1.
Has anybody ever said about you “He just looks like a criminal?” I've
heard it said about me so many times that I've lost count, ever since
my effigy has been held in place by a paper clip in a criminal record.
What's paradoxical, is that, now that I'm dead, the only thing that's
left of me is my face, destined to survive, for decades if not centuries,
in the mug shot the police took when they arrested me. And for decades
or for centuries anybody who sees that photo will repeat: “He just
looks like a criminal”.
2.
I didn't aspire to this semi-immortality. I found myself landed with
it without having foreseen it. You'll say that's what happens normally
with photos. Yes, but a mug shot is not an objective representation.
It shows you in a particularly dramatic moment of your life. There
is no objectivity: if the Identikit makes you a prisoner of other people's
subjectivity, the mug shot makes you a prisoner of your own torment
and your own humiliation.
3.
Gods knows where all the photos that
were taken of me as a child ended up. I was always smiling in those
ones. Until I was 12 years old, I, Graham Young, was the object of
affection of old ladies and was showered with compliments. “A blond cherub,” that's
what they called me. One of the wonders of the green corner of Berkshire
I grew up in. As for me, I was interested in everybody. Without having
any particular diseases, I found it difficult to move my limbs well.
They felt foreign to me. Those around me, on the other hand, seemed
to have perfect mastery of their bodies.
4.
I liked people. Just like that. How they moved, how they behaved.
Naturally, the privileged objects of my curiosity were my own family
members. I felt clumsy compared to them. I admired my father when he
sat, with ease, in an armchair, legs crossed and the paper in his hands.
I admired my mother as she moved with elegance in the little kitchen
in our house.
DON'T JUST STAND THERE LOOKING AT ME, GRAHAM. GO AND PLAY, DO SOMETHING.
5.
I was especially enchanted by my sister. A blonde little thing, as
gracious as me, but much more mobile. The skin on her little hands
seemed transparent to me, and I adored the mobility of her fingers.
There must have been a secret behind so much grace. It couldn't simply
be down to a mechanical factor. That was something I had too. It must
have been a question of fluids, of chemical composition.
6.
I noticed it in particular in Alex, my best friend. Agile, flexible,
ready to jump and to run. Only once did I see him lose his wonderful
energy. I had given him some beer or other to drink, past its sell-by
date and long since forgotten in the cellar. That confirmed that it
was chemistry that governed muscles and nerves. If you mastered chemistry,
you would control motion and its absence.
I'M ILL! I CAN'T EVEN GET UP!
7.
I decided that chemistry would be my domain. That I would experiment
with its power of control over bodies. And so it was. After the initial
attempts, I had years of calm to broaden my knowledge. But it was only
much later that I would be able to turn my passion into my job. It
was 1971. I was 21.
8.
After taking professional classes, I replied to an ad in a local paper.
A little factory in Bovington, in Hertfordshire, was looking for a
warehouseman. It made optical instruments. Nothing to do with chemistry,
you'll say. But what is vision, if not the product of wonderful chemical
processes recurring from one instant to the next?
9.
At the interview Godfrey Foster, the
boss of the plant, seemed perplexed. He had found my job application
bizarre. I described myself as “an expert in pharmacology, toxicology,
and organic and inorganic chemistry.” He didn't see the connection
with the work of a warehouseman. The poor thing, he was a good man,
but not very bright.
TELL ME, BOY, YOU WOULDN'T HAPPEN TO HAVE A SCREW LOOSE, WOULD YOU?
NO, SIR, YOU CAN WRITE TO THE DOCTOR IN MY VILLAGE, IF YOU LIKE.
10.
He really did write, and the response satisfied him. I was hired.
I did a little bit of everything, but I did it willingly. I immediately
liked my colleagues. They were active, fluid in their movements. They
touched complex optical systems and delicate instruments with grace
and dexterity. It was a pleasure to watch them.
11.
Everybody thought I was nice, and they appreciated the fact that I
was always smiling. There were young and old workers, proud of the
skill of their fingers. My favourite was Bob Egle, the head warehouseman.
A brusque but warm-hearted man, with a handlebar moustache. He was
nearly sixty, but he handled even the heavy packages with the ease
of a boy. His chemical processes must have had something miraculous
about them.
YOU KNOW WHY I LIKE YOU, GRAHAM? BECAUSE YOU'RE ALWAYS HAPPY!
EVERYTHING'S SO BEAUTIFUL, MR EGLE!
12.
Then there was Frederick Biggs, and Ronald Hewitt, the driver. Both
nice and skilful people. They gave me cigarettes and bought me drinks.
I got into the habit of going to the factory, in the morning, with
a thermos filled with hot tea. That way I had them all around me, chatty
and warmhearted.
DO YOU NEVER THINK ABOUT GIRLS, GRAHAM? WHAT DO YOU DO IN THE EVENING?
OH, MR BIGGS, I DO MY EXPERIMENTS!
FOR GOD'S SAKE, BOY, IT'S ABOUT TIME
YOU TRIED SOME OTHER… EXPERIMENTS!
13.
In truth, I didn't feel the need for girls. I liked them, yes, especially
when they reminded me of my mother and the elegance of her movement.
But their chemical composition is basically no different to that of
men. I preferred to spend my evenings in the cellar, where I had set
up a little laboratory. The real delight was to turn up at the factory
with my thermos.
NO TEA THIS MORNING, GRAHAM. I'VE NOT BEEN FEELING VERY WELL FOR A
FEW DAYS.
YOU'RE TOO ACTIVE, MR EGLE. A DEGREE OF SLOWING DOWN IS PART OF THE
NORMAL DEVELOPMENT OF MOTION.
DON'T TALK WEIRD, GRAHAM. I'M REALLY UNWELL.
14.
I decided to slow Mr Egle down completely. In fact, the entire staff
of the factory, a month after I was hired, was slowing down. Some had
diarrhoea, some had stomach pains, some were losing their hair. They
had become skeletons. There was an official inquest, but only when
I suspended Mr Egle's internal chemical transformations was the alarm
really sounded.
MY GOD, HE'S DEAD!
DON'T JUST STAND THERE, GRAHAM! RUN AND CALL A DOCTOR!
HE'S SO BEAUTIFUL, SO STILL!
BEAUTIFUL? HAVE YOU GONE MAD, GRAHAM? MOVE IT, CALL THE DOCTOR!
15.
In the following days Mr Hewitt died too. Inspector John Kirkland,
of the Hempstead police, came to Bovingdon. I didn't like him one little
bit: squat, slow, with fat fingers. Someone told him about my tea.
He flooded me with questions, then he demanded to come to my house.
In the cellar, he noticed saucepans and test tubes.
IS THIS WHERE YOU MAKE THE TEA FOR THE OTHER WORKERS?
NO SIR. HERE I PREPARE THE THALLIUM THAT I PUT INTO THE TEA.
THALLIUM? BUT THAT'S AN INCREDIBLY STRONG POISON!
OH, I INCREASE THE DOSE BIT BY BIT, IN ORDER TO SLOW DOWN THEIR CHEMISTRY.
YOU CAN'T IMAGINE, INSPECTOR, HOW MUCH CARE IT IS NECESSARY TO TAKE
IN ORDER TO GRADUALLY SLOW THE COURSE OF HUMAN FLUIDS.
16.
Dark and agitated times followed. They put me in prison, and every
now and then someone would ask me why I did it. My explanations fell
on deaf ears. Those people had no interest in the dynamics of bodies.
Once I told them that I felt clumsy, and that only by slowing down
other people could I have the thrill of feeling agile and flexible.
It was a fact that I had rarely confessed even to myself, but even
then they didn't understand. From that moment on, I shut up.
17.
The most painful part was the trial, which started in St Albans in
1972. An officer from Scotland Yard had taken the trouble to snoop
around in my past. When he was called to give evidence, he said things
I didn't like.
GRAHAM YOUNG SPENT NINE YEARS OF HIS ADOLESCENCE IN BROADMOOR MENTAL
HOSPITAL. HE WENT THERE IN 1962, WHEN HE WAS ONLY 12, AFTER HAVING
POISONED HIS FATHER, HIS SISTER, AND A FRIEND.
18.
That officer had no right to recall, at such a sad time, the most
beautiful moment of my youth. I nostalgically remembered my sister's
transparent little hands, rendered more diaphonous still by the chemical
processes that were slowing her blood circulation until it finally
stopped. I saw my father once again, leaning back with glassy eyes
in the arm chair, the newspaper lying at his feet. I thought of Alex,
rendered immobile by the magical mixtures I had made him drink.
19.
I was sentenced to life imprisonment in a high security mental hospital.
I don't know how long I stayed there for. I was often in solitary,
and I rarely had the opportunity to observe, in the other prisoners,
the dynamics of human movement which continued to be my sole interest.
I tried experimenting on myself, mixing urine, sperm, and every other
liquid I could find. One day I died, I don't remember why. I don't
think it was due to external factors. Probably I just slowed myself
down.
20.
My true regret is that mug shot, the only reminder of me. It doesn't
do me justice. I was much more beautiful, and liked for my good humour.
It's terrible to think that's how I'll stay forever, condemned to immobility
and to clumsiness. But the real nightmare, for me, is the paper clip
that holds my photo in place. Take it away, I beg of you. I want to move.
