by Tom Lally
Three minutes passed and I hadn’t moved. Bereavement barely begins to explain what I was experiencing. Someone didn’t need to die for me to feel the way I did. I just needed to be where I was. I scoped the ceiling and the corners of the wing. The cameras offered no blind spots, at least from my limited knowledge. The hallway even had cameras positioned at either end, which allowed them to see each person coming and going from their room or the bathroom. I just wanted to be alone, completely, but this dream was dashed the second I learned of the numerous eyes in the sky. It made me nervous. I liked being invisible to the outside world, not stalked like prey in the wild.
Everyone had a story to share, similar to the first few months of college, when I tried to make friends. It meant a spotlight on all who resided within these walls, the only difference here was that the stories rarely offered any glimmer of hope. The reason you were here may have been unknown. We all stuck our hands in, attempting to grab a single shred of the truth, but whether that reason was ever revealed didn’t matter. It never unearthed the pain afflicting each of us. We belonged in our mental penitentiary because we couldn’t live in the world, so we went to recover at the hands of strangers who didn’t know us, but had already decided, even before getting a glimpse at us, that we deserved to live.
A male orderly came up behind me.
“You okay, chief?” he asked.
“I guess,” I said, staring around the room again.
“Drew Thomas, right?” he asked.
I turned and nodded at him. His wrinkles formed a smile.
“Lucius, but everyone calls me Lucky,” he said and stuck his hand out.
“Nice to meet you. Why do they call you Lucky?” I asked as I shook his hand.
“Cause it’s a shit ton better than Luscious,” he said.
I laughed and it settled me down.
“Is there any place I can smoke here?” I asked.
“Sure, go through that door to the top of the stairs. You can smoke on the balcony,” he said, pointing to a door at the end of the hallway next to the common room’s white wall, “I’ll go with you.”
“It’s fine, I’ll find it. Thank you though,” I said and started to walk away.
I could feel Lucky following me. I turned around after a few steps.
“Sorry, chief,” he said, “but I have to watch you. Plus, I got the lighter.”
“Right,” I said.
The door led to an outside stairwell which was dimly lit by flickering lights. Metal fencing surrounded it the entire way down. The holes were barely wide enough to fit my fingers through.
“This for a reason?” I asked.
“Yeah. A patient jumped when this place first opened,” Lucky said as I put a cigarette in my mouth. I offered him the pack, but he declined with a curt wave. He reached into his pocket and handed me a lighter. I ignited it and put the flame against the tip of my cigarette. The paper smoked and started to turn black. I handed the lighter back to Lucky.
“Now, we take further precautions with patients. I’ve worked in a bunch of hospitals over the years and this just might be the best I’ve seen,” Lucky said. “You’re lucky to be in such good hands.”
“I guess,” I said and took a pull from my cigarette. The nicotine calmed me, but it didn’t cure the anxiety entirely. I still had to live in these confines and only God knew how I’d hold up. Hell, He probably didn’t even know.
I returned inside afterward. The ward was oddly quiet. I hung around the common room for a little while, silently watching the Looney Tunes. It seemed strange that that was the show the patients decided to watch. Despite its ironic name, which amused me, I yawned repeatedly and avoided every unfamiliar face that turned to me by looking at the ground. I finally got up and went to my room.
Natalie checked on me every fifteen minutes. I could notice the constant over-watch regardless of her physical presence. My name was always in somebody’s head or marked on a spreadsheet they’d need to fill out reassuring the hospital I was still breathing at a specific time. I sat in my room and laid on the bed until all patients were told to return to their rooms through the intercom. As I put on gym shorts to sleep in, Natalie came by my room again.
“Drew, I’m away. Olga will watch you through the night. I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Who’s Olga?” I asked.
The woman from the medication desk appeared.
“I am,” she said.
Natalie looked over her shoulder at her as they both stood in the doorway.
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” she said.
“Bye,” I said.
Olga grunted loudly at her before taking the chair from under my desk and moving it into the doorway where she sat.
“You gonna watch me all night?” I asked.
“Unfortunately,” she said. “People like you got me working sixteen-hour shifts.”
Her tone sounded aggressive as if she wanted to punish me for complicating her shift hours. I rolled over on the bed so I faced the hole-riddled wall and touched the closest one with my fingertips. Dust and chipped paint fell onto my sheets. I stuck my closed fist through the hole. It fit perfectly. The image in my head bothered me enough to quickly pull my hand out of the hole, but I didn’t want to turn back to Olga’s grimace. I pulled the sheets over my head and let the darkness encapsulate me. One tear trekked down my cheek before I felt a welt in my throat. My stomach pulsated up and down like a ventilator while I trembled as my grip on the sheets got tighter.
“That’s it, cry it out. That’ll get you out of here,” Olga said.
Chapter 6
An alarm rang from the hallway and woke me. It sounded like a fire alarm. I sat upright, letting my feet dangle off of the bed.
Olga was still sitting in the chair. She leaned her chin against her hand while her elbow rested on her thigh. Drool slithered down her lips and onto her scrubs. I stood up and changed into the jeans I’d worn the day before. Olga stirred when I sniffled. I couldn’t understand how that woke her up, yet an alarm louder than a police siren didn’t.
“Uh,” she said, sucking the drool back into her mouth. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Whatever time the alarm usually rings,” I said.
Olga wiped her mouth. The saliva shone slightly on her pale, freckled skin. Her mole was more pronounced as her makeup wore off.
“7:30, Jesus Christ. Why can’t they make it later?” she asked herself.
I slipped into the moccasins Dougie had left me and grabbed my toiletries from the armoire.
“Where you going?” Olga asked.
She was still sitting in the chair.
“Bathroom,” I said.
Olga moaned as she rose to her feet. She was a few inches shorter than me, but twice as wide. A few patients with tired expressions on their faces slithered past, staring at both of us.
“Let’s go,” she said, ushering me with her hand to move quickly in the opposite direction of the bathroom, “C’mon. I’m hungry.”
I put my toiletries on the desk and followed her. We walked down the decaying staircase to the first floor of the ward. I could hear the voices coming from the lunchroom, some of which were screaming. I ran my hand against the stairwell’s metal fence that barricaded us in like an old-fashioned elevator. My fingers glided against the chipped white paint, scratching a few slivers off that got caught underneath my fingernails.
“We have this so none of you jump. Kid killed himself a while back,” Olga said from behind me.
She followed behind me the whole way. I could feel her hand reaching towards my shoulders whenever I walked too fast for her stumpy legs to keep up. I knew it was to make sure I didn’t try to purposefully fall face down and smash my head against the stairs, but in the back of my head, I feared her hands would straddle my neck and strangle me to death. I welcomed it to some degree. It would have allowed me to leave, but I knew that if I was willingly going to die, I was going to be the deciding factor.
“Door,” Olga said.
We had reached the first floor. The stairs eerily disappeared into the basement where a single light flickered and water dripped into a pre-existing puddle near the foot of the staircase. The white paint that coated the walls of the staircase abruptly stopped once one took the first step down to the basement. It was an ugly, molded brown marked by a multi-colored spray paint mural which championed itself against the wall.
As I turned to open the door, I could see a face with bulging, dark eyes screaming. The veins in his neck protruded like roots leading to a tree trunk. A quotation bubble hovered with a small arrow directed at his mouth reading ‘HELP’.
“Go,” Olga said. “Christ.”
The lunchroom was moderately busy. Resembling a smaller version of a typical high school cafeteria, empty chairs were more prevalent than filled ones. Some patients stared at me as I passed by while others were oblivious to my presence, though I wondered what they were thinking about. I walked to the lunch line, which operated like a deli counter. Trays of food were blocked by Plexiglas so only the staff on the other side could grab them. A friendly woman handed me a tray that held all of the basics. A paper carton of lemonade, scrambled eggs, two strips of bacon, hash browns, a Styrofoam cup full of soup, a chocolate chip cookie, and dull, plastic utensils.
“Enjoy, sweetie,” the woman said.
She had short blonde hair cropped in a hair net and pale skin. Her arms were skinny, but her hands maintained a gentleness when she handled the food trays. She had a fragile look, though working here probably meant she was tougher than her frame indicated.
“Thank you,” I said.
I turned and stared once again at the lunchroom. I wanted to find a table that was quiet, possibly deserted, if I could. I could hear laughter and a few whimpers cascading around the room. One man ran out into the stairwell while a staff member chased after him. I sat at the first table nearest the kitchen line that was completely unoccupied. I heard Olga grunting behind me while she slurped on her coffee. She plopped down on the far end of the table. Her hair was mangled within itself. Underneath her chin were a few dark strands of hair forming a chinstrap. Her silver watch choked the skin on her wrist.
“What do you want?” she asked me.
I didn’t realize that I had been scanning her every bone without discretion.
“Uh, nothing. Sorry,” I said.
“Damn right, you’re sorry,” she said.
The eggs were nearly cold. I picked them up with a fork and let them fall back onto the plate like loose snow plummeting from a gutter. The bacon was typical cafeteria bacon, something that may have resembled pig meat, but was lightly colored and horrifically undercooked. The chocolate cookie tasted good, though I only had a bite. I wasn’t hungry. Anxiety filled my stomach in the form of seemingly eternal butterflies that would only disperse once I was alone. In this place, however, being alone was impossible.
I drank my lemonade and remained quiet while Olga loudly devoured her food. I looked around at the other restless souls that wanted to be elsewhere. The two girls in black sat in the corner at the far end of the lunchroom. Another girl sat at their table in the far corner. Sitting across from the two girls was a woman shaped like a plum, wearing a blue sweater and khaki pants. I watched the girls as they stared at their food. The girl with the partially shaved head wore a plunging V-neck Iron Maiden T-shirt. Tattoos twisted around her neck like a noose, each denoting a different line of scripture though the book and lines were missing.
*‘If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.* Beneath it read, Slaves, submit yourself to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also those who are harsh.’
A scar ran through the hairless side of her head. She played with the food on her plate and occasionally would glare at the woman across the table. It felt like she would scream at random, but she remained quiet, instead, grinding her teeth on top of each other. The other girl, who seemed to be the other’s caretaker, sat next to her understudy. She wore a black tank top and black sleeves that wrapped around the webbing of her fingers and tightly hugged her elbows. Her eye shadow was heavy, giving her a demonic appearance. The girl sitting in the far corner caught my attention more so. She had long and vibrant dirty blonde hair. It looked relatively well kept, revealing her face to the world. She held the hair that was hanging over her shoulders like she was riding a swing set. Her knuckles went pale and she pressed the hair into her cheeks, seemingly resisting the other women’s cold stares. Despite her table companions, her red long-sleeved shirt and tan skin made her seem different than the others. She seemed out of place compared to the shattered remains sitting next to her.
“You ready?” Olga said to me.
“For what?” I asked.
“Dr. Phillips wants to see you. Let’s go, she wants you in at 8:00,” she said.
I stood up while Olga grabbed the strips of bacon off of my plate and shoveled them into her mouth. She started to walk back to the door we’d entered. On the way, she dumped my tray into a garbage can. I followed silently behind, still looking around the room. Harlan was sitting at a table near the door. We made eye contact and nodded our heads at each other, though we each lacked a smile. He sat with the others I’d been with the night before, including Jared whose plate was overloaded with food while the others’ plates, except for Harlan’s, were missing items.
“Goddamn it, shut up when I’m talkin’,” Jared said to one of the patients.
The patients went silent. Harlan sat with his head down, casually ignoring Jared’s desire for attention. Courageous, at least it seemed, I wondered why he didn’t fear Jared the way others seemed to.
Olga led me back to the staircase, letting me walk in front of her again. I looked back at the mural on the wall. It seemed to fit every situation in this place perfectly. I felt as though I belonged on that faded, crippling cement, screaming alone in the dark while others passed me by without the faintest notion of what I was going through.
We went back to the second floor and walked through the main corridor. Roughly halfway down, Olga grabbed my shoulder and turned me so I was facing a door. Stenciled across the door’s chest was Dr. Marilyn Phillips, M.D. Olga knocked. I heard shuffling coming from inside, the stacking of papers and the sound of feet dropping themselves from the desktop. I could see Olga’s bloodshot eyes rolling up towards her eyebrows as the time on her watch ticked away. We might have waited thirty seconds or so, but Olga was as impatient as a famished dog. The knob finally turned and Dr. Phillips appeared, wearing a white lab coat over a gray suit.
“Morning, Drew. Thank you, Olga,” she said.
“My pleasure. Natalie will be back to check on you when she gets in Drew. I’ll see you tomorrow Dr. Phillips,” Olga smiled and turned around. I imagined her smile quickly faded once her back was facing us.
“Come in,” Dr. Phillips said.
I entered the room behind her.
“I thought your office was on the other side of the hospital?” I asked.
“That’s the department office I use. I’d rather not bring people here. It can be uncomfortable for those who haven’t seen it before,” she said.
The room was wide. The barred windows let the early morning sunlight creep over her desk so her shadow loomed larger than her actual size. Filing cabinets lined the wall along with more pictures of the hospital’s construction from the early 1900s until the final product in which we were sitting in.
“How was your first day?” she asked me.
“Uh, different, I guess is the best way to put it,” I said.
“Different is one way to put it, but are you comfortable?” Dr. Phillips asked politely.
“I mean, I’m fine. It just seems strange answering hospitality questions in a psychiatric ward. And I don’t mean to be rude by saying that,” I said.
“No offense taken, but do you have any questions regarding your stay?” she asked.<
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“How long am I gonna be on suicide watch?” I asked.
“Until we feel that you are no longer a risk to yourself,” she said.
“When does that happen?” I asked.
“When you progress into a better state through our therapy sessions, medication, and group activities. For this to work, you need to participate though. I always have people trying to cheat the system, but if you accept the system, you’ll get out of here sooner,” she said firmly. “I’m not trying to be rude or accusing you of anything. I’m just telling you how it is.”
“No offense taken,” I said. “When do I start the therapy sessions?”
“Started a few seconds ago,” she said looking at the clock that hung above the doorframe. I turned to see it before facing forward again. I smirked at her and she did the same back.
“How are your supervisors? They told you the rules they follow, right? Fifteen-minute check-ups, bathroom monitoring, the camera system, cigarette breaks, all that?” she asked.
“Yes, I’ve been told. The supervisors are fine. Olga seems to like me a whole lot,” I said.
“She likes everyone a whole lot. Don’t mind her. She’s a good nurse in terms of enforcing the rules, but let me handle the emotional side. If she gives you trouble, just let me know. She’s a good woman, but age catches up with you and I think that’s true for her more than it is for most,” Dr. Phillips said.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“Now, we talk. How do you feel?” she asked.
“My hands are sore,” I said.
“They will be for a little while,” she said. “Within a week, the cuts should start to feel better.”