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  As the medication wears off, the terror creeps back. Each step I take feels dangerous. Like descending into the cave of a sleeping giant.

  The giant could wake.

  I feel the blood rush through my heart, feel it quiver in my chest. “Mommy.” I look around—the voice is mine. I clasp my hands in front of me to keep them from flying off.

  The nurse unlocks the door to Hall 5. The hallway is wide enough for chairs on both sides. There sit the women, rocking, no distractions, no clutter. As I pass, I notice a small strip of tape stuck between the shoulder blades of each woman, her name written in black ink. “Margaret, sit down,” the attendant says. “Sit quietly now.”

  More women pop up, then sit back down on command like targets on a shooting range.

  Dim white lamps, like giant mushrooms, hang on long chains from the high ceiling. The creaking and thumping of the steam radiators under the windows, low murmurings of patients create the backbeat for my welcome. I hug myself against the cold. I hug myself to keep from breaking apart, spraying across the walls.

  The nurse fingers her keys, picks one, and turns it in the keyhole of Room 12. She pushes me across the threshold of a tall thick door. I lean against it to keep from falling, my hand resting on the deadbolt. I look around the room, my eyes stick on the large window covered by a heavy metal screen.

  In the tiny room, two scarred iron beds are stripped down to stained mattresses, the once white stripes of their ticking yellow. No box springs—the two-inch thick mattresses sit directly on iron mesh anchored to the beds with large bolts. Sheets and pillowcase, a gray rubber pad, and a thin black blanket lie folded at the foot of one of the narrow beds. A white metal nightstand is bolted to the floor, a dented granite bedpan sits on its lower shelf. That’s all.

  “Lie down and relax.” The nurse hands me a green bubble pill.

  “What?”

  “Just relax.” She watches me swallow the pill and hustles to the door, crepe soles squeaking against the tile. The heavy door bangs shut, the click of the lock. The clank of the deadbolt echoes, footfalls fade down the hall.

  I quickly pull a case over the flat pillow, peel open the stiff sheets and spread them on the bed. I’m not sure how much time I have before the pill kicks in, so I leave my boots on. I lie on my side, bring the thin blanket up around my shoulders. No explosion in my head this time, just the shade coming down. Muffled screams fade to black.

  Chapter 4

  THE OBSERVER November 25, l968

  Page 4

  Notice: Patients are strictly forbidden to borrow money, cigarettes, gum, playing cards, games, stamps, magazines, and other personal items from other patients. Fights have broken out because of misunderstandings in this regard. Do not approach fellow patients for favors.

  Ladies, ladies.”

  I stretch out of a dreamless sleep to start another day.

  The Nurse Supervisor on the disturbed ward of Building 50 chants as she sways the hand bell up and down the hall. “Breakfast, ladies.” The bell rings at six a.m. Keys begin to turn in locks.

  I strain to clear my head. A dream? Waking from medicated sleep is like emerging from a dark cave, the blackness gives way to a gray haze. Where am I? I squint, my eyelids flutter against the harshness of the overhead light, like gazing into the sun. Click! The realization races through my body like an electrical current, shocking me awake. I drum my fingers on my chest. One, two, three, four…this is my seventh day, five days in the infirmary, two days on the hall.

  Every day starts the same: The attendant rings patients awake, prods us out into the hallway in our coarse white nightgowns, herds us down to the women’s dining hall. I hear the attendant say, twenty-three, feel the tap, as I pass through the double doors of Hall 5.

  Cold, I’m always cold.

  Patients creep along, their chins jutted out, eyes focused intensely under furrowed brows, on a mission.

  “Hi, Lulu.” It’s the patient I met in the dayroom yesterday.

  “Hi, Betsy.” Still loopy from the medication, I try to sound cheerful.

  “Hurry, ladies. The dining hall will open in three minutes.”

  All forty of us from Hall 5 stand waiting in front of the doors. The key turns in the lock at six-thirty a.m. Attendants stand on each side of the doorway to tap and count as we pass into the dining hall. Attendants sit at tables on an elevated platform along the east wall, supposedly a vantage point for them to observe, keep order. I notice them laughing and talking, oblivious to the chaos. I know I have to keep an eye on patients wandering through the dining hall, snatching food, eating it with their hands. Yesterday, I lost my applesauce, today I’m prepared. I hunch over my bowl, my mouth inches away from the steaming glob of oatmeal. I clutch my milk carton.

  After breakfast, I skirt the med line in front of the nurses’ station and sneak down the hall to the dayroom. Before long, my night medication wears off and a hollowness settles down on me full length. I back against the wall to avoid a woman twirling across the floor. Others are dancing or marching around the room. The hall smells of smoke, urine, and lye soap. Like the new kid at recess, standing on the outskirts of the playground, I’m alone. Only this is scarier. I begin to shake.

  I try to remember how I landed in the hospital—flashes of a castle in a snowstorm, Alexander’s face, a cardboard casket. A vague feeling of time passing while I dream. My legs are weak, my back hurts. I remember the little cubicle, the fat doctor. Jeff fidgeting in the chair in the waiting room, pretending to read a magazine. Where is he? Finally, I take a deep breath, push off the wall toward a woman sitting by herself under the wall television.

  I walk up, draw close, look directly into the woman’s face—nothing. “Hello.” If eyes are windows to the soul, these women have moved out, boarded up. I’m not like them. I’m in the wrong place. Somebody has made a terrible mistake. I need a mirror. I need to see if it’s really me. But there are no mirrors. I stare down at my hands. The small diamond chip wedding ring looks familiar, the one Jeff claims he got from a Cracker Jack box. I must be me.

  “Hi.” I try a thin patient rocking on a straight chair. The woman jumps to her feet, raises her hands above her head, starts cawing like a crow. I freeze as the caws grow louder and louder.

  The attendant jabs my shoulder. “Move on.”

  I retreat to the wall and watch. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a crow?

  The attendant pushes the crow woman back down on her seat. “Quiet, now. You don’t want to lose your cigarettes, do you?” I reach into the pocket of my state-issue and pull out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. I catch the attendant’s eye.

  I drag deeply as the attendant lights my smoke. “Thanks.” I let out a long stream. Maybe I can puff up a smoke screen, become invisible until I feel safe, materialize only when somebody holds the door open, lets me go free, like steam from a teapot.

  I made a mistake skipping the med line. I can’t remember anything, now I long for the oblivion of the pills, the blessed journey somewhere else. I can’t do anything about it now, they’d lock me up. From across the room, a toothless crone smiles at me. One more try. I hesitate briefly, then make my way over, lean down next to her chair.

  “Hello. I’m Luanne.” I stick out my hand.

  The shriveled woman ducks her head as if she’s in a bomb raid. “Luanne, Luanne, Luanne…” She chuckles softly, starts to rock.

  Jesus. I feel the hair on my arms spring up. I walk away, resume my position against the wall. I take one final drag down to the filter, flick the butt into the metal ashtray, look up.

  A large woman strides across the room toward me. I press my back against the wall, chew my nails. Friend or foe, friend or foe? I nod toward the attendant, and bend my head in the direction of the patient heading my way. Is she safe? I size up my options for escape. Adrenaline pumping, I tense my legs, ready to make a run for it.

  The patient smiles broadly, rolls her eyes. “You’re barking up the wrong tree there. The chronics—not home, if you
know what I mean.” She thrusts her hand toward me. “I’m Isabel.”

  Patient Name: Isabel P. Jackson

  DOB: 6/2/1913 Age: 55

  Date of Admission: 8/13/1968

  Diagnosis: Alcohol Abuse: Chronic, Severe, Recurrent.

  Date: 11/19/68

  Notes: Thorazine increased to 150m.

  No observed aggressive behavior.

  I squeeze the tips of the woman’s fingers and give a quick shake. “Hello. I’m Luanne.”

  “They’re doomed. Botched lobotomies or too much electro or too crazy to get better. Thorazine zombies. Hall 5, it’s for the real lunatics. Now, us—we aren’t that crazy. That’s us, over there.” She stabs her thumb toward the west side where tall windows let in a good amount of natural light. Several women stare over at us.

  “Come on.” As Isabel leads me across the dayroom, a naked patient whirls up to her, takes her by the arm. “Bitch,” the woman says, spinning away. Isabel doesn’t blink or break stride. She stops in front of the smoking women, waits for me to catch up, and grabs my arm.

  “Girls, this is Luanne.” Four women look up. Isabel extends her arm and motions toward each woman in turn. “Luanne, this is Autumn, Heidi, Beth, and Estee.” They each smile, nod, or say hi.

  Heidi runs her hand through her greasy hair, rests it at the back of her neck. “Got any cigs?”

  “Sure.” I pull out my red and white Tareyton pack, draw out two cigarettes and hand them to her. Heidi looks like a punk, a kid from a girl gang or something. I don’t care. I’d give the girl the whole pack if she’d just talk to me. Heidi’s hand shakes as she reaches out, small chips of tangerine polish scatter across her stubby nails.

  Patient Name: Heidi Parsons

  DOB: 11/16/52 Age: 16

  Date of Admission: 8/23/1968

  Diagnosis: Cocaine abuse, Hallucinogen Abuse, Canabis abuse, Amphetamine abuse, Alcohol abuse. Chronic (onset age 12).

  Date: 11/19/68

  Notes: Patient’s medication reduced Thorazine 200m, Chloral Hydrate 30m since transfer to Hall 5. Remains uncooperative, angry, depressed.

  “Thanks.” She turns the cigarettes in her hand, wrinkles her forehead as if trying to figure out what they are. “Thanks a whole lot. I ain’t had one for almost an hour and a half. I should be gettin’ one from the attendant. These’ll hold me over just fine. Thanks.” She waves toward the nurses’ station. An attendant arrives with a lighter. Heidi looks up after a flash of fire crackles her cigarette tip. She exhales slowly.

  “I’m broke, so I have to wait for state cigarettes. They’ll only give you one every two hours. So, what you in for?”

  “Depressed.” I pull up a chair. What else can I say? I have no idea what’s wrong with me.

  “Depressed? That don’t sound too serious.” Her eyes dart around the group. “I’m in for drugs. My mom’s a bitch. She turned me in.” She sounds hostile, but has tears in her eyes. I stare at her face as she talks, something is different. She has an angry case of acne on her cheeks, neck and chest, but that’s not it.

  “Yeah, she didn’t pay attention to me since I was really little, then she goes and calls the cops on me. I had to go to court and all. My dad said he’d help me, but he never showed up. The judge said I needed treatment. Shit. This place ain’t treatment.” She glances over at Isabel.

  Isabel looks directly at me. “I’m a drunk. This is my third time here. You’d think it was Las Vegas or somethin’ the way I keep comin’ back.” She smiles, looks down. There’s a short silence.

  “What do you think of the Lobster?”

  “The lobster?” Did I miss a lobster dinner?

  “Nurse Lobsinger. The Lobster, we call her.”

  I feel a small smile cross my lips, the first one in weeks. “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say it to her face if I were you.” Isabel laughs.

  It didn’t take me long to figure out that Doris Lobsinger, the nurse attendant on the afternoon shift, runs roughshod over Hall 5 from two fifteen until the nine o’clock evening bell.

  About eight p.m. Monday night, my first day out of the infirmary, stomach cramps hit, a reaction to being scared to death, medication, and hospital food. Nurse Lobsinger escorts me down to the bathroom and stands in front of me while I sit on the toilet. I feel hot and prickly, my stomach churns.

  “Jesus Christ. Hurry up.” Nurse Lobsinger holds her nose. “What crawled up your ass and died? Hurry up. I don’t get paid to stand around watching while you take a crap that lasts a week and stinks to high heaven. That’s it. Mary, she’s all yours.” Thank God she walks out and leaves me under the supervision of the bathroom aide. Women come and go, using the toilets next to me. Each time somebody comes in, they ask the aide for toilet paper. She doles out two squares at a time. The aide informs me I have reached my limit.

  When the night bell rings at nine p.m., I’m still in the bathroom. “I’m going to have to get my supervisor.” The aide walks to the door and calls for her.

  Nurse Lobsinger stomps through the door and rests her hands on her hips. “You still in here?”

  I double over in pain, but ask as politely as I can. “Sorry. I’m sick. Can I please stay?”

  “Nope. You’re in bed for the night, Missy. You should have thought about that earlier when you had bathroom privileges.”

  “But I wasn’t sick then.”

  She grabs my arm and pulls me up. “Nope. Get up. You’ve got a date with the sandman.” I try to hold my gown closed as she drags me through the door. Staff, who just finished night check, stand in the hall as I waddle by, my legs soiled and sticky.

  The Lobster—I like the sound of that.

  Chapter 5

  THE OBSERVER December 5, 1968

  Page 5

  Hall 5 had a Popcorn Party Saturday Night, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus Women’s Auxiliary. They had popcorn and Kool Aid, and the nurses let the patients help pop the corn! A fun time was had by all.

  I motion for a light. The Price is Right blares from the black and white TV mounted on the wall above reach. Chronics sit silently in front of the screen, their necks craned back.

  “How long have you been here this time?” I ask Isabel.

  “’Bout three months.” Isabel screws her lips to the side, lets out a puff of smoke.

  “I been here fourteen weeks,” Heidi butts in. “Withdrawal is a bummer.” She scratches her arms. “They doped me up. I think I slept for a good three weeks solid.” She brings her knees up, wraps her arms around them. “If I knew how crappy it was being awake, I’d have asked for more of those pills.” She rubs her hand along the side of her face and across her forehead.

  I can’t help but stare at Heidi’s face. That’s it. Her eyebrows are missing. “I shouldn’t be in 5,” Heidi continues. “I was doin’ pretty good in 9, but I started savin’ my meds. Just stuck ‘em up between my teeth and top lip. Really pretty easy.” She shrugs. “I wasn’t gonna o.d. or nothin’.” They found ‘em and—Bam! Here I am on Hall 5.” Her voice lowers, she looks toward the nurses’ station. “They stripped me and put me in a protection room. Nothin’ but a mattress on the floor.” She takes a long drag.

  “Well, hell. I shouldn’t be here either.” Isabel folds her arms behind her head, tips back her chair, balancing it on two legs. “The Doc says I can go back to 9 as soon as they’re sure I’m not violent.”

  “Violent?” My chair squeaks as I shift in it.

  “Nah, I’m gentle as a puppy. The Lobster had one of the little retarded girls crying. Told her nobody likes her, that her mom wouldn’t ever come to see her, on and on. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I told her to shut up.” She leans toward me. “She got right in my face so close she spit on me. I pushed her back, and that was it. She called for backup; they put me in a jacket and brought me to 5.”

  “I’ve always been in 5. The whole time. Probably a homicidal maniac.” We all turn toward Autumn.

  Patient Name: Autumn A. Bauer
r />   DOB: 3/23/1936 Age: 32

  Date of Admission: 4/5/1967

  Diagnosis:Manic-Depressive Disorder.

  Disorder: Severe, with Psychotic Features. Borderline Personality Disorder.

  Date: 11/24/68

  Notes: Patient continues in observation for aggressive behavior. Controlled by medication at this time. Thorazine 600m, Chloral Hydrate 50m.

  Autumn shakes her long hair and pulls it back, using her hand as a clasp in the center of her head. She winds the ponytail around with her other hand. She has an exotic beauty, dark hair and eyes and luminescent caramel skin. But her face charts the course of her life.

  Isabel raises her eyebrows. “Autumn had a bad marriage.”

  “Ladies, Ladies.” The bell summons us to the dining hall. I sit with my new friends at a round table. We wait silently for our food. No sense trying to talk with the chronics babbling and yelling.

  Patients on kitchen detail place trays in front of us, a small bowl of vegetable soup with crackers, a half peanut butter sandwich, a cheese slice, milk. I take a bite of cheese and look over at Beth cutting her sandwich into small pieces with the side of her spoon and moving them around her plate. Beth puts down her spoon. She stares at her soup bowl. She picks up her spoon, dips it in the soup and takes a small sip. She lays down her spoon, crosses her hands in her lap. She waits. She picks up her spoon again, repeats.

  Patient Name: Elizabeth A. Shaffer

  DOB: 8/12/1950

  Age: 19

  Date of Admission: 8/14/1967

  Diagnosis: Anorexia Nervosa.

  Date: 11/24/1968

  Notes: Pt. refuses to maintain normal body weight. Body Dysmorphia, Anxiety. 5’ 6”, 73 lbs.