Detour from Normal (10 page)

Two hours later, the door to my room opened and another man called my name. He produced yet another pill for me, Restoril. I swallowed it without making a scene and went back to sleep. I managed a few more hours of sleep after that and then was wide awake once more. Though my mind was revving up, my body was numb and sluggish from the drugs. I lay in bed for a time, waiting for my body to catch up to my mind, then began investigating my new home. For starters, I had already noted that I had a roommate—his snoring had helped terminate my drugged sleep. I couldn't see him in the dark, but I could make out his form in the sliver of light that crept under our room door. He was tall and thin, and had the rich snore of someone who'd smoked for a lifetime.

I rose from my bed and walked to where I thought the bathroom might be. I'd guessed correctly. Yawning, I took care of business, washed my hands, and splashed water on my face. I searched for a towel and found only a soiled one hanging on a hook behind the door. After drying my hands and face with my T-shirt, I made a mental note to find some clean linen later. Instead of returning to bed, I cracked open the room door to see what was on the other side. It was quiet. I couldn't see or hear anyone, so I stepped out.

I thought that exploring my surroundings might take some time, but quarters were pretty tight in this unit of Pinecrest. The unit was an H shape with rooms on the outside of both the "legs" and "arms" of the H. I estimated from the number of rooms that there must have been about twenty people living there, two to a room. Above the crossbar of the H was the staff office—a large room with a single door. In front of the door was about ten feet of open area filled with several roll-around chairs. There was a low counter surface surrounding the open area filled with computer monitors, keyboards, phones, printers, and copiers with a high counter surface outside that to separate patients from staff. Below the cross bar of the H was a partially glassed-in room with some chairs and a flat screen TV high up in a corner. A corded touch-tone phone hung on the outside wall of that room. The late-night staff seemed small; I only noticed two people working at the low counter. They didn't seem to notice me so I cautiously walked toward them, leaned on the high counter, and said, "Hi."

"Please step away from the counter," one of them said without looking at me. I backed a foot or so away, and they continued their work.
They're certainly not the friendliest people,
I thought,
but at least they don't mind me walking around.

At the tips of the arms of the H, were two sets of unmarked steel doors; at the tips of the legs of the H were similar doors marked Emergency Exit. All the room doors were heavy, solid wood with a thick oak veneer. The walls were painted light sand and the baseboards were a darker sand color. The flooring was an oak-like wood laminate.

That was it. That was my new home. I walked for a while longer and then sat on a chair outside the glassed-in room across from the staff's counter. Occasionally, one or the other staff member bobbed up to see
what I was doing. The counter was so high they couldn't see me while sitting. It was quite amusing. I tried to guess which one would bob next but wasn't very accurate in my predictions.

I finally returned to my room and lay in bed again. To pass the time, I reflected on the many odd things that were happening to me but could make no sense of them. Before long, morning light crept through the room window and the world of Pinecrest began to awaken. My roommate roared one last, raspy snore, sat up in his bed, coughed heartily, and rubbed his eyes.

"Hi, neighbor," I said.

"Uh, hi," he said in a gruff smoker's voice. I sat up in bed and stretched. My back cracked. I rotated my head. My neck cracked as well. It reminded me of my youngest daughter, Hailey, who can crack any joint loudly at whim.

"I'm Ken. I just arrived yesterday."

"I'm Ray. Glad to meet you, Ken. What are you in here for?"

"I can't sleep. I finally started having some kind of seizures, so they sent me here. They gave me some pills last night and I finally got my first rest in nearly a week. Guess what? Some doctor woke me up right in the middle of it with a bunch of questions."

"That sounds par for the course. Good luck getting any sleep in this place. There's always some kind of ruckus going on. Myself, I'm an alcoholic. I'm trying to get clean though. It's kind of weird that they'd send you to a psych unit for sleep. Aren't there sleep clinics or something for that?"

"What are you talking about? Isn't this a hospital?"

"Yeah, for whackos and addicts."

I was confused. There was no reason for me to be in a place like that, but if I could get help with my sleep, I was sure that was all I needed and that I'd be allowed to go home in a few days.

I continued my conversation with Ray and learned that it was one of many times he had tried to get clean. Unfortunately for him, that kind of lifestyle was wearing on his brain. He could hardly remember from minute to minute. If I forgot something about a conversation with him, no need to worry, I'd be having the same conversation again in a few minutes.

Ray rose from bed and stretched. Like me, his sleep attire was his street clothes. I noticed later that pretty much all of the patients at Pinecrest wore what they'd had on when they were admitted. From the looks of things, patients could literally be in the same clothes for weeks and no one would notice or care unless someone complained about the smell. As far as I knew, there were no mandatory shower or hygiene policies, and I knew nothing about getting laundry washed. No one had informed me about anything when I was admitted; I was simply thrown into the population and left to fend for myself. I was to find that I wasn't alone in this fate, but I was perhaps the highest functioning patient there, so perhaps I was the only one to wonder about it.

There was one exception regarding clothes: Carlos. Carlos was the only patient I met who had a hospital gown. Was he from a hospital? Was he homeless with clothes so tattered and soiled they had to be thrown out? It was a mystery I would never solve. For some reason, Carlos came shuffling into our room that morning. The doorknob rotated, the door creaked open, and there he was. His gown was too long, ragged, and had a dirty ring on the last few inches. The rest was soiled and faded as if it had been discarded after a long life of heavy use somewhere else. Hidden beneath his gown were matching white socks with a several-inch ring of dirt nearest the floor. They sometimes peeked out from under his gown as he shuffled. Most noticeably, he stank to high heaven.
The door swung fully open, he finished shuffling into our room, and then stood, squinty-eyed and grinning.

"Ken, this is Carlos," said Ray.

"What was that?" I asked Carlos.

"Caaarrrlllos," he said faintly through thin, ventriloquist-like lips. I barely heard him. That was to be one of the few things I would ever hear Carlos say. Carlos was there to announce breakfast. Apparently, he and Ray had connected at some primitive level, and they always went to the cafeteria together. Perhaps they shared some mutual respect or admiration. Maybe Ray liked to talk without being criticized and Carlos liked to listen without having to say anything. They could have a worse relationship, I supposed.

The three of us shuffled out of the room. I shuffled because the folks leading me were shuffling, and I had no idea where we were going. We didn't go far, just to the tip of the left arm of the H. There the three of us and the other members of our wing were corralled by PAs (psychiatric assistants) into a pack by the steel security doors. I turned to Carlos and joked, "Hey, Carlos, maybe they'll have huevos rancheros for breakfast. Would you like that?" He smiled and nodded.

When the PAs were ready, the doors opened and we were herded like cattle down a hall to the cafeteria. Everything looked the same on the other side of the doors: same floor, same paint colors. We turned into the cafeteria. It was filled with small, square tables, each with a speckled, earth-toned Formica top supported by a black metal pedestal with four matching black metal feet protruding from it. Four Shaker style oak chairs surrounded every table. Unlike in the patient area, there were a few matted and framed paintings hung on the walls. The paintings themselves were unmemorable, like something you'd pick from the
stock selection at a retail craft store. I later realized that the paintings were hung only there because that's where family visited patients, and they wanted it to seem homier. The food-serving area was along half of one of the long walls. Once everyone was inside, a PA locked the doors, turned, and stood guard in front of them.

As I fell into line to get breakfast, I noticed that Carlos had disappeared. I later observed him shuffling slowly around the room with an apple in his hand. The kitchen staff for the food line was a crotchety bunch as were the PAs who escorted us to the cafeteria. As a matter of fact, with the passage of time, I found that everyone working at Pinecrest seemed miserable. I filled my tray remembering after the fact to get utensils and milk. It was quite a job convincing mentally unstable patients to let me through the line to fetch those few items. They insisted that I must to go to the end of the line. I persisted and they eventually caved in.

Eventually I joined Ray at a table, and we talked as we ate. Ray's story, if it were true, was that he had been a lawyer in his day, and he wished to get back into law again—if he could get a handle on his drinking. If Ray had offered me a business card, I would have accepted politely but then secretly tossed it in the nearest wastebasket. He was a likable guy but not a lawyer I'd want to hire. He shared details of his family and his life, and then repeated that he'd once been a lawyer. It continued that way—him repeating the same stories—until we'd both finished eating.

After breakfast it was time to smoke. The cafeteria literally emptied, except for me, while everyone went to a small patio area to smoke. The patio was surrounded by eight-foot painted cinderblock walls topped with sharpened steel spikes, which curved inward. The patio was open
to the outside air. Monstrous clouds of smoke billowed out as if someone was having a cookout. The smokers packed tightly into the small patio and silently inhaled every molecule of nicotine they could in the short time allotted. There was no time for chitchat. Getting a fix was serious business for that crowd.

Next on the agenda was "group." Everyone was expected there. The group meetings were at 9:00 and 10:30 a.m., and 1:30,4:00, and 8:00 p.m. That day, the nine o'clock group was led by a depressed counselor who seemed not much better off than many of his patients. During roll call, when he asked Carlos his name, Carlos replied, "Fred." I laughed until I noticed the rest of the group glaring at me in uncomfortable silence. After roll call, the counselor asked the group what they did to prevent stress and cheer themselves up. The unanimous answer was "Get high!" From there the meeting disintegrated. The patients heckled the counselor ruthlessly as he shared his required tidbits of information. There was a high level of frustration in the room from some patients who genuinely wanted help. They were sick of being stuck with counselors who were either inept at providing it or were just plain burned out. I left the room feeling worse than when I'd arrived.

After the nine o'clock group, a PA approached me with two pills in a cup. I refused the medication. I didn't want to sleep just then, and I didn't want to take anything that made me feel like Jell-O.

The ten thirty meeting was in a different room upstairs that was larger and seemed like a recreation room. It had a parquet wood floor and a Ping-Pong table on one side of the room. There were many oak cabinets and some tables and chairs on the other side. There was a large open area in the middle. The topic for this meeting was "coping skills." We played a game called Traffic Jam, which required critical thinking
and cooperation to move players (physical people) from one side of a set of imaginary boxes to the other. It started with an empty box in the center with patients filling the boxes in a line on either end, all facing the center. The object was to work together to get all patients to the opposite end without violating some basic rules. It was hilarious watching patients of various levels of functioning try to fathom the relatively complicated game. I don't think anyone got it aside from me, and the frustrated counselors had to move people themselves as patients turned every which way in confusion. The point of the game was lost to that group. It was, however, the first interesting and challenging thing I'd done since I'd been there. I complimented the staff on the game afterward and asked where I could find more information about it. They ignored me.

During the day I ran into Carlos everywhere. I took him on as a kind of pet project, determined to crack his shell and get to know the real man behind the quiet, reserved mask. Whenever I saw him, I'd give him a high five, a low five, or some goofy handshake. I'd laugh and he'd grin. I never saw anyone else interact with him, and I don't think anyone had ever imagined interacting with him at that level, but Carlos was game if someone took the time. I'm sure he got a kick out of it even though he never said anything. The standard big grin was no clue, but the fact that he was always willing to participate was all the feedback I needed.

At lunchtime, I saw Ray and Carlos in the lunch pack and joined them. Carlos disappeared from view upon entering, but I later saw him shuffling around the outskirts of the cafeteria with an apple again. I wondered,
Does he ever eat it? What does he eat?
I never saw him eat anything—including that apple. I couldn't imagine how he survived.

The group at one thirty involved "the day's events and feelings." Again people shared their frustrations at not getting the help they needed,
sometimes standing and yelling directly at the female counselor facilitating the meeting. I shared a little about my medical experiences and got the group off on that tangent for a bit. I was surprised at the level of interest of these supposed mentally ill people. In the middle of the meeting, the door to the room opened and in shuffled Carlos. Seeing him bumble into the room and watching people's reactions to his horrific smell made me laugh aloud. Not surprisingly, he had his pick of chairs and the benefit of plenty of room to stretch out. That scene was all I could think of for the rest of the meeting.