her ass

pops out like a ripe peach.

Jesus Christ! she says.

There's someone there. '

Maybe 15 or 20 years from now

I'll be more willing to talk about it.

But not now.

I've still got too many scruples.

- Did you tell Maxon about them?

- He thinks you're putting it on.

Charles confessed to me

when we were adults that...

when we were teenagers, he had to stifle

the urge to stick a knife in my heart.

He'd be lying in bed, fighting the urge

to go to the kitchen for the knife.

I wanted to go to the basement,

get an ax and bash your skull in.

I told Maxon.

He didn't believe it.

He thought it was all part of the act.

- He thinks the whole thing's an act.

- He thinks my mental sickness is an act.

He thinks you have a cushy position

in things...

because you got the mother's love

and he didn't.

That's what he thinks.

He must think I have reasons

for putting on this act.

What does he think

those reasons are?

I don't think he thinks it out

too deeply. He's just reacting.

He still has anger and resentment

because he wasn't loved by the mother.

I know what the homicidal tendencies

stem from now.

It stemmed from an excessive degree

of narcissism.

It seems all I have to do is overcome

the excessive degree of narcissism...

and my homicidal tendencies

will go away.

- You still have these tendencies?

- No, they're pretty well gone.

Think it's drugs?

What's the connection between

narcissism and homicidal tendencies?

When narcissism is wounded...

it wants to strike back

at the person who wounded it.

- Did I wound your narcissism?

- Many, many times.

Many, many times.

I'm at the point in meditation

where I have to use a bed of nails.

I'm not a great expert at the nails,

so I cover a portion of the nails...

with this thin bandana

so it's not too painful to me.

I have to regulate the amount of pain

that I take with it.

- How long can you sit on those?

- I can sit a couple hours.

This is quite easy.

The cloth cleans your intestines out

on the inside.

You might say it gratifies

your intestines.

Every six weeks, regularly, I have

to pass it through my entire body.

And it takes three days

for it to come out the other side.

You don't take the nails

on the street, right?

They're prejudiced against people,

like in the financial district...

against someone praying in the street.

You go out with your beggar bowl

about every day.

I do it every day, once a day.

It's part of my whole thing.

I have to go out and meet the public.

Put the bowl down, lock in and do it.

It's a dirty job.

- How long has he had this bed of nails?

- A couple years.

He sits on it about

three or four times a day?

- About once a day for a couple hours.

- Does he sleep on it?

No. It's not big enough to sleep on.

He just sits on it.

- Where did he get it? Did he buy it?

- You can't buy a bed of nails.

Just a minute. What is it? What?

Not too badly.

Remember, Mother, I'm under

the influence of medication.

That's helping me through this thing

to a certain extent, anyway.

- When did you start taking medication?

- About 20 years ago.

If only it would do something

about the inner anguish and pain.

You started taking it

after you attempted suicide?

I started taking it

after one of my suicide attempts.

- You drank furniture polish.

- That was the first time.

I drank a bottle of furniture polish

and took an overdose of sleeping pills.

I chickened out at the last minute,

and went downstairs...

and asked Mother to take me to

the hospital to have my stomach pumped.

Jesus!

There were two or three other attempts

besides that one.

This morning you were talking

about getting a lobotomy.

- Why not?

- Why not?

God, it's grim.

Charles confessed to me that when he

first saw Treasure Island in 1950...

he developed this crush on

Bobby Driscoll, and it never went away.

Bobby Driscoll's the kid

who plays Jim Hawkins.

The root of this whole obsession

was this kid that was in the movie.

He was drawing Bobby Driscoll,

this kid, endlessly.

When he told me this, I was shocked.

I had no idea that's what it was about.

I guess it's caused him

a lot of torment in his life.

He's never been able to have

any real sexual life at all.

He's never had sex.

I don't think any of them

got out, Mother.

When she yelled, Get the hell out of

here! I said, Who's she talking to?

And I said, She's being pursued

by invisible enemies.

Who does she think they are?

I don't know exactly.

It's hard to tell.

Charles?

Fix that curtain in the hallway.

The curtain in the hallway?

Come here. Come here.

Let me see that, please.

Let me show you the painter.

I did that one and that one.

- That one's good.

- Let me show you what one it is.

This is my character.

That's your character?

- What are biscuit teeth?

- Her dog!

- Biscuit Teeth.

- That's her dog?

Leave it the way it is.

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