The English word “fugitive,” which has been around for centuries, was adopted as a noun and as an adjective in the 14th century from the Latin adjective fugitiuus, which comes from the verb fugere, which means to flee. Notorious 14th century criminals include Adam the Leper, Eustace Folville and Robert de Hellewell — who refused to fight with England against the Scottish, went into hiding and on the “lam.” H. L. Mencken included the phrase, “on the lam,” which was used by criminals, in his book about the American language.  In the early 1970s I lived a kind of split-level life: I taught literature at a university, wrote essays and books, including an autobiography Out of the Whale, and kept an apartment in Manhattan; I also hung out with fugitives, including my wife, Eleanor, in New York and California. I helped Jennifer Dohrn, Bernardine’s younger sister, disguise herself and travel back and forth safely from underground to aboveground. I also aided and abetted Abbie Hoffman when he …