Girl Walks Out of a Bar

by Lisa F. Smith

  “So, you’ll be OK here tonight?” Brad asked.

  Vivian was setting my bag down on the bed in a small room directly across from the nurses’ desk. “Yeah, I can do this,” I said. Brad looked relieved.

  “Great,” he said. “Dr. Landry, the psychiatrist, will come see you tomorrow to discuss your situation and your request to leave.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate what you did.”

  He shrugged. “It’s OK. But remember that people don’t usually land in this hospital unless there’s a good reason. See how you feel in the morning.” As he walked away, I laughed to myself. See how I feel in the morning? I could tell him how I’d feel in the morning: desperate to get out of this place to have a fat cocktail and a smoke.

  Vivian had begun to dig into the contents of my bag like a power-drunk TSA agent. What was the worst thing she could find? A bag of drugs I might have forgotten in the lining? Maybe they’d kick me out.

  Meanwhile I took a good look at my Spartan accommodations. The room was about twelve feet long and seven feet wide with a cold, speckled linoleum floor. A twin-size mattress half as thin as a telephone directory sat on top of a low, wire frame and was pushed along the side of the wall. No headboard, no box spring. The bed was made up with some scratchy sheets and a stained, thin, white cotton blanket. I was going to need that heavy sweater that Devon had packed.

  A wooden chair sat at the foot of the bed, and directly across from it was a small sink with a piece of shiny metal over it meant to function as a mirror. Looking into it, I could make out my image generally, but the details of my face were unclear. When I moved my head, I morphed into another form.

  The small window near the head of the bed was embedded with wiring, blocking any view outside. There was no telephone, television, or clock, and I thought of a good question for Jeopardy: “In these two places, it’s impossible to tell if it’s night or day.”

  “What are a casino and a mental hospital, Alex?”

  Vivian looked amused as she picked at my bag, smirking when she came across the negligees, push-up bras, and pair of spiky heels. She let me keep the clothes but removed anything that, in a spy movie or an episode of MacGyver, might have facilitated my escape or suicide. She shook her head as she filled a black plastic tray with items that were to be returned to me at the end of my stay: my cell phone, cigarettes, money, credit cards, driver’s license, MetroCard, tweezers, razors, and a small glass pot of lip gloss.

  “You can get ready for bed now,” she said, relinquishing what remained in the bag. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to take your blood pressure.”

  The only thing I had resembling pajamas were the negligees Devon had packed. I didn’t even own pajamas. Having something normal to sleep in was just another thing that my alcoholic lifestyle had rendered unimportant to me, like doing laundry and opening mail.

  Piles of unopened envelopes would sit on my kitchen counter for months. Although there was plenty of money in my bank account, I almost never paid my bills on time. It was sheer laziness, although I told myself I was just “too busy” to get to it. When I got around to calling the credit card companies, weeks after bills were due, I would pay over the phone, hefty penalties included. The renter’s insurance on my apartment was cancelled for nonpayment. I skipped sending in rent checks and made it up the next month. I was a top-bracket taxpayer living like a broke drug addict.

  I pulled on a pair of leggings, circa 1988, and took off my bra, leaving on the heavy cotton sweater I had worn all day. The room was cold, so I added thick wool socks.

  The bathroom had a thin wood door. No locks, not even on the bathroom doors. I flipped the thick black switch on the metal plate. The fluorescent light that flickered on was dim, and that was fine with me. Out of fear, I never fully assessed the toilet and made a decision never to sit on it; I would squat. In the corner, there was a narrow stall shower with a decrepit white plastic shower curtain hanging from a semicircle shaped rod. Won’t be touching anything in there either, I thought.

  Vivian wheeled in a blood pressure contraption that sat atop a long rod with three wheels at the bottom. The bed creaked as I wrestled my arm out of my sweater, like the first move in a pathetic strip tease. She choked the band around my arm and looked at her watch as she took the reading. She didn’t mention that she would do this every three hours of the next twenty-four.

  “You know, it’s not so bad here,” she said. “You’ll be OK. You look tough.” Tough? I thought. Rough, maybe. Strung out and ancient, sure. But tough? It must have been Vivian’s way of psyching me up for what was going to happen the next morning.

  “I’m not going to be staying. I already submitted my request to leave. As soon as I see the psychiatrist tomorrow, I’m going.”

  As she pumped the little rubber bulb, I hoped that my hysteria and anxiety had catapulted my blood pressure to a level that would get me transferred to the cardiac unit at Lenox Hill. There I could relax, safe among bankers, lawyers, and other overachievers who had worked their way into a cardiac vacation. It didn’t happen.

  She unwrapped the band from my arm, looped the thick, black cord around it, and raised her eyebrows. “Right,” she said. “You should think about staying.” Then she rolled her machine out of the room.

  I sat on the bed looking around and feeling twitchy. Trembling and sweating, I badly needed a stiff drink and a cigarette. I pulled the stuffed tiger out of my bag and slid under the crappy sheet and blanket. The light stayed on and my eyes sat wide open until they finally dropped shut from exhaustion.

  It was unclear when morning arrived because no sunlight streamed through the wire-covered window. When the morning nurse, Jane, stormed into my room, she barked, “Eight o’clock! Everybody up for breakfast right now. Time to eat!” Her urgency seemed unnecessary. It wasn’t as if anyone here had to rush off to work.

  As I lifted my head from the pillow, a more intense, disorienting sickness than I had ever felt came over me. It was as if I had been taken to the rooftop of a skyscraper, turned upside down, and shaken by my feet. I would have sworn that I was throbbing from my bones outward. My head felt split, my palms were thick with sweat, and my gut convulsed as if I were vomiting again.

  Remembering that there was no wine next to me to slug and calm everything down, I tried to sit up anyway. It was a bad idea. Oh, shit, I thought. This is withdrawal.

  I slid back down and closed my eyes. The morning routine was underway and I could hear people scurrying around. Maybe it was finally safe to get some sleep. I pulled the sheet over my head.

  “Come on, Lisa. Rise and shine. Time to eat breakfast!” Jane said.

  “You know what?” I said, working hard to form the words. “I really didn’t sleep last night and I’m not hungry. I think I’m just going to stay in bed until the psychiatrist comes to see me.” Facing the wall, I curled up into the fetal position.

  “No, Lisa. Time to get up. Everybody has to get up and eat breakfast. That means you, too. Let’s go.” She wasn’t kidding, and she wasn’t leaving. Fuck. I managed to pull myself back up and lower my feet to the floor. There was a good chance I’d throw up, so I dropped my head between my knees. My hair swept the floor. Jane stood silently next to the sink.

  “OK, OK,” I muttered. I bent into a crouch and then stood up slowly. Jane stepped aside as I approached the sink. I brushed my teeth with my right hand and gripped the sink with my left. At that point, washing my face or changing my clothes seemed as feasible as mountain climbing, so I just slipped my feet into my sneakers, still holding the sink. Then I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and looked dully at Jane. She chirped, “Let’s go!”

  As I followed her down the hall, I realized that I was about to eat breakfast in a room full of mental patients. My eyes didn’t focus well, and it felt as if there were little needles behind them trying to poke their way out. Every inch of me ached. Maybe I could eat in my room? I knew the answer.

  When we arrived for breakfast,
the other patients were already seated and eating. About twenty faces looked up at me, as if to say, “What’s with the white girl?” Jane hustled me to a free seat at one of the round tables. There were mumbles mixing in with the sporadic moaning and shrieking around the room. The patients’ ages appeared to range from young adult to very old. It definitely smelled better here than in detox and people seemed to be clean and groomed. I was thankful the three other patients at my table were more interested in their eggs than in me.

  A tall metal cart with rows of plastic trays was wheeled into the dining area with each tray labeled for an individual patient. I wasn’t sure if this reflected dietary concerns or just quality of insurance coverage. It couldn’t have been the latter because my insurance was great and my breakfast sucked.

  My plate featured a pile of gray, soggy eggs that at best had been reconstituted from some sort of powder and at worst were real but weeks old. Pass. Orange juice sounded like a good idea because that’s what normal people drink in the morning and my mouth felt like it was wrapped in sandpaper. I peeled back the tin foil on the top of the squat, clear plastic container and took a gulp. It could have used some vodka. Vodka. How wonderful it would be right now to be standing naked in front of my freezer drinking vodka out of the bottle! I shuddered as if someone were holding that frosty bottle against the back of my neck. I would have paid just about anything for that vodka.

  As I picked at the top of a mini blueberry muffin, I watched the nurses trying to cajole other patients who weren’t even pretending to eat. These patients found more compelling uses for cooked eggs, like finger painting and having conversations with them.

  Before long, Jane came looking for me. I wasn’t hard to spot. “Lisa, Dr. Landry is ready to see you. First we need to look at you,” she said.

  Happy to have mealtime cut short, I followed her into a small room off the dining area, where she took my blood pressure, temperature, and weight. This once-over seemed meant to confirm that I was the same person who had been left in the room the night before.

  Reviewing my file, Jane asked, “Why didn’t you give blood or take medicine last night? Don’t you want to get better?” Was this the conclusion she drew just because I didn’t want to risk physical assault on the detox floor? I felt too sick to talk about it, so I shrugged, grateful to be allowed to return to my room and collapse onto the cot.

  A short while later, the doctor appeared. He looked just like an uptown psychiatrist, from his carefully trimmed salt-and-pepper hair and beard to his corduroy pants and sensible, brown walking shoes. “Hi Lisa, I’m Dr. Landry.” He was looking at papers in a manila folder, presumably my file. “I understand there was quite a commotion here last night,” he said, taking off his glasses as he finally looked at me.

  I tried to sit up, but my head felt like a bowling ball on a lollipop stick neck. Get up, I told myself. Get up or he won’t let you out of here. He’s the only one who can.

  I grabbed the side of the metal cot, the heel of my hand digging into the thin mattress. I pushed up from there, and my body slouched into a letter “C.” “Yes, I need to be discharged right away,” I said, my voice cracking.

  He sat on the wooden chair at the end of my bed. “Mmm. Your file says you checked yourself in last night on a 72-hour psych hold on account of alcohol abuse. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. But I made a mistake. I want to leave.” My voice sounded so small. He didn’t respond and continued to flip the papers. “Did they tell you about that man threatening to fuck me up on the detox floor?” I asked.

  “They did,” he said. “Let’s talk a little about your drinking. Signing yourself into a locked down detox is pretty serious business. I find it hard to believe you would do that if you don’t need help.” I was quiet. “How much do you drink? How often?”

  I had to lie or he wouldn’t let me out. With a shaking hand, I pushed back my mop of knotted hair and looked Dr. Landry in the eye. “I drink a lot. Every day. I start as soon as I wake up and I can’t stop. I can’t stop.” Wait, what? What did I just say? I began sobbing, and it felt surreal that I was the one ratting myself out to this guy. And why did I suddenly feel as if a backpack loaded with lead was being lifted from my shoulders? It was as if some healthy part of my consciousness had taken charge.

  Dr. Landry looked like a cop relieved to have gotten a confession without having to beat it out of the suspect. Tears streamed down my face and burned my cracked lips. Were they from relief? Sadness? Fear? I didn’t know and didn’t care, maybe because by now I was feeling horribly, horribly sick from withdrawal. It was as if someone was trying to pull my head and stomach inside out with their bare hands. A silent scream ripped through my head.

  “OK,” Dr. Landry said. “Let me be straight. You need a medical detox. If you don’t do this, you might die. You can even stay on this floor to be more comfortable. That’s all we need to talk about right now. Will you stay and do that?”

  I thought about the night before—the strung-out women fighting in the hallway, the screaming from random rooms, no locks on the doors, the guy threatening to fuck me up. I pictured the scratchy sheets and blood pressure readings every three hours. There were the smells of vomit and antiseptic and no communication with the outside world.

  “I’ll stay,” I said, collapsing back onto the smelly cot.

  “Great. Let’s just get you started on Librium and we can talk more when you feel a little bit better.”

  My old life was gone. I could never go back to the time when no one knew about my sickness. Every important person in my life now knew me as an addict. I had taken the first step toward staying alive, but all I wanted was that icy cold bottle in my shaking hand.

  part two.

  How did a nice girl like you become an addict like that?

  3

  Life hadn’t always been about the next drink for me, but it had always been about finding some escape from a world in which I never felt at ease. As a girl, I had no idea how to define the way I felt almost every day and night of my childhood, and I certainly didn’t understand it. But I was always anxious and often sad, painfully sad. While I imagined other kids waking up every day to a bluebird of happiness chirping, “You’re worthy!” “You’re happy!” “Wonderful things are going to happen today!” I felt plagued by a mosquito of doom, a predator I couldn’t swat, all day buzzing into my ear, “You’re not as good as everyone else—everybody knows it.” “Something bad is about to happen.” “You’re not worthy.” “You will fail.”

  I learned at an early age to pretend to feel fine when I didn’t and to act happy when I wanted to shut myself in a dark bedroom and weep. Lying became easy, and habits and substances that brought even temporary relief were my refuge. Little did I know on that wakeup morning in 2004 that my self-hatred had been ingrained from the beginning. It’s just how my brain was wired all along. Of course, the good news is learning that you can be rewired. The bad news is that you obsess about all the self-destructive years that led to the discovery.

  In the summer of 1974, I was eight years old and attended the “best” day camp in the northern New Jersey suburbs. My mother said that any kid would love the place. Apparently, any kid but me. I was extremely self-conscious thanks to being overweight. I wasn’t obese, but I was big enough to be an easy target for cruel kids, and my nondescript brown hair and small eyes did nothing to flatter my chubby face. Pudgy, unattractive, and miserable—I was a walking ABC Afterschool Special.

  To make the childhood years worse, I wasn’t athletic. My lack of coordination doomed me year round: nine months in the school yard, one month at camp, and two nebulous summer months when other kids jumped, biked, and ran around like young gazelles. When I threw a football, it sputtered end over end and landed eight feet in front of me. When someone yelled “Race you home!” I’d give it a half-hearted jog for half a block and then gasp my way through the rest of the walk. I was picked last for every team and placed last in every lineup, but when my teams lost, I
was the first one blamed.

  The camp was located on what felt like a massive property made up mostly of scattershot woods and otherwise undeveloped terrain that would appeal to an aspiring serial killer. I’d seen Helter Skelter on my parents’ bookshelf and developed a fear of being randomly murdered by hippies.

  The focal point of the camp was a giant swimming pool made to resemble a lake and was referred to as the “plake.” I thought that if the two words had to be crossed, it was wrong to take one of them in full and just add a letter from the other. It should have been “pake” or “lool.” This is the kind of observation that regularly entertained my mind, but whenever I tried to point out the misnomer, the other kids would roll their eyes as if to say, “Nobody cares, Word Nerd.”

  Each morning, our group of about a dozen eight-year-old girls congregated around Dina, our counselor, to hear the day’s schedule. My only reprieve from physical activity was the daily “elective” period that immediately followed lunch. Avoiding sports, I was left with something called “Indian Lore,” which involved sitting in a tepee for an hour and a half with a man called “Uncle Jim.” He didn’t appear Native American in his sleeveless white undershirt, thick, black-rimmed glasses, and black pants with the outline of a hard pack of cigarettes in the pocket, but he wore a colorful headdress fashioned from oak tag paper and cardboard cutouts. Uncle Jim told stories of Native Americans—their lives and traditions. I loved a good story, especially from a seated position, so Indian Lore quickly became the only part of the camp day that I enjoyed.

  After several weeks of my finding comfort in the cross-legged tales of tribes long gone, Dina and another camp supervisor sat me down to talk. “Lisa, you’ve really learned all you can learn at Indian Lore. You need to start choosing other electives. It’s supposed to be a time for you to try new things and meet other campers,” Dina said.