We intend in this study to present the facts of Louis Smith’s descent into bestial behavior in order to afford what we believe to be the first clear, published look at Reverse Animalism. In examining this specific case, we hope to challenge the public’s preconceived notions about the condition and to stimulate badly needed discussion. Also, we aim to spark a greater awareness of the disorder and would like to foster a great leap forward, both in understanding and in treating Reverse Animalism, for the sake of our society and of the increasing number of people afflicted with this troubling disorder.5
It is a popular misconception that Louis Smith at age nineteen simply and inexplicably stopped shaving, then bathing, and within six to eight months ceased speaking, to communicate instead in hisses, grunts, and growls until he became a nuisance to society, an irritating vagrant who wandered from nightclub to nightclub, somehow crossing velvet ropes in order to fondle and “freak dance” (i.e., rhythmically gyrate the male genital region against the buttocks or genital area of a partner in an erotically stimulatory manner) with the opposite sex in ever more primal and base fashions. This view has, unfortunately, been put forth in report after report, most notably the Meratti Pharmaceuticals report.6 This version of events, however, does not take into account that Reverse Animalism never simply arrives like an unwanted visitor. Instead it has a gradual onset. Many small symptoms, such as an impulsive surrendering to one’s base desires, appear before the larger symptom of losing the ability to communicate through or fully comprehend human language.
Louis’s intellectual peak seemed to be in the sixth grade, when he was named cocaptain of the Walter J. Clash Elementary School debate team. An English teacher handpicked him to join the team after witnessing his eloquence in discussing The Diary of Anne Frank in class. The teacher recalls that Louis was often very aggressive toward male opponents and teammates. A victory would find Louis laughing at his opponent, somewhat obnoxiously, and shouting him down. The occasional loss often caused him to retire to a corner, not speaking for some time. Ironically, these were the traits that convinced teachers that Louis would make a good debate team captain. And by all accounts, he was. The team often found itself victorious, and his English teacher credits Louis. The teacher and debate team coach had this recollection:
I had to lecture Louis on sportsmanship more than once. He didn’t take losing, or winning for that matter, very well. But he was a good leader, everybody followed him. Once, during a real crucial debate — we’re at a school in the next town [Port Yooga, Virginia], an all-white team — Louis’s cocaptain C — just blanks. In front of the whole school, a packed auditorium, all the parents and teachers, this fifth-grader, a real eloquent and bright kid, is just frozen there. Costs us the whole tournament. Well, Louis is not saying much about the whole thing for most of the bus ride back. Everyone’s quiet, just contemplating the match. I stand to give the guys a standard pep talk. I tell them that it wasn’t C—’s fault. Louis cuts me off and starts yelling. No Mr. G—, he says to me. It’s not all right. Then he stands up and turns to C—. We trained for months for this tournament and you blew it for us. Now we have to go home to nothing. Nothing. Thanks a lot.
I’m speechless. C — starts crying, and all I can do is ask Louis to sit down. He glares at me for a few moments before taking his seat and staring out the bus window all calm and docile, but obviously he’s pissed. It wasn’t my finest moment. It’s probably when I lost control of the team. But Louis was only saying what everybody, including me, was thinking.
Louis Smith’s earliest recorded clear symptom of Reverse Animalism, though almost certainly not the first, was an incident in the eleventh grade in which he, out of boredom one day in gym class, fondled the fleshy portion of a young girl’s posterior.7
Horrified, the young woman screamed and fled the gymnasium. The young man, who had fallen to the ground, feigning a loss of balance, sat on the hardwood floor with what many say was a hurt, almost childlike expression on his face, as if he had just courted this woman and experienced the deepest rejection.
Louis Smith attended District Central Senior High School at the time. The school began drawing up plans to expel him, the default punishment for sexual assault, but Louis and his mother were two steps ahead of District Central and the Cross River Public School System. Instead of fighting his suspension and impending expulsion, Louis’s mother simply withdrew him and enrolled him in another school in Port Yooga, where it appears that he kept his Reverse Animalism in check. He returned to District Central the next year as if the incident had never occurred, thus neatly circumventing the school’s disciplinary procedures
Upon his return, Louis Smith found District Central a cold and unforgiving place. Said one school officiaclass="underline" “He really became an outcast at District Central, like he was marked, with a scarlet A on his forehead if you will. Or, more accurately, a scarlet F, for Fondler.”8
Where there had been friendship, or easy acquaintanceship, according to interviews, Louis now found scorn and cold shoulders. It is reported that he often went entire days without speaking to another person.
Frank, a schoolmate of the same age and racial background, relates an incident that is likely typical of Louis’s high school experience as the cloud of Reverse Animalism slowly descended upon him:9
So we’re all sitting around the lunch table, me, A—, S—, B—, R—, and Carson. We’re all talking shit, clapping on one another, and here come Louis, lumbering over, swaying back and forth. He was a big dude. Imposing, but he was a pussy. He snatched a seat — and up to this point in the school year I ain’t say shit to him. I know most of the dudes at the table ain’t talk to him neither. It’s not like we was offended by what he did. I know I wasn’t. I guess I should have been, but you know, I was a kid. Shit, I wanted to fondle D— too; she looked good. Everybody wanted to fondle her. But we didn’t, though. That’s the difference between me and him. I guess me and Louis used to be cool. Not really. It’s like we grew apart. But anyway, he sits down and everybody gets quiet, starts looking around to one another. Carson is on the other side of the table. Out of nowhere he’s like: So, grab any girls’ butts lately?
According to Frank and others, there was laughter all around the table, except from Louis, who just sat there humiliated.10
One of the most frustrating aspects of this case is how little we know about the subject’s progression from man to beast. His family, of course, did not maintain careful records, so we are uncertain, for instance, when he began defecating and urinating in the cat’s litter box. We speculate that he may have done this for years and simply hidden the results. A lack of control of excretory and masturbatory impulses are common signs of Reverse Animalism, and in fact the condition is usually discovered because of an inappropriate public display of such impulses. Many interviewed said that, though they thought little of it at the time, Louis’s enjoyment of public urination should have alerted them to the problem. He often bellowed or howled while the yellow stream trickled through the open air.11 Evidence of public masturbatory phenomena in this case is slim, though it undoubtedly occurred.