The Rainbow Horizon - A Tale of Goofy Chaos

by Karen S. Cole

LAYOUT OF THE MISSION IN RAMA, WASHINGTON:

  Gabe’s walk-up, a fifth-story, one-bed room with a view of rusty wires

  Artie’s pad, a large studio, ofttimes shared with Caza; both Gabe’s and Arties’ places face Rudnick Street, but are on opposite sides

  The Krakatoa, a bar with a grill, corner of Guild Street and 31st; has a ten-foot back-lit plastic volcano that erupts, and red ceilings, honey-comb shelves stuffed with books, and four regular barkeep: Mr. Goneschlaw; Dan Nuts; Mabel “School” Jones; and Mrs. Emilia Bitters, Sharone’s mom

  The Guild Street Mission, corner of Guild Street and 25th; a former church, now fallen to disrepair; mission is on top floor, church held in basement

  “Workers of the World Industrial, Inc.,” a job service agency, housed in the Guild Street Mission, top floor, in the back entrance on Rudnick Street; a collection of small office spaces separated by standing partitions (these are called ‘cubicles’)

  Shell Park, an inland pond mysteriously full of small sea shells; it has a loverly beach, fine sand consisting of ground-up jewelry, mostly on the eastern side; many picnic tables, shelters, places to explore, etc.

  Evergreen Park, a small children’s park west of town, south of the freeway, built recently, home of an over-evolved slime mold that eat birds

  The freeway, nearby to the north, running east to west

  The town, Rama, WA, 85 miles from Hillbright College, isolated, rural, almost once industrial, major employer is Ridgeview Hospital; has everything needed

  The neighborhood, for which I’ll set boundaries: opposite side of Shell Park is Tomato Street, where the beach is (east); west side of the park is Rudnick Street, where the job service agency is on 25th; the Krakatoa is south of Shell Park, at Guild and 31st. The streets run north to south. The “Krak” is down six blocks from the mission. The area is bound to the south roughly by Tennessee Way and to the north by Honolulu Avenue, to the west by California Place Way (which stops at 20th) and to the east by Tomato Street, which runs to the freeway. Llewellyn turns west and runs to Evergreen Park

  Saragina’s space, the Desoto Africa-Spano Realm of Rugs, on Llewellyn St. between 24th and 25th; it’s another walk up, on the third floor, full of treasures (presumably from local close-out sales), prints softique, hokums and sculptures by Mexico

  Cloadia Tager and Sharone Bitter’s locale, a two-bed with a large closet facing Silverdale, which is split in two by the lake; this place lies between Boyer Ave. and 20th, on the opposite side of the lake from the cemetery.

  Hawthorne Cemetery, on Tomato east of Silverdale, between 22nd and 23rd where Harmin Boole’s wife is buried, and where a garden grows

  The Late Night Laundromat, two blocks from Artie’s apartment, down three blocks from the mission, on Guild Street; open until 11 p.m., seven days a week

  Ridgeview Hospital, the public health hospital, “for your pubic health,” located on Llewellyn Street above 23rd Ave.; to the west is a high cliff; this is Sara’s contemporary workplace

  Hillbright College is about 85 miles north-west of town

  There’s a mental institution in a hospital in another town, where Gabe once worked; also a supermarket and a bookstore

  The Tomatoe Street Library, facing Tomatoe between 27th and 28th; a locally-owned version of a coastal giant chain with many inland stores; takes up a whole block

  The Hatchet Check, a hairdresser’s that once did only men now unisex, between Silverdale and Tomatoe on Tennessee Way

  The Fantastic Café, the lengthy lunch counter for the employees that never were employed at the manufacturing plant that ne’er was op’ed in the house of Jack’s guilt; getcha dead momma’s donuts rat-cheer

  The Tomatoe Grocery, facing Tomatoe Street between 27th and 28th. The other source for food in Rama, a locally-owned outlet of a coastal chain with many inland stores, takes up an entire block, replacing an earlier, sorely missed blackberry patch. As new places are built slowly, berry bushes disappear overnight.

  ONE CHICANO/HISPANO/LATINO/INDIO/ANYTHING AT ALL KINDA DUDE, previously usable happy guy summer solstice, Gabe “Beau” Hooter Sancto, Esquire, had read 258 books (in English and Spanish) in his brief short lifetime of 24 boring but brainy years. He managed to peruse twelve of these during his job clerking in a small, wayward, eclectic and local new and used bookstore. Not in Rama, WA, but Elsewhere.

  Five of the twelve, and another 35 besides, he had gradually smuggled home with him by tearing off the covers and telling the remote and harsh and permanently situated bookstore manager that they all had arrived in that same condition. This enabled Gabe to buy them from the store at half the cover price.

  “Beau” did feel a little guilty. Not very…it had taken him some time to discover the assumed permanency of the bookstore manager.

  Naturally, said manager caught him tearing the 39th book. He was summarily, and uxoriously, fired. Romans a cleft. The manager could be heard next door. Before Gabe left, he tore open Don Quixote and rang it up for half.

  “They only cost $5 to $15, paperback. I don’t know why I did that. Literal cheap thrills? I guess so.”

  And so he ended up being a ward aide at Endeavor Specialty Hospital instead.

  He didn’t need a stringent prior job recommendation. He had worked previously as a grocery checker, and that gave him the needed good references. He was hired based mostly on his burly frame and musculature; to the ward nurses he seemed an affable enough chap. “We like men for this job,” they said. He quickly learned how to hold patients down and give them injections. Most of the time he simply talked them into taking their pills. Bureaucratized cruelty was the order of the day.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bronstein, but if you don’t take your Femoral and your lithium voluntarily, we don’t have a choice. We will have to forcibly inject you with them.” Here, you may freely picture Mrs. Bronstein, who is 62, breaking down crying. After all, this is illegal under local statues, and she is aware of that, being a reader. She used to have a lot to say about how they were getting away with murder.

  But they were clearly getting away with it. Gabe himself didn’t know the laws as yet, only what he was in the process of being told. He had to do as he was told, like it or not. Woa-oahh…

  “You have to take them.” Gabe stentoriously sighed, looking away. A lot. “It’s only an IM (intro-muscular) injection, if you want. Or you may take it in pill form. That’s really all there is to it, that’s what your doctor says.” That was policy. All the patients had to take their medications, no exceptions allowed.

  Pills. Tiny, sweetened, easy to swallow. Buttons like candy. What did they have in ‘em, with a power to ruin lives, turn kids’ minds into mush, make tons of money for big pharmaceuticals…is that what they’re there for?

  Every single day, Gabe would return home from work mentally and physically exhausted, and of course emotionally depressed. He couldn’t bring himself to admit it; after seeing once more what the way of the world was, it was obviously advisable to never be anything even remotely resembling “depressed.” In a few months he had gone through all his bookstore plunder. It didn’t help.

  At least he was a male. There, he was quite a bit lucky, he figured. Sometimes at night, he would lay awake, muttering to himself, very softly, so the neighbors couldn’t hear. As he drifted into sleep one night, he dreamed he was cursing. He feared being overheard by his parents, who weren’t there. “Seven different ones,” he found himself mumbling, that night. And coffee…

  Every so often, at work, there was a young female patient who attracted Gabe’s attention. He thought, if I’m not an absolute blackguard, maybe I have a secret fantasy of rescuing one. He father, who lived back east, divorced from Gabe’s mother was an overbearing, snappish sort who cheerily put on another face and demeanor to work for a scheduling office that handled public relations transactions. Then he’d come home and not give anyone the time of day, except to snap orders. His mother, tired of this phony military existence, eventually left. She said s
he was sick of weeping.

  She was.

  “Beau” had taken off in disgust, even sooner than his mom, to go looking for that special something, somewhere, which was obviously living and loving on another planet. He thought he’d found it at times. It didn’t make the hospital any better; he needed to either fail or succeed at accepting that. And so he tried. Until one day, when he developed a most strange urge.

  There was a female patient with whom he’d shared short discussions, off and on, whenever she came up to him, and when his schedule allowed. The staff was supposed to talk to the patients if they could, and sound out what was happening inside of them.

  The office listed a specific series of questions the attendants, nurses, and orderlies were allowed to ask. Certain topics were to be avoided to protect the patient's legal rights to privacy. Anyone in staff could be suspended for going beyond these questions. It seldom happened.

  “Nah, it's okay to talk to the patients,” RN (Registered Nurse) Flo Hermberkin told him about two weeks into the job. “It cheers ‘em up. Just watch that the DNS (Director of Nursing Services) doesn't catch you asking her anything funny. Know what I mean?” Flo looked at Gabe with an attitude of absolute surrender combined with the fullest knowledge of the human capacity to love.

  She succeeded in conveying an attitude both studied and forced, leaving Gabe room for his own personal response. He just smiled. Then she smiled, not without charm or alacrity. Her eyes gleamed, almost with tears. “’Course you do. Just be a friend.” Gabe decided it must be a difficult enterprise indeed, after watching Flo’s face; but he felt confident he would manage the trick eventually.

  The previously mentioned female patient would occasionally approach Gabe and shyly say “hi.” He began walking over to her lounge for coffee, for something to do, but it also began to occur to him that it might be best to spend more time with other patients, or else… but, or else what? What? What?

  Only the patient got coffee--Gabe wasn't allowed until break. The patient often said she didn't think coffee was any good for her, but it was a decent walk to go get it, and it was always sitting there, brewed, in an industrial urn. There was a second urn, but usually there was not decaf made. Gabe didn't feel up to making a whole lot of it. Waste. Besides, it was such a joke… he'd draw her a cup. Her hands were shaking too much from the four different interactive meds she was on to draw one herself without potentially spilling.

  There was a little tea available, black tea, the kind with caffeine. And creamers in little plastic cups. Very unrecyclable little plastic cups. You could of course bring in your own herbal tea, but it was supposed to be for you alone. Gabe would take her back to the ward. She began to lean on his arm.

  She was rational, all right; sometimes she'd dissolve into tears, or half a mild screaming fit, but she wasn't violent at all, and everything she said made normal sense. Inevitably, Gabe thought, she was probably screaming from hellish invisible pain. She had a mouth, and occasionally screamed. Rarely, and each time like she was hiding something hideous. The doctors, according to the nurses Gabe spoke with, didn't necessarily know what those pains were.

  “Probably not,” Flo, brushing her blonde-going-grey hair out of her eyes, told him. “They’re not God, there's no way to know everything. Some of these ladies could have underlying physical illnesses that are going undiagnosed and untreated. What if they developed symptoms post-diagnosis? We’re giving them chemicular derivatives of animal tranquilizers, largely. Doesn't cure anything. They keep the patients calm, from hurting themselves, from harmfully acting out. That don't fix things.”

  Gabe wondered, nonetheless, why this one patient was so fussy. “You gotta learn ta be macho like me, lady!” he would kid her. “Control you, don't cry…much.”

  “I don't have any choice,” she'd gulp. “I can’t stop,” she explained. “They took my children away! I tried so hard, husband left anyway, couldn't get a decent job. I'm mildly dyslexic, they think. It's hard for me to keep life structured. I was real stubborn,” she started to tell him one time, leaning on his arm, but “Beau” had to split and go help with the patient who was throwing feces.

  Later, she continued: “I was too stubborn to go on welfare. I kept trying to work. We ran out of food. Went to the food bank. It worked out okay, but my husband's parents--that's who it was, I think—called CPS (Child Protective Services). They said I couldn't properly handle the kids. They hauled me to court and, I, uh, didn't take it well. Big deal swaggering cruelty throws me (chuckle.) I never can understand what it's for.

  “They stuck their meaty fingers in my face, repeatedly, and mumbled “bitch” under their breaths, harsh as they could. They really did it! I broke down and cried and yelled at them, which lost my case. They laughed and took my kids away. That's my story.”

  She stopped talking, pointing at a written notice on a nearby wall. “Oh look, there’s gonna be group singing in the downstairs rec room. Wish I go.” She looked up at Gabe with deeply tired eyes. She didn't sound overly enthused.

  “I can get you signed out at the desk.”

  Gabe couldn't figure out whatever had happened, but she didn't sound “insane” to him. He spent a couple of evenings looking up meds he'd handled and their usual side effects in an old PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference) that he checked out from the hospital library. All the men he'd already seen had horrible side effects that were frightening, disabling, and downright weird.

  They were largely derivatives of animal tranquilizers, as Flo had said, but they were swiftly becoming more sophisticated. Meaning, possibly, that their origins were becoming more and more obscure, in the sense of the reasons for using them at all? So it would seem. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literature, it turned out they were probably all coal-tar derivatives, used as sedatives that put people into Hell.

  Gabe cautiously asked some of the staff why this was so and was told that meds were “getting better, thanks to recent developments,” and that “many new medications don't have significant side effects." Then he'd go back to work changing beds, and would see the usual drool on the sheets. And smelly shit, pee, throw-up, and wrinkles in something starting to tear apart.

  “It really is better than it was. Honest,” NA (Nurse’s Aide) Matt Stevens, who was 46, told him. “We used to pretty much, well, rape ‘em. Always in the arm. You know how you hardly ever have to do that? It’s not so bad now, they don't fight back as much. They used to get rowdier, and it was either that or zone ‘em out. I had patients who did virtually nothing but snooze all day in their rooms and moan like ghosts all night long.”

  Most of the patients were female. The staff joked about having a permanent harem. A lot of the staff felt superior to the patients and looked down on them. Maybe that was their version of “professional distance.” There were occasional patients who “got physical,” “acted out” and tried to hurt people. You had to watch them; fortunately, they were relatively easy to punish through confinement to their rooms. It almost seemed to be a way of securing your very own private room. If a violent patient was in a two- or four-bed room, the other patients couldn't go in for naps or to watch television. So these patients get the single rooms until they cease being “rowdy.”

  “The average day here is only three months, usually less. It's not as bad as it looks, but a lot of these folks are told to stay on their meds for life. I sure hope we aren’t principally doing drug experiments with them,” Flo admitted to Gabe on its lunch break during a quiet night shift. No listening authorities were nearby. “I’m sure it was the violent patients who brought on the drug stuff, but if they were not hurting themselves or others, they wouldn't be here, right? Right.

  “The doctors nowadays all go on about "chemical imbalances” and “amazing new breakthroughs for schizophrenia,” etc. I think these folks can't always take the push and shove of this life, that's all.” Flo, who was a portly 60 pounds overweight and pushing 48, but who was nearly 5’10” and a halfway decent tackle, sighed and tapped
the fiberglass coffee-room table with her plastic fork.

  “You have to learn to deal with people as they are. Some people never do. Life often is unfair, and you must learn to accept it and deal with it.” Gabe bit his apple, which was red and which he’d purchased from a machine, and he found himself grimacing at the refrigerated stale taste of it. He ate the fruit slowly, trying to imagine how it would feel to be eating it while on Placidyl or Dalmane, and he didn't notice any improvement in happy apple taste. Sandy.

  Gabe went back to work, allowing himself modest luxury of thought; he didn't have time to reflect, as there were three patients to bathe, two of which stubbornly fought it. All three were able-bodied, presumably.

  Gabe thought: this place is a joint. He'd heard about other hospitals that only hired staff with degrees, even at his level (things have now changed to the point where all hospitals must use trained, licensed nurses to give meds), but he wondered if they were really any better than Endeavor.

  On the way past the game room, he ran into “his” patient again. She surprised him by grabbing his arm. She was shaking all over, like leaves in the storm.

  “My baby, my daughter, she's got pneumonitis! It might be fatal! I've got to see her! She's only three years old. Oh, God!” They were standing in a fluorescently lit hallway. The corridor led to one electronically locked door, which Gabe could buzz to enter and exit. So could the patients, but they knew they’d be stopped if they tried to leave? This worked astonishingly well, considering.

  The familiar patient, dressed in street clothes that were communally share--a blue and white rayon top, a striped polyester trousers--was clearly distressed.

  “Today the letter came. She's in Felkirk Clinic, it's about 45 miles from here. In Chippada. Have you ever heard of Chippada?” she implored, hollowly peering at. Gabe through obviously bloodshot eyes, hopelessly straining to maintain her dignity. More a human cartoon than a person, a hollowed out shell, one with scraggly hair and an upbeat attitude that was no longer soul.

  “Uh, yeah. I knew a garage mechanic, hails from there, Japanese guy. He showed me how to fix engines, no problem. Know this guy? His name’s Hal Yemana.” Gabe prepared himself for another coffee klatch, walk-and-talk, unless he had to get her something to calm down.

  “I…I need…to…I have to leave! I have to go see my daughter, she may die! Please help me, please!” She looked strongly and imploringly at Gabe, but lightly held the arm she’d already grasped. “You’re the only one here I can trust. They want to keep me here ‘cause I threatened the authorities. I have to leave. Please?”

  A feeling of intense weakness fell on Gabe's shoulders; it sunk all the way into his chest and arms, spreading in poisoned ways. He thought: you have this problem, my dear, and it’s nothing I can help you with. As he spoke he visibly sagged. ‘I’m sorry, Therese, but I haven't the authority to secure you an early release.

  “However, if you put a request slip in at the office first thing tomorrow morning, I’ll bet your doctor would seriously consider allowing you to visit…”

  “No, no, you don’t understand. I’ve been rated too defensive to be released right now. Two days ago, before this phone call, I yelled at that other aid, the guy who's so pushy I told you about. I thought I heard him call me a name. It felt like the millionth time. I yelled at him to stop.”

  “You’ve got to stop doing that, they'll never see you as a responsible adult if you don't.” Gabe was pleading in a dead voice.

  “I know, nowadays I have a hard time believing in other people. But that's not what's important. My daughter is probably dying of pneumonia, and I only have today or the next few days to make it out there to see her. It's in her lungs, and she's four years old,” she finished, slowing down in her speech. The drugs were catching up, or the effects with those of utter despair.

  Therese knew it was a hopeless cause. Gabe was “one of them.” What else could he be? It was his job. As she tried to politely say that to herself, Gave also inwardly thought it: yes, this is my job, my all-important job… A job…

  “Come with me,” said “Beau”, taking her by the elbow. Therese gave him a look that was arrested, in a clouded blur, on the way to being rank forgiveness. She was being rudely interrupted. Gabe was headed out the door with her.

  They ended up in the coffee lounge again. Suddenly, Therese held a coffee cup in her pale white hands.

  “Drink it,” said the attendant. “Drink. It will help you, I hope.”

  She swallowed it so fast it burned her tongue.

  After a moment's pause, as though to aid digestion, they headed back.

  Halfway, Gabe took off and left her. Therese almost collapsed, but the Benzedrine she was taking, unbeknownst to her, for the sake of the learning disorder she was diagnosed as having, helped her to nervously stand. (How in the heck do drugs make you learn? Through punishment alone. Period…) the coffee was also kicking in. Without the Benzedrine, the other meds would’ve caused extreme drowsiness; she wasn't getting any exercise in this hospital. Not a thorough effort, ongoing, was being made to get patients to walk. Until now!

  Gabe returned in a moment, bearing brightly-colored, aging casual clothes. They were all old stuff from the bin. They take everything you own away when you get there, but they do give some of it back in time.

  “I’m gonna help you. Come with me.” She followed, lost in a definite haze, but able to totter after. She was wearing a white patient’s gown, dotted with blue figures and tied loosely in the back, but worn over similar pants. And then they were facing, he in his uniform and her in light cotton, a conveniently-placed side exit door. She didn't have any idea where it led, but Gabe did. It opened out to a grassy lawn area, ahead of the outside road.

  “Here’s fifty dollars. It’s enough for bus fare. There's a Greyhound every hour, ‘bout thirty-seven bucks to Chippada. Extra for dinner. You're her mom and they'll let you in to see her. Don't tell them about your commitment; they probably don't even know. With luck. You still friends with your sister?”

  “Yup. And, yeah, maybe she will let me stay with her for a while. I stayed with her before.” She acted dazed, groggy, but awakening as if intrigued by this.

  “Okay, the city bus is right outside, but you gonna have to walk up the street a couple blocks. So they don't spot you sitting outside. I grabbed these ladies’ clothes, so when they saw me disappear they thought I was changing you. Want ‘em?”

  “Nnnn, no I don’t. I don't want them to see me leave.”

  “Great!” Gabe almost laughed aloud. He stuffed the fifty bucks, two twenties and a fiver, a gift of love and hatred, into her pocket. “Maybe you can tie this shirt around you, act like a good person, and look spiffy. Wear it if you are cold. It’ll be cold tonight. Here.” Gabe reached up and pressed a secret button that turned off the alarm to the door. He opened the door, and punched in a four digit code that deactivated the alarm from outside. Then he gestured at all the freedom “out there.” For a second to Gabe, it appeared invitingly appealing for once.

  “Your choice. Finally, for a change after me lying about how you had a choice all along. Now you have one.” There was a long moment of silence and furtive breathing. Gabe was starting to count to a high number, wondering how many he was going to end up having to take himself. Don’t you think so?

  She glanced at him blearily, kissed him quickly on the cheek, and then, grabbing the clothes, strode determinedly, noiselessly, and not a little shakily, straight to the nearby across the way bus stop, searching to her left and looking straight back at Gabe over her right shoulder. She entered the shelter. Perhaps, Gabe decided with a heavy sigh, she felt too drugged to walk on to the more hidden next stop down. Or she didn't want to risk being seen walking. Good strategy! He made sure she was safely seated, then closed the door, reactivating the alarm by punching in the code. Nothing to do but go back to the ward and chart, do rounds, and bide his time.

  He heard nothing from no one. All went well, and that night he wish
ed the staff goodbye, going home from evening shift at about 11:25 p.m. He had reported that Therese was in her room, watching TV, and dutifully charted it.

  The next day, Gabe was off from work, sheer coincidence. But he was called at home about the “news.”

  “You’ll never guess, Gabe!” came Sally’s familiar voice over the phone. She was an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) and had been that night’s charge nurse. “A patient escaped! We don't know how. It’s that gal you used to walk over for coffee so much, Therese Nathaniel. What do aye make of that?”

  There was a pause as Gabe registered the charge nurse’s potential legal culpability. Well, I don’t make a doctor’s income. Neither does she, but she does make a lot more than I do, I think. I believe I make poop myself, mainly. He sighed again, sort of obviously into the phone, without mercy.

  “WOW. I don’t know what to say.” More silence occurred. “Say, are you coming to work tomorrow, as scheduled?” There was not a trace of accusation in her voice, which was what “Beau” expected. They would want him there. It was very hard to find a last-minute replacement at Endeavor.

  Perhaps the axe will fall eventually, but for now, “I’ll see you Tuesday, Sal. Got over that bad head cold, yet?”