Girl Walks Out of a Bar (4 page)

He seemed like a kind man, but there was no mistaking the seriousness in his tone. “From here, I'll take you to the detox unit where you will be treated with the rest of the detox patients. Now I want you to be prepared: you might see and hear some things you're not used to, but the patients there are all dealing with the same thing you are. They're just getting help, like you. The floor is coed and you'll share a room with another female patient. You will share a bathroom with the patients in the next room. Also, you should know that there are no locks on any of the doors because the staff needs unrestricted access to patients at all times. Do you understand all of this?”

I nodded and tried to keep a calm face but my insides were shouting at me,
Why didn't you research this more thoroughly? Why did you just pick this place? Christ, you give more thought to changing your lip color
. Devon seemed to share my thoughts.
Her expression seemed to say, “I'm not leaving you here with Jack Nicholson in his creepy ass hotel!” But I was so tired, and it had taken so much to come this far—I just wanted to give whatever signatures would let me fall into a bed, any bed. Brad held out a clipboard with a stack of papers, and I started signing with my right hand while Russell held my left hand. Then it was done. I was officially a mental patient.

“OK, Lisa, you won't meet the staff psychiatrist until tomorrow morning. I'm taking you to the night physician now. He'll take some blood so he can run the necessary tests and get you started on Librium.”

Hot tears built up in my eyes and I struggled to hold them back as I hugged my friends goodbye. They looked more frightened than I was, but then again, they hadn't made a practice of snorting coke for breakfast followed by vomiting blood. They called out, “We'll visit” and “You'll be OK” as they walked out into the world I couldn't rejoin for 72 hours. I wondered if they were comforting themselves or me.

Then it occurred to me that they were probably going for a drink. My mouth watered at the idea. They'd certainly earned a drink, and surely there would be a download discussion. A big part of me wanted to run after them, but a bigger part was grateful that I'd signed away the option.

2

B
rad and I rode the ancient elevator up
to the third floor in silence. He clasped his hands behind his back as we both looked up, watching the floor numbers tick higher.

“This is it,” he said and pulled open the final door to the detox unit. The door slammed shut behind us. Shit, I thought. I'm really on a locked-down floor of a mental hospital. What just happened? I'm a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey who belongs to MoMA and reads
The Economist
.

The unit looked like a typical hospital floor lined with patient rooms, but it smelled like a combination of antiseptic, piss, and vomit. I became dizzy as we started down the hall and my stomach scrambled as if I might barf.

There was a loud commotion directly in front of us. Two haggard-looking women were screaming at each other. “Fucking cunt! I'll kill you!” It was impossible to tell what they were fighting about because their exchange was nothing but screamed threats and name-calling. They looked middle-aged with their pasty white skin and long, frizzy hair, but something told me that they may very well have been in their twenties. They wore
grubby sweatpants and t-shirts, both of which hung off their bodies the way clothes seem to want to escape long-term heroin users and war-weary refugees.

“Keep moving,” Brad said as he veered me away from the chaos. Raw fear jolted through my fingers and toes. There would be no need for the lingerie Devon packed.

Seconds later, a tall, angry man stormed toward us. He had what looked like several days of stubble on his face and tattoos on every bit of exposed skin. He looked strong enough and pissed off enough to take down the two battling women with a single swing. But he was staring at me.

I fell behind Brad and looked at the floor, but it didn't help. As soon as we were within twenty feet, the man bellowed, “HEY!” I pretended not to notice.

When I didn't respond, he repeated himself. “HEY!” I couldn't help looking up. He came closer pointed his finger at me, and scowled, “YOU, GIRL. I'M GONNA FUCK YOU UP!”

I looked around, hoping that he'd mistaken me for someone else he intended to fuck up. And that scary freak must have read my mind because as he passed us, he turned back and shouted, “YEAH, YOU.”

I looked at Brad in a panic. “That's it,” I said. “No fucking way. I'm out of—”

“No, no, no, no,” Brad interrupted. “It's going to be fine. I know it looks scary, but really, it's going to be fine.” He had his arm around my shoulder and was guiding me forward quickly.

“Did you hear that? That guy said he's going to fuck me up. You have to let me go.” I stopped walking and stomped my foot.

“Lisa, take it easy. No one is going to hurt you. You signed yourself in. You're here for 72 hours, and we're legally required to keep you here. It's OK; he's just talking. He's here for the same reason as you, just here to get help.” Did Brad believe what he
was saying? I didn't trust him. I felt like I had to run away, fast. Was this what they meant by “fight or flight” on those animal shows I watched on the National Geographic Channel at 3:00 a.m., coked out of my head? Was this what a gazelle felt right before a lion's teeth sank into her hindquarters?

“No,” I said to Brad. He continued walking, so I had to follow. “No way I'm sleeping here with no locks on the doors and these lunatics running around. No fucking way.” The words didn't seem to be coming out fast enough. Brad just kept walking.

We arrived at the examination room where the night physician was waiting to complete my intake process. By now I was near hyperventilating. “Lisa, this is Dr. Maxwell,” Brad said.

With his slick black hair, Dr. Maxwell looked a little like my former pediatrician and seemed to have the same cold manner. No one introduced the nurse next to him. Brad turned to the doctor and said, “She's scared. A few people acting up out there.” Acting up? I thought. Acting up is a baby tossing Cheerios off his high chair. This was a credible, physical threat and they needed to do something about it.

I fell into the first chair I saw and started bawling. “I want to leave!” I screamed. My fists were clenched into balls.

Dr. Maxwell looked unfazed. “Lisa, calm down,” he said. “We're just going to take some blood and then we can give you some Librium. It will help you relax and you'll feel much better. It's okay.” I saw him arranging his bloodletting instruments, no longer looking at me.

“NO!” I shrieked, as if they were threatening to pull out a fingernail with a pair of pliers. “I am not letting anyone stick any needles into my arm. I am not taking any Librium or any drug in this place. And I am not staying.”

Another argument occurred to me and I tried to sound calm and reasonable. “The conditions here are unacceptable. I
am a lawyer. I know my rights.” This was a lie. I had no idea what my rights were in this situation. “You cannot keep me here against my will. I do not feel safe.” I had heard somewhere that “I do not feel safe,” was an effective buzz phrase for when you needed help, but that might have been in a
Vanity Fair
article I read about a dominatrix. “If you don't let me leave, I'm going to call the police!”

As I rocked back and forth sobbing, Brad and Dr. Maxwell stepped out of the examination room.

They returned a few minutes later. “OK, Lisa,” said Brad. “We're going to work with you here, but you're going to have to work with us. We understand that you feel uncomfortable, but we cannot let you go tonight. You can write a request to be released, but it can't be reviewed until the psychiatrist arrives in the morning. And then it will be up to him. You're going to have to spend the night here, but we think we can make it a little easier on you. We can put you on the Asian floor.”

“The Asian floor?” I asked, still choking back tears. “What do you mean the Asian floor?”

“We have a floor upstairs that's all Asian,” Brad said. “Patients, doctors, and nurses. These aren't detox patients. They're patients with other mental illnesses, such as dementia, paranoia, and schizophrenia. They come here because their families want a more comfortable, familiar atmosphere for them. You're still going to see lots of people roaming the halls, talking to themselves, acting in ways you're not used to seeing. But it can be quieter up there.” This couldn't be happening. Was I really locked in a mental institution and negotiating which was the most desirable floor? I wanted a drink.

“What do you say?” Brad continued. “You would be right outside the nurses' station. Just give it a try for tonight and we'll get your request for discharge evaluated in the morning.”

There was clearly no going home that night. If I got out of reach of the dangerous lunatics on the detox floor and was outside a nurses' station, I thought, I could probably make it until morning. To survive the night, I could sit in a ball on the floor next to the doorway of my room so that if anyone came by to attack me they would see an empty bed and move on to another victim. “All right,” I said. “I'll go up there tonight, but just for tonight. Then I'm out.”

“Great,” Dr. Maxwell said. “Now if you'll just roll your sleeve up, we'll draw that blood and get you started on the Librium.”

“No fucking way,” I said. “No blood. No drugs. Please give me a piece of paper to write out my request to leave.” Brad handed me a pad and pen. I scribbled a short note requesting my immediate discharge and handed it to Brad. “Let's go upstairs,” I said.

Just two floors above the detox, looking the same but smelling better, the Asian floor felt like another world. In some ways it was. As described, everyone on the floor was Asian, with the exception of Brad and me. He walked me to the nurses' station. “This is Vivian,” he said, as a short, plump Asian woman with a sympathetic smile shook my hand. “She'll help you get settled for the night.” I nodded at him and shook the nurse's hand. Then she took my bag from Brad.

“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.