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| Get used to this one. I'll be using it a lot. |
This time the common room was full of more people. I stuck to myself. If George Clooney had told me to keep a low profile, I would have done the opposite of Quentin Tarantino in that flick. I would have kept a low fucking profile.
When I was done they sent me to get my meds. After that they wanted me to see a nurse in the room where Jerry “interviewed” me. She said she needed to take blood. She asked for my hand. I can take getting poked. I’m diabetic, so often I have to poke myself. I’m also used to IVs. What I can’t stand, though, is when nurses put needles into veins on my hands. It hurts a bit more, and when the needle is finally gone I’ll feel it for weeks afterward.
So she took my blood, and another nurse said she needed to test my blood sugar. Since I was already bleeding from my hand, she stuck the testing strip there. While this was happening, a big dude walked in talking about how he didn’t want to have any more of his blood taken because he’d already had it done earlier in the day. The nurses said that they’d wanted me, not him.
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| Spotted Horse cannot be killed by a bullet. |
And then he launched into his story. This was yet another indication that I really didn’t belong here. When he was a kid he and a few friends tried to commit an armed robbery. Lots of shots were fired, a lot of them at this guy. He then told us that he’d been shot six times. Twice in his leg, twice in his arm, twice in his torso. And even though no one died in the commission of the crime he was sentenced to thirty years in prison. He got out after twenty-seven years but was put in this place instead of out on the street, which pissed him off to no end.
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| It really was kinda like this. |
How many people do you know who have been shot? For me, up to that point, that number was zero. Over the course of my stay at the psych ward I discovered that almost every one of my fellow patients had been shot. They would sometimes compare gunshot scars, and they’d be laughing their asses off about it. It’s fucking mind boggling for me.
Next up they made an announcement that it was time for group. I, having gotten very little sleep, was not in the mood. I wanted to be the perfect patient so I could get out of there as soon as possible. I’d intended to attend every group session they offered. But I couldn’t stop yawning. I politely declined, explained why and went back to my room. To bed. Trying to catch up on my sleep. I dozed slightly, but I failed at anything resembling restive.
The next thing I knew it was lunch. By the way, if you’re reading this then you know might not know my feelings on fruits and vegetables. I stay away from them as often as possible. But they were served, and as such had to be eaten. It disgusted me, but I did it. Low profile, Richie.
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| See? I told you. |
Don’t tell anyone, but the pears weren’t too bad. And I kind of liked the watermelon cubes. I wished they would serve apples or corn, the stuff I knew I could tolerate.
I still didn’t feel up to a group session, so I went back to my room and tried to read. I was alternating between John Hay and the Bondurant family. Soon dinner was announced, so I ate. I finally felt ready for group. The main reason? It was therapy through creating art. The idea was, we would select one of a group of magazine clippings. We would then get a big sheet of paper, and we would have to complete the clipping with what we thought the rest of it should look like. We had pencils and markers at our disposal.
I found the clipping I wanted right away. It was of a hand holding up half of a portrait. While others hemmed and hawed over what they wanted, I was already halfway done. I didn’t know why I was doing it at the time, but I knew what I wanted to do. The other half of the portrait is actually a monstrous face. The arm attached to the hand was normal, but the other arm was a tentacle. The figure had clawed feet. But that couldn’t be the whole thing. I only used half the page that way. So I did more. I created a fireplace with multicolored flames rising up. I drew a podium with a book open on it. I put odd symbols on the book. Almost out of page now, I drew a door with a barred window. Beyond the window I showed a fragment of a blazing sun. Only then did I know why I did it. I called it “Becoming Human.”
The lady who ran this session then asked if any of us wanted to share what they’d done. That’s where I started truly learning about the others. The skinny kid had actually finished his picture with rap lyrics, which he recited. Apparently, also like my brother, he was in a band. He was here because he saw things that weren’t there. Not ghosts. Not even the bugs of withdrawal. Usually just lights. No, no acid or shrooms involved.
The guy who always joked about everything? He went into great detail about how he lost everything he’d ever had. I knew then that humor was the last weapon he had left in his arsenal.
The giant dude who looked like a boxer? He was, indeed, a boxer. He told us that his fists were literally considered lethal weapons by the government. And he used his fists often, not always in the ring. He beat the shit out of one guy at a bar and was arrested for that. He beat the shit out of his own Harley-Davidson to the point where it wouldn’t run anymore. (His insurance company covered it, too!)
Ragnar had created a fence. Nothing more, but the symbolism is clear enough to me. Frank Gallagher just drew a bunch of squiggles. I don’t think he wanted to be there. The rest were reluctant to share.
And then it came around to my turn. I told them that this was essentially my journey of transformation. When I was a kid, I’d been abused severely, and I felt less than human for most of my youth as a result. It made me mean and angry with the world, and it made me feel robbed of a proper childhood. Why couldn’t I have the Leave It To Beaver lifestyle? Hell, I would have settled for Dennis the Fucking Menace at that point. Never mind Happy Days. But I had to change. I realized that I couldn’t go through life blaming everything on my abuser and those who allowed him to do that to me. I had to find a way to look on the bright side of life. (It’s funny. I didn’t see Life of Brian until after I made this life decision, but when I did see it, I recognized myself right there.) How does one come back from being a horrendous piece of shit loser? A magic spell? Finding the Triforce? Becoming a Jedi? How?
You find examples. You look for role models. No one is the perfect role model. It’s important to note that. But you take the good things you witness. Separate them from the bad things. Combine who you really want to be into a portrait. Hold it up to your face. Work your ass off to become that portrait. It’s not easy, but it is doable. Every once in a while the wicked past will rear its ugly face and bite your ballbag. It’s a setback, but it’s not a killer. Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. Make yourself better.
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| I haven't read this yet, but I have it. |
Everyone stared at me, much like how when Silent Bob says something, everyone tunes in. Then they all started talking at the same time, and the Joker said he wanted to ask a question. I said sure.
“What does that book say?” he asked. No joke. It was a legitimate question.
“I really don’t know,” I said. “It’s just something that popped into my head. All I know is it’s a transformation spell.”
Others had questions, but there were more statements. Compliments on my artistic ability (which I don’t agree with, but I think they meant imagination instead). Someone wanted to know where I came up with this, and he wasn’t satisfied that it just popped into my head. I told him I was a published author. That seemed to explain everything to everyone.
Group was over, and I was held back. One of the social workers had a questionnaire for me to fill out. It was more of an oral test, like where my mind was right now, how I was managing my emotions, things like that. I went back to my room and read for a while. At that point another social worker stopped by and saw me reading. He saw my other books, too. “It’s unusual to see patients reading,” he said.
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t read,” I told him.
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| For more info about "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 666," buy this book! |
“So I heard you’re a writer.” Word on the psych ward travels fast. I suddenly realized that other people were talking about me. That idea always kind of weirds me out. I don’t care what they’re saying, positive or negative, but I try to figure out why they’re saying anything. Even when writing books I try to keep a low profile. (With some notable exceptions when I’m actually a character in it, like “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 666” and the one I wrote about my own place being haunted, which will not see print until almost everyone involved is dead.) I feel that a reader shouldn’t feel like they’re reading a book when, logically speaking, they actually are. If they suddenly realize that it was actually written by someone, that’s when the story falls apart. I know that makes absolutely no sense. It’s one of those things you just have to feel. Like the movie TENET. The protagonist, when confronted with the idea of guns unfiring bullets and stuff like that, is told not to think about it. He just needed to feel it.
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| This is a fun movie. |
“I think I can get you a notebook,” he said. “Would you want that?”
I must have lit up like the Bat Signal. “I would love that.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
When he came back, he did so with a composition notebook and two golf pencils with big pink stubby erasers on top. I thanked him profusely and immediately started writing. At first I worked on some of the stories I worked on at home, taking up where I thought I left off. In between those projects I started a journal of my time on the psych ward.
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| I'm not ashamed in the slightest for using this one over and over again. |
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