The Stranger in the Woods_ The - Michael Finkel

28
A mile down the road, I pull over. He just told me he was going to kill himself, that he has a detailed
plan for it. Now what am I supposed to do: Keep it a secret? Call the police, his family, a caseworker? Do I
have a legal responsibility? A moral one? I drive to my hotel in a panic and phone a couple of therapists for
advice.
The legal part is clear: a man who says he’s going to kill himself in six months is not making an
imminent threat. It doesn’t matter if Knight passes time like a tree, his six months not like our six months—I
could take him to the police or a hospital and they wouldn’t hold him against his will.
Morally, things are murkier. To me, Knight is serious about his threat, no question. Catherine Benoist, a
clinical psychologist in private practice near Chicago, agrees: “He meets several criteria that would classify
him as being at a very high potential for suicide.” His need for autonomy, Benoist adds, only amplifies this
likelihood, as suicide can be considered the ultimate expression of independence. Thomas Frazier of the
Center for Autism in Cleveland seconds this opinion: “He’s at very, very high risk for suicide.” Peter Deri,
the clinical psychologist in New York, says, “I would worry about him.”
I worry all night, and in the morning I decide to return to his home and tell him in person that I’m
conflicted. We’ll talk it out, I’m thinking, like I’d do with a real friend. I drive the rural roads toward Albion,
and just before his house I approach his brother’s place, where the garage door is open, and inside,
tinkering with an engine, is a man: thin, glasses, jeans, baseball cap. It’s Chris. I pull over. The man in the
garage looks up.
It’s not him. It’s Daniel. We see each other. I’m stopped on the side of the road, close enough to talk, so I
feel like I have little choice but to get out and say hello. I’m pulling the door handle when I notice, up the
street, a man frantically waving at me. This time it is Chris. I drive away from Daniel awkwardly, without
speaking, and park in front of the garage with the weather vane.
Chris approaches my car and motions for me to lower the window. I do not. I open the door and step out.
He’s extremely agitated—he witnessed my brief encounter with Daniel and says I’ve done “terrible
damage.” Knight’s face, I see, has closed again. The previous day, he had been so willing to reveal himself,
and now he’s snapped shut. I explain that I was afraid of what he’d told me about the Lady of the Woods. “I
was just exploring an idea,” he says angrily. He’s retreating from his threats, it’s clear, to get rid of me.
“Go back to Montana,” Knight says. “The cowboys need their father. Leave me alone. Now.” He walks
inside his house without another word, and for the second time in two days I drive back to my hotel upset.
This time I call real estate agents. It doesn’t seem healthy for a middle-aged man to live in his childhood