Staff Recommendations: The patients behavior became increasingly disruptive to the ward program, therefore the patient is being discharged with the recommendation to seek outpatient treatment for the patient and counseling for the parents.

Medication at lime of Release: Thorazine 25 mg t.i.d.

Back home, in a deep depression, Danny painted a nine-bytwelve still life—a withering yellow flower in a cracked drinking glass against a black and dark-blue background. He brought it upstairs to show Billy’s mother what he had done, but then he froze. Chalmer was there. Chalmer took it from him, looked at it and threw it on the floor.

“You’re a liar,” he said. “You didn’t do that.”

Danny picked it up and fought back the tears as he took it down to the painting room. Then, for the first time, he signed it: “Danny ’70.” On the back of the canvas board, he filled in the information it called for:

artist: Danny

subject: Dyeing Alone

date: 1970

From that time, unlike Tommy and Allen, who continued to seek approval for their painting, Danny never volunteered to show his still lifes to anyone again.

In the fall of 1970, Billy entered Lancaster High School, the rambling glass-and-concrete complex of modem buildings on the north side of Lancaster. Billy did not do well in his classes. He hated his teachers and he hated school.

Arthur cut many of his high school classes to study medical books at the library and became especially fascinated by the study of hematology.

Tommy spent his spare time fixing appliances and practicing his escape procedures. By this time, no ropes could hold him. He could work his hands to undo any knot or slide out through any ropes that tied him. He bought himself a pair of handcuffs and practiced getting out of them using a split ball-point pen plastic cap as a key. He made a mental note that it would always be best to have two handcuff keys on you at all times— one in a front pocket and one in back—so you could get to one no matter which way they handcuffed you.

In January 1971, Billy got a job as a part-time delivery boy at an IGA grocery store. He decided to use part of the money from his first paycheck to buy a steak for Chalmer. Things had gone pretty well over the Christmas holidays. He thought if he showed his stepfather now that he cared for him, maybe Chalmer would stop picking on him.

He came up the back steps and saw that the door to the kitchen had been knocked off its hinges. Grandma and Grandpa Milligan were there, and so were Kathy and Challa and Jim. Mom was holding a bloody towel to her head. Her face was black-and-blue.

“Chalmer knocked her through the door,” Jim said.

“Ripped her hair right out of her head,” said Kathy.

Billy said nothing. He just looked at his mother, threw the steak on the table, walked into his room and closed the door. He sat in the dark for a long time with his eyes closed, trying to understand why there was so much pain and hurting in this family. If only Chalmer was dead, it would solve all their problems.