Nurse Brown runs in and scans the room. She spots me. Question marks appear in her eyes and she makes the okay sign with her hand. I give her the okay sign back and she turns to find the triage nurse. I know that’s what she’s doing. I’m a pro at emerg. Except for the last time. I don’t know what they did then. I was unconscious.
My teeth start chattering. I grab my face to stop them. My cold hand feels good on my hot cheek. I put my other hand / ice pack gently over my ear. I must look like the hear-no-evil and speak-no-evil monkeys combined into one.
The painkiller isn’t doing much. Maybe it was a placebo. I need the real thing.
I want my mom…mommy…mother. Why doesn’t one of those words fit?
I want Her.
I don’t feel like Her knows me. But she would know where to rub my head. If she could remember way back when. When I was just a little kid and she wasn’t just my mom. She was my superhero. Until I was about ten years old and figured out that Wonder Woman wasn’t supposed to drink silver bullets–she was meant to deflect them.
She’s not here. Take care of yourself, Marty.
That phrase is so familiar. Maybe it has to do with what Dad said when I was small. He said, “Nobody is going to take care of you, but you.” I don’t remember the place or situation, but I remember the words–I always remember the words. Maybe they were the words said to him when his father died. And he remembered.
I look around the waiting room to see the other people who are supposed to take care of themselves. There is a yellow guy who looks like he used a cheap fake tanning cream. I don’t think that’s his problem. His eyes are yellow too. Jaundice. His friend tries to look relaxed while he reads a fashion magazine. A mother nuzzles a too-quiet baby. The dad has his arm around both of them and his eyes glued to the doors where the nurses come through to call who is next. An old couple sit holding hands. With his free hand, the man holds an oxygen mask to his face. Her free hand clutches her chest. They need a double room.
Nurse Brown walks towards me with a set of scrubs and a flannel blanket under her arm. She takes my hand. “I’m going to get you out of those wet clothes.” She pulls me up slowly and doesn’t let go. She puts her other arm around my waist. We do a my-back-to-her-front tango across the waiting room floor.
I’m feeling a little better. The Vicodin must be kicking in.
“There’s more room in here…and it’s cleaner than the bathroom,” Nurse Brown says, as she opens the door to the linen supply closet. She leans me against a rack and closes the door. “I called your mother,” she says, as she takes off my coat and robe, and unties my gown.
“And…?”
She pulls a scrub top over my head and looks me in the eyes. “She said she would like to come, but she didn’t think you wanted her.”
We never think the same way. We think too much.
“So I called another nurse in to cover for me,” Nurse Brown says, and gets down on one knee and puts my hands on her shoulders. She rolls up the pants for me to step into. My feet don’t want to lift off the ground. I feel so heavy. She takes off my wet shoes and puts my feet in the pants for me. She pulls up the pants and wraps the blanket around me.
“I used to think you were a real bitch,” I say.
“Well, Marty, I guess I could say the same about you,” she says.
“Say what?”
“That I thought you were a bitch.”
“I knew you could read minds!”
“Marty, you said the bitch thing out loud,” she says, laughing.
“Oh, my God.”
“That was out loud too. Don’t sweat it. The Vicodin can make you a little loopy. It acts like a truth serum on some people.”
“Is that why you gave it to me?”
“No. But it’s going to be a nice bonus. I want to ask you some questions. And medicated or not, you have to be honest with me from this moment on if you want to get out of the psych ward and come back to the unit.” Nurse Brown pulls socks out of her back pocket and kneels down to put them on my feet. She stays there. Just staring at the floor. She takes a deep breath and says, “Do you want to come back?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to eat?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to be a pain in the ass?”
“Probably.”
Nurse Brown looks up at me half smiling, half wincing.
“You said I have to be honest.”
“The last question was a test–you passed.”
The doctor in emergency had given me a prescription of antibiotics and a standing order for Vicodin.
Nurse Brown drives us back to the institute and parks facing east. I start to get out of the car and she puts her hand on my shoulder and says, “Wait a minute, Marty. I want you to see something. Just look forward.”
“To what?”
“To lots of these.”
I don’t have a clue to what she is talking about, but I stare straight ahead.
And then it happens.
I wonder if I’m hallucinating because it looks like the engine is on fire. The fire is not new. It is billions of years old. Sunfire.
The sunrise. It gets brighter. Blinding. As it climbs higher over the hood of the car and becomes framed like a crystal postcard by the windshield.
“When I work day shifts, I come early so I can do this. Just sit and watch the sun come up. It helps to keep me sane.”
“I haven’t seen a sunrise for a long time. Maybe that’s why I’m crazy.”
“You’re not crazy, Marty.”
“What do you call someone who tries to kill them-self?”
“Full of pain.”
“I’m not feeling any right now.” I laugh.
“That’s because of the painkiller. You have an ear infection and some physical pain, so I gave you one painkiller. You used to be violent, so the psychiatrist prescribed tranquilizers. But even he didn’t know how much mental pain you were in. You tried to kill it with thirty times the normal dose. I don’t believe you were trying to kill you, Marty, just the pain. Unfortunately, the you and the pain are tied to each other. You’re not crazy.”
I don’t know what to say. So I say the first thing that pops into my head: “I killed Lily.” I look at Nurse Brown. For a reaction to my confession.
Nurse Brown continues to stare straight ahead. Doesn’t move anything but her lips. “How do you think you did that?”
“Lily was in my bed when she died, right?”
“Yes. She was lonely and upset. She missed you when you went home for Christmas, so she moved into your room.”
“But my bed, right?”
“What’s so deadly about your bed?”
“Remember when you made me scrape the toilet paper from my intercom?”
“That was months ago.”
“I destroyed the wiring….”
Nurse Brown turns and looks at me, cocking her head to one side.
“When Lily tried to call for help, it wouldn’t work. If it weren’t for me, you could have saved her.”
Nurse Brown grabs my chin, turns my face to hers. She wipes my tears with her hand and leans across to put my head on her shoulder. She whispers into my ear, “Is that what you’ve been thinking?”
I nod. She rocks us gently.
“Her heart was damaged. And she’d starved it, and…oh, honey, Lily didn’t have time to push a button.”
After a while I open my eyes and look out the windshield. “The sun is gone.”
“It’s still out there. You just have to look for it.”
Nurse Brown asks, “Where do you want to go, Marty?”
“Back to my old room.”
We walk through the institute in silence. It’s peaceful. Too early for anyone to be up and going crazy.
So here I am. Staring at my old place by the window. “Is that my bed?”
“No. It’s new. They took the old bed away because it freaked out the girls to have a deathbed on the unit.”
&n
bsp; Lily dying in this room must have been too much for Katherine and Catwoman because they are gone too.
Nurse Brown says, “Rest today, sleep tonight, because tomorrow you start.”
“You mean start again.”
“No,” she says, “just start. Start fresh and keep it simple. You have to explain to the other girls why you tried to kill yourself. You really blew them away. You were the strong one. The one with the big mouth who didn’t care about anything. Now you have to tell them the truth.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
Nurse Brown smiles. “The doctor said the antibiotics should kick in, in about twenty-four hours. I’ll give you thirty to find the truth. If your ear still hurts and you haven’t found anything by 2:00 P.M. tomorrow, I’ll give you another Vicodin. That should help solve your problems,” she laughs.
“I’ve got a lot more than two problems. How many do you want to solve?”
“Not me. You. And you’re going to do it one at a time.”
Journal Entry # 10
I am alone. But not quite alone. Nurse Brown rescued my journal from the psych ward. We are grateful for her heroics. She also released a box of pens. Maybe she peeked (she wouldn’t have had time to read much) and saw how much I’d written. Or maybe she knows. Just knows. Brought me all this ink so I wouldn’t run dry.
Anyways, she tucked us all in before going home to get some sleep herself. She’ll be back for 2:00 P.M. tomorrow (group therapy) when we return to our regular program of the crazy antics of anorexics and the nurse who breaks all the rules to save them.
I’m going to sleep now.
I wonder if Lily will visit me.
Signed, M.
DAY 217
JANUARY 16
I wake up not sure of where I am. Big room. Two empty beds. Door wide-open.
I’m not locked up. Not in the psych ward. I’m back in the unit. And I have a window. I look outside. The blue-black of the middle of the night stands silent.
I have to pee. Someone has left the bathroom light on for me. And someone has put a pair of those silly hospital slippers, which can also be used for shower caps, beside my bed. And someone is standing in my doorway.
“Nice to have you back, Marty,” says Dennis.
“Did you miss me?”
“Like a third nostril.”
“That much?”
“Maybe more.”
“Admit it, it was boring without me.”
“It was…quiet. Too quiet.”
“Did you leave the fashionable footwear and the light on?”
“These floors are pretty cold and I thought you might get scared if you woke up in the dark by yourself.”
“I don’t get…thank you, Dennis.”
“You’re welcome. I have to check on the other girls. I’ll be back with your meds.”
My back stiffens. “What are they putting me on now?”
“Nothing new, just the antibiotics and a painkiller, if you need one.”
I feel my ear. It’s a little sore. Nothing like it was. I want a painkiller, but I don’t need it. “Just the germ killers, please.”
Dennis’s black silhouette turns sideways and the light from the hall hits his face. I see his smile and then he is gone.
I snap the slippers on and head to the bathroom. It’s so white when I open the door that it blinds me. I close my eyes and then the door. And switch off the light. I feel my way around in the dark, picturing the room I know so well on the insides of my eyelids.
I sit on the freezing toilet and immediately get goose bumps that raise me four inches off the seat. I wait but nothing happens. Finally my bladder thaws.
I could pee on myself to warm, me up, but they’d throw me back in the loony bin. And I’m never going back there. Never.
“Never!” I say out loud, just to make sure I heard myself.
“Marty! You okay?” Dennis yells from the other side of the door.
I jump and pee myself. Never say never.
“Jesus Christ, Dennis, are you trying to scare me?”
“Sorry, I was bringing your meds and I heard you yell and no light from under the door and I got –”
“I’ll leave the light on in the bathroom, so you won’t get scared.”
“Thanks, Marty.”
“No problem. You did it for me. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes. I want to take a quick shower.”
“This time of night?”
“Yes. I need to…you don’t want to know.”
“Do you need anything else?”
I look around bathroom. There is nothing in it but me and the plumbing. “Actually, I need everything. Including something clean to wear.”
“Towels, soap, and shampoo coming up. And a pile of clothes dropped off by your mom.”
“My mom was here?”
“Let me get the stuff and we’ll talk when you get out.”
—
Feels good to smell of soap and spring-fresh dryer sheets.
Dennis comes in carrying a cafeteria tray of tea and shortbread cookies.
“I thought I couldn’t have tea because of the caffeine? Is it herbal?”
“Nope. It’s full octane. But I don’t like to drink alone,” Dennis says, as he hands me a big mug.
I take a sip. Bite off half a cookie. It melts into the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I shove in the other half. “What time was my mom here?” I say, and spray cookie all over Dennis. “Oh…I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Dennis laughs, brushing himself off. “Your mom was here around 11:00 P.M.”
“I know it was after visiting hours, but you guys should’ve let her see me.”
Dennis is silent.
“She didn’t want to see me?”
“She didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I’m already disturbed.”
“She’s really afraid she’ll upset you.”
“She probably feels guilty for sticking me in solitary in the psych ward.”
“Marty, it’s mandatory for an attempted suicide to spend thirty days in the psych ward. And you only had twelve days under your belt…”
“They don’t allow belts in there. Just pencils.”
“…And your mom had them put you in solitary after the other patient stabbed you. To protect you, not punish you. Your mom was here all yesterday afternoon meeting with Nurse Brown, the treatment team, and the board to get them to agree to let you back in this unit. Nurse Brown brought you back here, but it wasn’t guaranteed that you could stay. Nurse Brown and your mom fought really hard because they both knew you’d go crazy in there.”
“They were right. I owe them big time.”
Dennis nods.
“She was here twice?”
“Yep.”
“Doing things for me?”
“Everything she could.”
“Except see me…and no one else has come to visit either.”
“Nope. The other girls were afraid you’d tell them to fuck off.”
“Have I really been that much of an asshole?”
Dennis doesn’t answer. He just shoves a cookie in his mouth and chews and stares at me.
“I have to say sorry to a lot of people.” The words squeak through a small hole in the back of my throat.
“It sounds selfish, Marty, but you have to forgive yourself first, before those apologies can mean anything.”
“Is that part of the program for Alcoholics Anonymous or Anorexic Assholes?”
“Both.”
Puts Mom and me in the same boat. “My mom told me not to tell my father about trying to ax myself. I think she’s trying to protect herself.”
“And you’ve never done anything to protect your interests–especially when you’re scared?”
“I’ve done a lot of things–all of them bad.”
“I doubt it, but your mom has done good things for you in the last twenty-four hours. Hang on to that. Try not to judge. Relationships don’t work if you dictate how or
what someone gives to you. You just have to accept what they can give,” Dennis says, as he grabs a cookie, gets up, and walks into my bathroom. He comes back and hands me a fistful of toilet paper to dry my tears.
I take the paper.
“How about a cookie?” he says, crumbs spraying from his mouth.
I take the cookie. And stick my tongue out at him. It’s hard to be gracious when you’re blowing your nose into bum-roll.
Journal Entry # 11
They let me sleep till 12:30 P.M. The sun was shining on my bed through the magnifying glass of my window, keeping me warm.
They delivered my lunch at 1:00 P.M. I ate the same lasagna that was fed to me in the psych ward. It’s a lie that this unit has its own special kitchen to suit our dietary needs. I won’t tell the other girls. They’ll go nuts.
1:30 P.M.
I have to face those other girls in half an hour. Thirty minutes to show time. But I think I found the material I need hours ago.
After Dennis left last night, I couldn’t sleep (probably the tea), so I stayed up and read all the stuff I’d written in this journal. It’s all over the place. Like someone who is lost and keeps making turns, then backtracking. Someone who is afraid to ask for directions. But I found what I was looking for. It was so obvious by its absence. And I’m not writing it down because then I won’t be brave enough to tell the truth to anyone else.
1:54 P.M.
Signed, Marty
Nurse Brown comes to my room to personally escort me to group. I understand.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” she says, putting her arm around my shoulder and steering me out into the hall. Ten paces and we arrive at the library / group therapy room.
Everyone is already here. Came early to get a good seat.
They flash me neutral, nervous smiles. Except Elizabeth. Hers is almost pleasant. And she doesn’t look away.
There’s a new girl. She doesn’t look up at all. Just stares at the floor. I know what she’s doing. Been there. Done that. Well, she’s going to get her parents’ money’s worth today.
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