[RF] Success Express shortstories

I sat beside the table in a plastic chair wearing my hospital-issued gown and grippy socks. All I wanted was to do was be taken to my room and to fall asleep. At 6:30 I had arrived at the ER. I waited in a small room where they had me change out of my street clothes and into a gown that I couldn’t kill myself with. It was 11:30 by the time they took me up to the behavioural health floor where I could get the help I came there for. I had been asked the same questions at least a dozen times by as many different people. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your depression?” the nurse asked paging through the admittance forms. Her voice was high pitched and friendly. The kind of voice you’d expect to be naive. “You mean all of it?” I responded. I’ve never had another depression to rate it against. “No, just this episode.” “oh...” I was there for a reason. If she wanted to call it an episode then I supposed that’s what it was. “...so ten is really depressed and one is not-so-depressed?” I still needed some clarification. I wasn’t trying to be difficult. “Right.” “But, one is still depressed?” “Yeah I guess.” “One, then. One.” “One?” she asked, surprised. “Yeah. Why?” “Nobody, ever says one.” She sorted some more forms and asked some more questions. She checked some boxes without even asking me. Maybe they were just observational. A box was checked that was marked ‘paranoia’. I stopped trying to see what she was writing after that. “I’ll give you a tour.” she said delightfully, as if the behavioural health wing in the hospital was her own home and I was her new friend. “This is your room here.” she said pointing and walking towards it. She opened the door and turned on all of the lights. A bathroom with no lock on the door, and two beds were all the room contained. Asleep on the far bed was a man covered by a thin white hospital sheet who didn’t move or make a sound when we entered. “That’s Wayne. He’s your roommate.” and she led me towards the door without turning out the lights. “Wait let me turn out the lights for that guy.” I said, I thought it would be important to be a good roommate. I did and then followed her out into the hall again. “This is the nurse’s station. It’s also where you go to get your medicine.” It was just what I imagined it would look like. A tiny room with a desk behind a large window and another smaller sliding glass where the nurse handed the patients their medicine. The entire wing was a small rectangle. The patient’s rooms were along all of the outside walls. The nurse’s station, the kitchen and activity rooms were in the middle of the four halls. The tour lasted no more than a couple minutes. Two patients walked around the quiet rectangled hallway together, both were young. A boy and a girl, whom I smiled at. The girl’s dirty blonde hair fell over the back of her hooded sweatshirt. She listened to her headphones and sang along haphazardly. The boy, long and thin in a small t-shirt slouched and wavered on his feet. “This is Amanda,” the nurse said. “and this is Keith.” I shook their hands. “Hi. I’m Jim.” For some reason I tried to sound sad. They looked sad, or bored at least. Sad was a safe bet. I matched their intensity. Keith Ignored me. “Do you have any questions?” the nurse asked while Keith and Amanda disappeared around the rectangle. “I just want to go to bed.” I answered. This surprised her too. “Ok,” and then after some hesitation, “If you’d like some medication for your anxiety we can give you some. It will also help you sleep.” I didn’t know I had anxiety. “No thanks,” I said without looking back at her, “I’ll just wait until I see the doctor tomorrow.” I didn’t go there to be medicated, at least not until I spoke to the psychiatrist about it. I lay in the tiny hospital bed and waited to fall asleep thinking about sickness. Wayne turned over in his bed and started snoring. For as long as I could I tolerated him, waiting for him to turn once again or wake himself up with his gargantuan breaths. I stopped waiting after an hour and returned to the nurse’s station. A different nurse was at the desk. “Hey listen,” I said when she slid the glass window open, “the other lady said that you could give me something to help me sleep.” She just sat still. I hadn’t asked her anything. “My roommate is snoring. I’d like to have it now.” “Let me see your wristband.” She ordered me. “My what? Which one?” I had three on. I stuck both of my hands through the window and she scanned one of them. She got up from her chair and disappeared behind some tall shelves. when she returned she handed me a small red pill and a tiny plastic cup of water. I swallowed the pill and drank all of the water. The clock inside the booth said 1 am. My experiences with psychiatric medication are in no way numerous. In fact, this was the first. I didn’t know what to expect. I tried to calm myself. “I wonder how long I have until I’m out.” I thought to myself. I decided to take a walk around the rectangle. It seemed to be the thing to do. If Keith and Amanda were still awake I would try and be friends with them. I walked past the kitchen and the lights were off. I saw that ahead of me the lights in the activity rooms were off as well. Maybe it was too late and everyone was in bed. I turned and looked into the windows of the first room and saw Keith and Amanda. Under a thin sheet. Once I realised what they were doing I walked quickly past to avoid being seen. My legs were beginning to feel weak. I turned around and headed back to my room where within minutes I was asleep in my bed. The next morning I woke when a nurse came in to give some medicine to Wayne. There wasn’t any light in our room. I didn’t know what time it was. They had taken my watch and phone. Still tired, I lay in bed waiting to see if I would fall asleep again. The nurse came back in moments later and peeked around the corner. She didn’t say anything but looked in my direction. My eyes were open and I was just waiting to either get up or fall asleep again. I probably looked like I had insomnia. She waved to me. “what time is it?” I waved back. “5 o’clock.” 4 hours of a medicine induced slumber. I couldn’t fall asleep again. I was going to be tired all day. I pushed myself up and swung my legs over the side of the thin hospital bed. My feet touched the concrete floor and the grippy socks they issued me offered little insulation from the cold. For the first time in my life I understood that floors like this are what necessitate slippers. I’ve never owned a pair. Outside of my room the halls were still dark. The only other patient awake, an older woman in her pajamas who sat by the nurse’s station, greeted me with sincerity. “Did you come in last night?” “Yeah.” I said sadly. “Donna.” she said, with a New Jersey draw, when I sat down next to her and we didn’t shake hands, “So, why are you here?” I realized later that this was kind of like the jail house greeting. everyone offered it to the new kids. ‘What are you in for?’ type of thing. I told her my name and then said,“I don’t know,” this was the truth, “Just for being weird and sad I guess.” If there is such a thing. “I sleep all day, and I’m awake all night. Sometimes I just cry for no reason. My family was worried about me so they took me here.” I added. The truth is that the day after Christmas I shut myself up in my house. I didn’t answer my phone or my door and just slept and cried in my bed for 5 days until finally my sister came and dragged me to the hospital. “How about you?” I was curious. “I sleep all the time too.” It was reassuring to hear. Maybe I was in the right place and I could get some help here. “I was also doing a lot of heroin. I have a rage disorder.” Maybe not. She got up then, and tapped on the nurse’s window. “I need my methadone.” she said to the nurse, and then again, to me. “Oh?” “What I really want is a cup of coffee. They don’t let you have any here. I need the caffine.” she said. I scrunched my face in disapproval and nodded my head in understanding even though I was never much of a coffee drinker and probably wouldn’t have noticed. I thought it was best to agree with her. “And some gum.” she told the nurse when the window opened again. The nurse handed her some pills and a piece of nicotine gum, scanned her wristband and shut the window. “What’s your name again? Roger?” She guessed. “No. Its Jim.” I said. “Oh. I keep wanting to call you Roger.” Donna showed me the patient’s kitchen where she made herself an orange juice and cranberry juice cocktail in a styrofoam cup. It wasn’t much of a kitchen. Just a refrigerator, a sink, and some cabinets. “Sometimes there’s graham crackers and ice cream if you get here when they stock up. It goes fast though.” She checked and there wasn’t any. It was too early for ice cream anyway. “I think I’ll just have one of these drinks.” There wasa fountain soda dispenser on the counter. I took one of the styrofoam cups, filled it half way with ice and poured in some lemonade.

“Do you like that gum that they give you? The nicotine gum?” I asked. “Oh yeah! It’s great. You can only get it every two hours though. I hate wearing the patch.” she said. I hadn’t asked the nurses for any gum, or a patch. I figured it might be as good a time as any to give quitting smoking a shot. We sat back down outside in the hallway and sipped on our soft drinks. There was another woman awake then, Sylvia, I discovered. She walked with a cane and when she sat beside us she rested her hands on the top of it and held it between her legs. “Why are you in here?” she asked, and then guessed, “Did your girlfriend break up with you?” "No,” I had to think. That was three years ago. “No,” I confirmed to her and myself. “I’m just depressed. I sleep all day, and I’m awake all night.” “What do you do at night?” she asked. “Oh some things. Sometimes I draw.” That was a lie. “I’m an Artist.” That was the truth. “Oh me too!” She said. “I used to teach it but I can’t anymore. There was a girl here a while ago who would just sketch all the time. It was wonderful.” “Yeah? That’s a good thing. How long have you been here?” I asked. “11 days,” She was there for Christmas, “I love when we do crafts. That’s my favorite time.” Donna had left and returned holding a handful of candy. She sat down again between Sylvia and I. She fell into her chair. “Do you want a sucker... Doug?” She asked me. “No thanks. I’m Jim though.” I corrected her. “Oh. I keep wanting to call you Doug.” She offered some candy to a man that walked by then excused herself to go shower. From then on She just called me ‘cutie’.

On New Years Eve at 6-am there are no doctors stationed in the behavioral health wing. They are all eating ham and eggs I guess.

"When can I meet with the Doctor? I'm not sure I belong here." I said to the nurse. I felt like the new guy at prison who can't even make it past the first night. I'm sure the thing they don't tell you is that everybody feels that way. I hope so anyway.

"They are only on call during these hours. The next time a round is scheduled isn't until 1pm." I thought about inquiring about the purpose of on-call psychiatrists and what would constitute a psychiatric emergency but as a psychiatric patient who has seen movie's like One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Oxygen I believe it's clear that cooperation goes a long way. I wasn't trying to end up in a straight jacket in a padded room.

Around 100 feet from the chairs down the unobstructed main hallway 2 nurses wheeled a gurney past. On the gurney lay a man clearly in pain. He writhed under the security bulbs of morning and the green display on his monitor that beeped once as the three passed by.

"Kidney dialysis. They go every morning at this time. He was on coke. He came in last night too." Sylvia said.

"How do you know that?"

"I know people."

I wondered if she could get me a cigarette.

The chairs we were sitting in were the medicine waiting line I found out when the clock inside the nurses station said 7am.

"Attention all patients, If you haven't come to the nurses station for morning medicine, please do so now.", was the announcement. as more patients filed out of their rooms and down the corridor toward the nurses station. none of the patients looked sick, but they all looked tired. I was no exception. My roommate Wayne didn't come out when the announcement was made.

I got up from my seat and went to the window, "Do I need any medicine? I haven't seen the doctor yet."

"No." She said quickly and I walked away slowly with no where to go.

My brother Mike once wondered "How come old people always get up early? It must be something that happens to you as you get older."

I think the reason it seems so confusing is because of how much we hate getting up early in the morning when we are young. At least some of us anyway. When I finally get a day to sleep in that's what I do with it. But everywhere you go this is what you see: Old retired folk who could sleep through the days they've got left if they wanted to, waking up and doing nothing before the sun even comes up.

I worked in a mall when i was young where at 5:30 every morning old people would come and walk laps. Hours before the stores opened they were there. They always looked clean and presentable and they'd never looked surprised as the mall employees would wander in with bloodshot eyes, wrinkled shirts and wet hair.

I've always had problems sleeping and it seems like no matter how much older I get it only gets worse. From when I was young I can remember laying in my blue bed and staring through the open door into the hallway. Behind a sheet I saw the moon made into patterns of light on my skin. I listened for ghosts and thought about what it would be like to die.

"You used to kick me if you couldn't watch Johnny Carson" My mom used to say about being pregnant with me. I still love the format although I don't watch as much as I used to.

The truth is I enjoy the time I can spend with myself, late at night. It's a selfish thing but so is depression.

I met Sylvia again in the recently unlocked activity room. She sat on the couch that Keith and Amanda had sex on the night before and flipped on the television. I sat behind the couch on one of four folding chairs beside a card table.

"We just have the networks and videos. No cable." It didn't bother me. I had been left with a magazine by my family. The cold became a little more comfortable soon after breakfast and most everyone was awake except for Wayne.

At breakfast I grabbed a muffin and some bacon from the cart and sat at an empty table. I'm a person who is somewhat of a people watcher and considering my surroundings I thought it might be especially important to observe these people. I didn't come here voluntarily but by the coaxing of my sister whom I trust. If someone else thinks you might be crazy I think it's important to listen to that person, because lets face it, If you are crazy then you aren't going to know it. It is, however, clearly logical that if you aren't crazy then you have to think as much so you're kind of stuck either way.

It was during breakfast, that I began to think that maybe this wasn't a place where I belonged, but I wasn't the only one.

Donna wasn't the only patient with a rage disorder. Jeremy, a 21 year old, and devoted rectangle walker admitted to me. We didn't talk for long, his commitment to walking far exceeded my own. Maybe it was the medicine, or maybe it was the discman, or maybe the walks just helped him release his rage. I thought he seemed quite normal and he probably just needed a job. Not that anyone would ever confuse me for a psychiatrist.

I kept finding myself back in the same spot. The most comfortable place to be seemed to be the chairs outside the nurses window and I found myself sitting their most of the morning. I couldn't relax anywhere.

Amanda and Keith eventually woke up around 11-am like normal kids. They didn't seem to need to spend anymore time together. Amanda enjoyed walking the rectangle almost as much as Jeremy but she went along at a more reasonable pace. She sang to herself the music playing through her headphones which I may have been able to identify if she weren't such a poor singer. Her voice wasn't an annoyance though, I found it completely tolerable. I think because it was so bad it was almost unbelievable and I smiled when I heard it.

A woman walked through the hall and talked to some patients who I later learned was the group therapy leader. She turned to me after encouraging another patient to attend the upcoming group therapy session.

"You should come too!" Her tone was so surprising.

"Ok. ha-ha." I laughed because she made me feel uncomfortable. Like when the teller laughs during a bank robbery. Gotta put on the damn clown mask don't ya lady? Nobody likes to be singled out.

"Are you a doctor?" I asked, recovering.

"No."

Everyone attended group therapy. Except my Roommate. Wayne did not want any friends. I wondered If other people bonded with their roommates. I decided probably just the opposite in most cases.

"The topic of group today is baggage." Said Kim the behavioral health unit's group therapy leader, whose name was the only credential she ever gave. She passed around what appeared to be a worksheet. When I got mine I tried to take it seriously. It was a picture of a train with the headline "Maintaining Forward Motion" And three cars were labeled "Engine", "Passengers", and "Baggage". The worksheet was never referenced by the leader and I wondered what the other patients had learned from it.

Across the table from me sat a man in his late 30's or early 40's who was very similar to most of the patients in the wing. White, middle aged, most likely poor but with surprisingly good health insurance, probably single or divorced and balding. Of all of the possible futures a man in his mid twenties can have this is probably the one that I'm most scared will become mine.

He joked with the leader and pretended his name was Ken when it was really Jeff. Throughout my time here I hadn't heard anyone laugh harder which isn't saying much.

"How do you spell Success?" Jeff asked the man seated next to him.

"S-U-C-E-S-S." The man answered back. Jeff wrote it down on the worksheet over top of the engine and then finished it with "Express."

"Check it out." he pointed. "Sucess Express" it read. He had also doodled people looking out the window like I had.

We were given pencils to write essays on fear. I wrote an essay on fear. We were each asked to read them. Sylvia read hers and cried but no one consoled her. My guess is that she must have done it often and people just stopped listening but then again it was the first time I had seen it and I didn't do any consoling so maybe there's some group think in group therapy. Amanda's was about a friend she had named "young boy" and it was intolerable. Jeremy's was about tattoos. A patient I didn't meet admitted that alcoholism caused him to lose his home. I didn't read mine.

After Group Therapy There was lunch and a Cowboys game on TV.

Jeff liked calling the quarterback a homo.

"Romo's a Homo!" He laughed.

A Cowboys fan talked to the television "Don't listen to them, Tony. They are all patients in a psych ward."

Finally a psychiatrist arrived and I spoke with her.

"I don't belong here."

"Hold on lets discuss it."

"It was a mistake. I think my family had good intentions but I don't think this is where I belong at least not yet. I think they thought it was something different and maybe all I need is a counselor or something, a hobby."

"So you don't want to hurt yourself?"

"No is that the only reason people come here? It's not just an emergency to be sad? This is completely unnecessary. I just need a job or something. I feel worse that I'm in this place. I can't really find anywhere to be alone" I said and she smugly grinned an answer.

"that's the way we designed it."

"Right."

"Well, I don't think you are a danger to yourself or anyone else. I do think you have a mild depression so I'll give you a prescription for some prozac which is like the baby aspirin of anti-depressants, and something to help you sleep normally and I'll release you."

Thank God. I'm not crazy. I walked back to the football game.

"Hey did you meet with the doctor?" Jeff asked me. It was the first time he spoke directly to me.

"Yeah. I think they're gonna let me go."

"But you just got here."

"I know." I shrugged and he seemed lost for a second.

I wanted to tell him that despair is the sickness that drives a man to death. That sin is the cause of despair, that a man wallows in his despair as much as he does in his dreams and that despair is expressed precisely by the fact that a person is unaware of being characterized as spirit. I doubt he reads Kierkegaard.

The interesting thing I find in Kierkegaard is that he says the despair is what leads us to God. as if it's essential in our lives. He says this after he basically dismisses mans reasons for being in despair. He says there's no reason for it, but there's a need for the result it brings. It is sin. And the opposite of sin is faith, not virtue.

At visiting hour my sister came and I told her the good news. I'm not crazy. I went to my room and picked up my things before I left. Wayne lay in his bed.

"I'm getting outta here Wayne you coming?" I said and he smiled.

My sister just stared wide eyed. I think she was just as curious as I was. Wouldn't be the first time one of my sisters made a guinea pig out of me.

I walked outside and lit a cigarette. My friend josh was on his way in.

"You're a sinner dude."

"I know."

I came in after dinner and left after lunch the next day. It took psychiatrists less than 24 hours to determine that i wasn't crazy. I did have to create a convincing argument. But that's not bad. How long do you think you'd be in there for?

None of the patients look sick. It is a sickness unto death.

Submitted March 19, 2017 at 02:03AM by ItsjustJim621 http://ift.tt/2mVnIOS shortstories