Madman Walking

"Deemed a heretic, lunatic or prophet is the vote of the majority..." Beginning with a prologue exploring the often razor-thin line separating fact from fiction, a line commonly drawn along shifting perspectives using precarious proofs, typically for prejudicial purposes, Madman Walking is a distillation of the unorthodox beliefs of its author, Wesley 'Abel' Brady, into a tale of his experiences in and around his setting the historic Thomas McCann House on fire on Halloween of 2019. The incident led to a troubling search of the then 38-year-old's property and his incarceration in a medium security mental health facility in Bend. The fire was the result of his ritualistic cleansing of the property, driving away the evil in the basement that had been brewing since the once sacred grounds were stolen from the local natives centuries ago; natives with whom he shares both blood and belief. The McCann Home is on the National Register of Historic Places, being the General Manager's House for the now defunct Shevlin-Hixon Lumber Company, with both the company and the downtown location of the home being central to early Bend life back when it was a hardscrabble mill town feeding the raw material for the growth of the nation, before the collapse of the Northwest Lumber industry. Abel's experience of the incident perplexes him, with fantasy, reality, spirituality and prophetic visions weaving in and out of one another until he can't tell the difference. His crime, committed whilst 'psychotically manic, ' lands him in hot water with the authorities, with a serious sentence set before him. Refusing to plead insanity, Abel eventually escapes the jurisdiction of the Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB), the governing body set to rule over those convicted of major 'NGI' crimes (not guilty for reasons of insanity), which would've meant a maximum sentence under state psychiatric supervision. Instead, he receives a mere 5 years' probation, and is soon released from custody. Approximately 3 years later, the author is arrested on two counts of first degree murder and violation of a corpse after his regular sexual experimentation with three others, including a young teenaged couple and an older homeowner who'd hired Brady to do some work on her home, goes horribly awry. The matter now currently being adjudicated, Abel is convinced that he'll be imprisoned for life, either at the State Hospital in Salem or in the prison system for the everyday 'sane' offender. Feeling his future is now entirely set in, and within, stone, Abel wants others, especially his family, to understand what it was like to have the experiences that brought him before the judges; experiences that include visions of concealed forces and their eternal conflicts, the evolving evils of mental health 'treatment' and the history of Native American tribes gradually destroyed by the encroaching greed of the white man. These are his stories. Where fact ends and fiction begins is for you to decide.