She doesn’t speak or smile. She just casts a blessing on me and moves on. One Mexican guy in Dickies shorts with a hairnet, socks to his knees, and tattoos on his face says, “What the fuck are you supposed to be, bitch? Some kind of ghost"? She casts her silent blessing. I bite my tongue, tempted to ask him a similar question.
The woman in front of me is addicted to a stimulant. I don’t empirically know this, but her bleached hair appears depleted of vital minerals, and her face, though old, is covered in scabs and acne. The absence of two front teeth complete the picture for me. Plus her aura is the color of poop. That’s just how you can tell. Her arms have burn marks but no track marks, so I am guessing it is crack. She smiles at me.
“Hey, do you think we should stay in line, or just try tomorrow"?
“This is my first time, I don’t know,” I answer.
“Not mine. This line gives you a number, then you have to wait for your number to be called so you can get an appointment. The appointment is for any time between 9am and 4pm the next day. And if your number doesn’t get called, they send you home after a whole day, and your number is no good the next day; you have to start over from scratch.”
“That’s fucked.”
“Yeah. I’m Bridget. Wanna go get high"?
“Ethan. I don’t smoke crack.”
“I do. But really I’ll do anything I can get my hands on, Ethan” she says. She tongues her lascivious gumhole and caresses my arm. “What do you do"?
I think fast, “Men.”
Her hand drops away. “That’s cool, I mean this is San Francisco. Don’t you get high"?
I realize she may be under the mistaken impression I have money in my pocket.
I shrug, “I can’t afford drugs. I’m already on a bunch of anti-psychotics anyway, and they suck.”
Her attention wanes, and she mutters “hold my spot,” then wanders out of line, approaching the guy with the face tattoos. I don’t turn around, but I can hear him shout, “get the fuck off me, whore"! Whatever manners his mother may have taught him, they were lost forever in prison.
The line has turned the corner and I can see the Welfare building now. Bridget drifts back.
“We’ll know soon. The lady will come out and tell us where the cutoff is at 11:00.”
As expected, a downtrodden social worker with a smudged lemon yellow polyester pantsuit comes out of the brick building holding a ping pong paddle. She stops about ten people ahead of us in line and raises her ping pong paddle.
“Listen up! If you are behind this spot in line, you won’t receive a number today! Come back tomorrow"!
Bridget reasons, “Hey, at least we know we’re fucked. I feel bad for the folks ahead of us who think they get a number and it’s all good.”
I try again the next morning, setting my alarm extra early, and arriving in line at 7:00 AM. Outside the locked gate there are maybe 150 people in front of me, good. The people in the front of the line are a better crowd than the back-of-the-line losers from yesterday. There are baby strollers, clean cut Mexican laborers, black folks who must have been looking for a job and this is all they can do in the meantime. They won’t need this money for very long. There are a couple of jailbirds, and some tweakers who were awake all night but remembered to check the clock. All in all, a better crowd.
A line facing us, stretching east towards Tenth Street, forms by 8:30 am. I realize these are the people who waited in the line, got a number, got called, and were given an appointment. They are in the home stretch. When the gates open at 9:00 am, they go in first. I see now why there is a cut-off; the whole group looks to be about 200 people.
Once the 200 are all inside, they pull back the chain on our line. People shove and jump the line. There are two security guards on duty who apprehend shovers and line jumpers to escort them to the back of the line. A third security officer uses a bullhorn: “Proceed in an orderly fashion to the entrance. Do not push or shove. Do not jump the line. This is not a Who Concert, ladies and gentlemen.”
There is a staticky loudspeaker, crackling with mispronounced names, presumably those of the folks who have an appointment.
The line snakes past a series of chain dividers ending at a desk manned by a very unhappy looking black lady. She has a Bates stamper, a clipboard, and a stack of blue index cards cut into four equal slips. One by one, she stamps the clipboard, then copies the sequential number onto a slip in slow, curling strokes. She asks the applicant for their name and ID. She hand writes some additional information culled from the ID next to the number on the clipboard. She holds the slip near her face while she gives her disclaimer, “This is your number. It is not a guarantee you will receive an appointment. The number is good today and today only. Do you understand"? She won’t hand it to the person until they answer her. She hands them the slip, and they proceed to a giant waiting room filled with uncomfortable orange metal chairs.
After the first thirty people are served, a security guard peels off the top piece of paper from the clipboard. He walks 15 feet to a glass security window, like you see at a bank. He delivers the stamped paper under the window to a young woman protected by the glass. Within a minute or so, a different muffled loudspeaker calls out a number, and the first applicant from the line approaches the glass window with the young woman. They shout information back and forth through the bulletproof glass, then the young woman presents the applicant with a blue index card.
At intervals, the loudspeaker with the names and the loudspeaker with the numbers broadcast at the same time. Neither the name nor the number is audible in the ensuing cacophony. Then, like a rowdy crowd at a movie theater where the film has broken, the people in the waiting area howl, whistle and shout. This boorish protest works, and the number, then the name, are called in sequence.
After several hours in line, I reach the very unhappy looking black lady with a Bates stamp.
“ID"?
I take out my red velcro Madonna wallet and extract my California Driver’s License. She takes it from me in a swift, hostile motion as if to say, “What’s a white boy with a driver’s license doing at the welfare office"? She transcribes the Bates number from the clipboard to my blue slip of paper, then copies my license number and name to the clipboard. She moved like a sea tortoise on land. The process takes about five minutes. She holds my slip and repeats her disclaimer: the number is not a guarantee I will get an appointment. I nod and say , “Yes, Ma’am.” and she hands me my number: “301435.”
The loudspeaker reads out the next number “301378.” Great, I’ll be here a while. Then the loudspeaker comes to life with a recorded announcement. “The time is twelve noon. The San Francisco General Assistance office is closed between the hours of 12 noon and 1:30 pm. Please come back at 1:30 pm with your number or appointment slip to be readmitted.”
I have just enough time to run back to Northeast Lodge and make myself a sandwich. When I return to GA at 1:15, the line stretching East for people with numbers or appointments is longer than the initial line for numbers was. But when 1:30 rolls around, we all head into the waiting room with very little pushing or discord.
Keeping to myself, I pretend to be studying something in my wallet with great intensity for a long time. I wish they had a book for me to read. There are no newspapers, no magazines, nothing. Closing time draws near, and I’m afraid my number will not make the cut-off. Then I hear my number crackle on the loudspeaker.
I head over to the bulletproof window, push my blue slip under the glass. The young woman inside the booth cross references the paper from the clipboard, types some information into a CRT, and a dot matrix printer comes to life. She separates the paper from the tractor holes along the side, talking to me at the same time. I try to put my ear against the glass to hear what she is saying, but she pounds the glass and mouths “Don’t touch the glass"! She pushes a very official looking slip through the window, and shouts at the top of her lungs, “Read the back"! I can’t hear her. She lives in Whoville.
&n
bsp; The front of the slip has my name, Driver’s License, and tomorrow’s date. Just as Bridget had warned me yesterday, the back of the appointment slip indicates the appointment is for any time between 9 am and noon, or 1:30 pm to 4 pm tomorrow. I make a vow to raid the library at Northeast Lodge and grab a good book to read for tomorrow.
*
I choose “The Castle” by Franz Kafka. It’s a bit dense for light reading, and my mind wanders as I wait for my appointment. The book’s premise and setting are similar to my current existential surroundings. It makes me lose grip with reality, so I stop reading.
Besides, I need to concentrate on the loudspeaker, which seems to have blown a baffle or torn the cone. The numbers are clear, but the names become whale songs and porpoise cries. When “Meefin Loig” is called, I approach the window, as do several other applicants. It turns out it was my name, not theirs, and I am escorted through a doorway into a room filled top to bottom with social workers in cubicles.
Each social worker has an applicant by their desk, answering questions. The noise is deafening. I wind through a maze, following the security guard who seats me in front of a tall, noble looking black woman. Her neck is encircled by a chain holding her cat eye reading glasses. Her hair is in a modified bouffant. She sees me and purses her lips, prepared to dig into my situation and deny me my GA. I sit in the chair and introduce myself.
“I am Miss Stanfield,” she says, declining my hand. “Why are you in my office"?
I look around the room and say, “Well, it’s not really an office, right"? Never having known the drudgery of corporate America, nor the hopelessness of a government job, I didn’t realize the breadth and depth of my insult to her station in life. We were off on the wrong foot.
Ignoring my critique of her office, she asked me “why are you looking for General Assistance"?
“Well, because the people at Northeast Lodge said I need---” She cut me off.
“You’re at Northeast Lodge"?
“Yes.”
“You know you don’t have to wait in line if you’re a medical waiver. Next time, if there is a next time, go to the doorway on Tenth Street and skip the main line. Now, let’s get you set up.”
She made a call to Northeast Lodge to confirm my particulars, scolded whoever answered for failing to tell me about the medical waiver entrance, and put the phone down, satisfied.
Miss Stanfield is a kind person, forced to deal with a lot of unpleasant people. I was a refreshing break for her. She had very little paperwork to fill out - David at Northeast Lodge would complete and mail in most of the forms. She swept through the folder she had created for me, checking off boxes, humming, and tapping her black-and-beige Chanel kitten heels. “Okay, if you will just sign here, initial here and here, and sign again on this page, we’ll get you out of here and back to Miss Connie at the Northeast Lodge.” She knows Connie?
“I love Connie.” I tell her, as I sign
“I wouldn’t doubt it. Everybody loves Connie.” She smiles and extends her hand. I have passed her test. We shake. “Thank you Miss Stanfield.”
She points me to the exit, which is opposite of where I came in. The exit door opens out onto Tenth street, just two blocks from Northeast Lodge.
CHAPTER EIGHT - PROJECTS
It’s time for Deli Project, but before I can put on my Apron, David taps me on the shoulder and asks me to come to his room. In his office, he announces he has good news for me.
“Your room is ready at Conard House one week from tomorrow.”
I offer no reaction.
“I had hoped you would be excited.”
“What will I do there"?
“Pretty much the same as what you do here, but it will be less structured. They don’t have mural project or deli project.”
“Will I have to give my room"?
“Uh, yeah. That’s how it works when you are transferred out.”
“Can Connie come”?
“Connie works here, Ethan. Don’t play dumb.”
“Sorry, it’s just so sudden. Where exactly is Conard House again"?
“It’s a gigantic mansion on Jackson Street in Pacific Heights. The most beautiful parquet floors you have ever seen. You will love it, Ethan, I promise.”
“I want to stay here.”
“No, trust me, you don’t. If you stay here, it’s out to board and care.” He puffs his thin Capri cigarette. “Board and care is no-man’s land, Ethan. It’s applesauce through a straw. James will probably be going to a board and care.”
“Can I tell him you said so”?
David blows out a big puff of smoke and growls, “No, of course not! Why are you giving me attitude? I did you a solid favor, Ethan.”
“Thanks. Can I go chop strawberries now”?
“Sure. Go chop strawberries now.”
In the ground floor kitchen, Barbara is looking for me.
“Ethan, I need you to peel potatoes.”
“I’m leaving. I mean, I’m getting out of Northeast Lodge.”
Barbara beams, “I heard. You were accepted into Conard House. It’s a beautiful place, Ethan. I know you will love it.”
Everyone keeps saying so, but I am helpless and powerless; a prisoner in a Soviet gulag being transferred to a new prison.
*
This evening is my trip to SF General on the 47 Van Ness to get pricked with a needle full of mystery fluid (in all likelihood nothing). When I get to the 7th floor of SF General, the Schizophrenia Project is missing. There is just a big empty room. No Sally Christiansen, no doctors, just a black female security guard with hands on her hips.
“Hi,” I say, “can you tell me where to find the Schizophrenia Project”?
“Ey, dis it.” She has a charming Caribbean accent.
“No, I mean, where are they now”?
“Oh, dey pack up dem bags and go. Shot stay.”
This is puzzling. “Did they leave any instructions behind”?
The security guard shakes her head.
I pile back onto the 47 and return to Northeast Lodge. It will take weeks for them to figure out what has happened, and by then, I’ll be long gone to Conard House.
*
I was wrong, and Dr. Pablo Morales is on site for a consultation with me and two other Schizophrenia Project patients, ensuring we are put back on the full dose of Prolixin we were taking before the double blind study.
Back to nightly pills, hooray.
Within five minutes of my first dose I feel woozy. I stagger off to bed, praying my dreams will be better than this waking lobotomy.
CHAPTER EIGHT-AND-A-HALF - FUCK
Who took my brain? Who fucking took my brain with an oyster fork and scooped it out? Who replaced my brain with cotton? I can’t move, can only breathe if I lean forward. My lungs are full of fluid, my neck is stiff, my back hurts, my teeth are chattering, my arms are so stiff, I can’t move them without help from one another.
Prolixin is evil.
*
It’s been three days, and I still can’t get my neck out of the vise to turn my head facing forward. It is too painful. The doctor isn’t back until Monday, so I just have to keep taking these fucking medications and carry on as normal. Dixie says it’s tardive dyskinesia. I hope not. That shit is permanent.
I can’t walk, so I have to crawl around the house. Forget going outside. My arms won't move higher than my waist. I can’t chop strawberries, so now I have a note from David saying I will be excused from Deli Project for the remainder of my stay at Northeast Lodge.
Funny thing, they all say I seem to be “getting better.” If getting better means losing the ability to walk, sleep, use one’s arms and leave the house, then I am getting better. They don’t fucking have a clue how this shit feels. They should all have to try it for a week before they are allowed to prescribe it.
I can just see Dr. Pablo Morales, lying stunned on the floor staring into space, a thin trail of drool coursing down his cheek. David, my counselor who thinks mor
e than anyone else I am getting better, would choke on the folds in his neck. They’d have to send for an ambulance. They are BARBARIANS!!
*
Fuck the establishment and fuck the monarchy and fuck the president and fuck the AMA. Fuck tinseltown and tin pan alley. Fuck them all and call them Sally. I fucking hate the world today, want to take my meds and drift away? Fuck no, gonna spit ‘em in a paper towel and drop them in the doctor’s morning oatmeal. How do you like these fuckin meds? Do you feel like shit for fucking with so many heads? Fuck the AMA, fuck the APA, Fuck the royals, fuck the air force. Fuck the white house fuck the congress. I won’t be a stooge for society, taking fucking meds, dying quietly. Fuck the police, fuck jail and fuck the sheriff. Fuck these meds and fuck psychiatry. Fuck it all, Fuck it all, Fuck it all, Fuck it all.
*
Dr. Pablo Morales didn’t like my attitude, but he did understand a stiff neck and paralyzed arms were a considerable handicap, and should not be noted in the charts as “getting better.” He says we need to titrate down in stages. I asked him to take a Prolixin, and he looked at me like I had asked him to taste a spoonful of my feces. See, he knows better. Fucking prick.
He doesn’t know what it’s like when every tendon in your body is made out of a toxic cinnamon stick of pain. He doesn’t know what it’s like to only be able to draw shallow breaths. He doesn’t fucking know anything.
I’m not at a normal dose yet, and my “tardive dyskinesia” is still causing me a lot of pain and discomfort. It only feels good when I’m asleep, but thanks to these fucking meds, I can’t sleep now, either. Fuck the fucking AMA. Fuck the APA and fuck the big pharmaceutical companies inventing poison and call it medicine.
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