Psych Ward

 

     The floors of the hospital are gray, so the bright yellow tape, which lies in a straight line, shines. Leslie waits right next to the line for me, forgets about it when she sees us, and takes a step across. The security guard sits up in his chair and barks at her to get behind the line. Her cheeks turning red, she jumps back. I walk to her and hug hard.

     Carrying a plastic bag full of things we brought for her, my grandfather follows me. He waits for us to finish and then we go into a white room with fold-up chairs and flimsy tables. Her face is holding a deep hurt, her smile just strong enough to make the tips of lips curve up. We sit down and she immediately starts to rummage through the bag.

     “Do you think you are getting better?” I ask.

     “There is no way to tell because of how it cycles,” she says, still peering into the bag.

     My attention is drawn to the doorway, where a young woman keeps sliding in, stopping, and sliding back out. After eight times she abruptly stops entering and leaves. The almost silent hum of the fluorescent lights reminds me of how these people aren’t allowed daylight. Everyone I see is wearing slippers, but then I hear the thumping of boots, and watch an obese guy amble past the doorway. His boots are practically falling off his feet. Leslie gazes in the direction I am looking, then she turns back to face me, and stares directly into my eyes.

     “We’re not allowed shoelaces.”

     She pulls out her three notebooks and separates the ones that are spiral from the one that is a composition.

     “We can’t have anything with metal either,” she says, now flipping through the composition one. I strum the spiral binding of one of the notebooks.

     “Not even this?” I ask.

     “Nope.”

     There is a pause. My grandfather breaks it by reaching into the bag and taking out the New Yorker. My mom loves the New Yorker.

     “Thanks, Dad.” She smiles at him.

     “Of course.” He smiles back.

     Another pause.

     “Is this worse than Florida, than the institution out there, worse than getting off drugs?” I want to know what this feels like.

     “Yeah,” she chuckles. “There’s no comparison.” I look at the doorway again and the guy with boots passes.

     “Will you walk with me?”

     “Sure,” I reply while getting up.

     Trying to read a magazine with his bad eyesight, Grandpap sits at the table alone.

     We walk down the hall, and we are about to turn the corner when a nurse stops us, telling me I can’t go any farther. We walk back; Leslie mumbles in my ear about how sad this guy looks, the one sitting in a chair with his back towards us. We walk past him, and I turn my head slightly to see his face. He is looking straight forward like a statue, the curves of his cheeks drooping. He has sunk so far into the chair that it looks like there isn’t any reason for him to get up. My gaze drops from him to the floor. We walk up and down the hallway. It makes sense why everyone else drifts so much; there is nothing else to do.

     “We have no privacy here. I share a room with four other people.”

     “I’m sorry,” I say.

     “There was a weird sheet that I had to fill out. It asked what kind of restraint that I would prefer if I start going nuts. The choices are physical or chemical. Physical is a strait jacket and chemical is a shot in the arm.” She laughs a little too loudly. “I chose chemical,” she blurts out between two harsh gasps for air.

     The laughter turns into dry sobs which slowly become soft crying. I stop walking, step in front of her, and wrap my arms around her shivering mass, squeezing her with my long arms. I know the pain of being hugged hard is what she wants. We walk back to her father. He is still reading the magazine, or at least trying to.

     I give her the cards I bought for her. Not any crap from Hallmark, just cards with simple quotes on the front. They were blank on the inside. I wanted to write in them; I wanted to just write the word “Love” over and over again. I wanted it to fill the three small cards. I wanted her to see that I took the time...that I chose her favorite color, purple, to write it in. I didn’t do it. She gives them back, and says she likes them, but that she would be happier if I wrote in them and sent them to her.

     The doctor tells my grandfather and I that we need to leave, that visiting hours are over. After they close the door, I give an extra wave behind the small Plexiglas window. My mother keeps standing as close to the yellow line as she can, waving back at me.

 

—James "Wa" Mohn, Brooklyn, NY