I heard the chatter of my fellow mental patients. I later learned that almost all of them were there for drugs, so I suppose the psych ward was more of a rehab. Very few of us had non-drug related problems. While I’m an alcoholic, and I have experimented with drugs from speed to weed to heroin. I’m not addicted to those. I walked away from heroin with zero problems. But I wasn’t here because of alcohol. I learned that many of us had attempted suicide, so I wasn’t alone on that one. But I was the only one who was there specifically for attempted suicide. The others had tried it at various stages of their lives.
Maybe now is a good place to describe my companions. There was this one skinny dude who reminded me of a taller version of one of my brothers. He was in for schizophrenia. I forgot which strain, but he . . . I’ll talk about him in a moment. We’re about to have an incident with him, and it will be better to describe that soon.
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| I miss Vikings |
There was this guy who looked a lot like Ragnar Lothbrok on the show, Vikings, except he looked exceptionally methed out. He talked a bit, but the most noise he made was bouncing a ball like he was the Cooler King in The Great Escape. He would walk up and down the hall, bouncing that ball over and over again. I could always tell when he was approaching my end of the corridor.
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| When the fuck is Netflix going to stream the final season?! |
There was another guy who looked like Frank Gallagher on the US version of Shameless . . . except he looked exceptionally methed out. See the pattern forming?
We had a trans patient who kept to herself more or less and looked nervous when someone walked past her.
There was also a woman who I’m fairly certain was traumatized. She never talked, and she had difficulty understanding where she was and what she was doing. It’ll take me a while, but I’ll get to her by the end of this. She had an incident with Jerry, and it was not a good one.
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| This guy didn't *look* like Dave Barry, though. |
There was this one guy who seemed normal until he opened his mouth. Everything he said was a joke. I’ve only ever met one other person who did that, and that was Dave Barry. Except Barry isn’t hiding anger and misery with his jokes, not like this guy.
Another guy was a bear of a man who looked like he’d been in a lot of fights. And there was only one patient who took the initiative to talk to me. I tried to keep a low profile because I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. She got through my shield and was actually very pleasant to talk to. I still have no idea why she was there. (She was the one who laughed at my split pants.)
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| If you haven't seen the movie Extract, fucking see it. |
On the other side were the nurses and social workers. The one I got along with most was a dude who looked like Clifton Collins, Jr. (Just about everyone reminded me of someone else here.) He was part social worker and part guard. You’re going to meet him in a moment.
Okay, so the skinny kid. He was admitted the same day I was. He didn’t handle the reality of it very well, and I don’t blame him. I think he was put there involuntarily, but I don’t know for sure. As I sat reading, I saw him pass by my door wrapped up in his blanket. These things are ridiculously thin and not very helpful, which was why I kept my blanket from the ER. Anyway, I went back to the book.
Seconds later I heard a frustrated scream. The skinny kid yelled, “I don’t belong here! Please! I need to go home!” He cried now, big honking tears. “I want to go home! Please! I don’t belong here! I don’t!” He kept saying the same things over and over again and weeping. I peeked out at him to see that he’d curled up in a fetal position by the window at the end of the hall.
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| No one bet cigarettes on this guy, thankfully. |
I turned back and sat down with my book. I couldn’t read it in that moment though. I kept thinking of that one scene from The Shawshank Redemption. You know the one. All the inmates took bets on which of the fresh fish would break first. And sure enough one of them breaks. And William Sadler gleefully shouts, “It’s fat ass by a nose!” And then the fresh fish in question gets beaten so badly by the guards that he dies in the infirmary. I couldn’t help but think the skinny kid was lucky that this place didn’t have Clancy Brown as captain of the guard.
This went on for a while, and then I heard the familiar bouncing ball coming closer. As it neared my door it stopped. I saw Ragnar pass by, and he said, “Dude, you okay? You need help?”
All the skinny kid could do was cry.
“Do you need me to get a doctor or something?” Ragnar asked.
More crying. Ragnar retreated, and shortly thereafter Clifton Collins, Jr., showed up and tried to talk the kid back to reality. It shockingly worked. The next thing I knew I saw him leading the skinny kid away, presumably back to his room. I know this is a very inappropriate thought, but I couldn’t help but think, So this is what Andy Dufresne felt like his first night in Shawshank.
Later Clifton Collins, Jr., came back, this time for me. “John, you eat dinner?”
No I hadn’t.
“In the morning we give everyone the choice of what they want for dinner,” he said. “Since you weren’t here at the time we made up a tray for you.”
I followed him down the hall where he handed me my tray and said I could eat in the common room. By that point everyone else had eaten, and the room was empty. I picked one of the smaller tables and ate. I don’t remember what it was, but I recalled it was better than I thought it would be. I finished and went back to my room to continue reading.
Later Clifton Collins, Jr., came back. “Did you take your meds, John?”
No, I hadn’t.
“The pharmacy closes down in fifteen minutes. You’d better go get them now.”
So I did. I remembered asking Jerry for something to help me sleep, since I have insomnia. He actually pulled through for me, and the nurse had a sleeping pill for me. I went back to my room to read until it kicked in. It did so about midnight. By now I was alternating between books, and I finished Everson’s Covenant. I set the book aside, closed my door as much as the rules allowed, turned out the lights and went to my bed. The mattress was hard and unforgiving, but it was better than what I had at home. The springs on my own bed have mostly collapsed, and it’s lumpy as all hell.
I dropped off to sleep. And woke up at three in the morning. Wide awake. What the fuck?
I got some water from the fountain and asked if I could use the bathroom. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, you have to ask permission to use the bathroom. While there are several bathrooms, they are all locked. When you had to go, you had to ask a nurse to open the door. They’d knock on the door first to make sure no one was in there, and then they’d unlock it and usher me in. In that moment I wished that I was at the hospital in Elmhurst instead. Not only was there no risk of getting a roommate, we each had private bathrooms.
I went back to my room and tried to sleep. I couldn’t do it. Then, just as the window started to glow slightly—my indication that dawn was arriving soon—I fell asleep.
They jarred me awake an hour later. “Time for breakfast.”
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| That's right. I have no shame. Get used to this one. |
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