Psych Ward

Psych Ward

Mark Coleman

  It’s been a week full of showers. The hospital tape still won’t come off my arms and chest. Soap. Razors. Ether. They told me to quit pulling out my IV’s. I promised not to then pulled them back out again. Fuming. Ripped off my wristband and threw it on the floor. Laid there watching a game between two teams of assholes. I could give a shit less about football, but the security guard had the only remote to three rooms, and apparently he was a fan. Nurses too.

  Kept buzzing for the menu. Poured over it. Had I decided yet? No. No. What about now? Just another bottle of water, please. Saw if I could spit a mouthful onto the heart monitor. Kicked off the covers. Tried to eat the nicotine patch. Eventually, settled on the Udon noodles that just fell off the plastic spoon.

  I don’t care if I end up digging through trash cans on 16^th Street for aluminum when I get out of here. All I want is a cigarette. How much longer will it be? Shouldn’t be too much longer before you’re transferred. Oh, yeah, and where might I be getting transferred to? The Hilton?

  Ambulance attendant tells me that he’s only seen two other people with that high of a BAC. Thinks he recognizes me. My address is on his route. Tells me he was in the psych ward once for showing up to the hospital drunk. Tells me that he got so drunk once that there was a three day backwash. That his friend’s a real dick when he’s hungover. Everybody hates him then.

  There’s gonna be a couple of bumps exiting. Okay. Fine. Throws an ECG pad from the front desk on the driver’s ass. Gives me an excuse to look at it, seeing that I’m a gentleman I hadn't done so yet. It’s tight and her pants fit nicely. Tried to jerk off in the shower to it later. But I’ve gotten to the point where I generally can’t get a hard-on without material, and it’s not as though I was donating sperm with a wide assortment of videos and mags at my disposal. They did give me a cheap pair of reading glasses later, though.

  Read over their little pamphlets and literature. Hope your stay is as brief and beneficial as possible. Alliteration’s nice. Go to group. Know your nurse’s name. The date and day. What your medication is, and when you take it. Show up at the station at your scheduled time. Cope. Eat right. Wipe your ass.

  Eat. Put Your Arm in a Cuff and Let Them Listen with a Stethoscope. Group. Group. Group. Eat. Group. Sit Alone in Your Room and Draw Stick Figures. Put Your Arm in a Cuff and Let Them Listen with a Stethoscope. Group. Eat. Group. Watch a Cartoon or Play Risk. Try to Sleep with the Snakes and the Demons Coming Out of The Walls.

  Someone snores during meditation. Someone sighs. Someone moans. Someone farts. Someone laughs at that. The man on the cassette tape sounds like he hates his job. A far too alert forty year old asks for the meditation guru’s name. Even after it’s spelled out to him three times he can’t get it down right in his notebook. The instructor says he’ll write it down for him later. A chubby eighteen year old is stupid enough to scribble everything said down. The class commends her for her diligence. One old-timer throws it out that maybe she’s writing a novel.

  Everyone’s walking around wrapped up in blankets. Everyone’s crying about something. Divorces. Parents. Addiction. One girl doesn’t cry. She says that she was chained to a radiator for four years and that her little sister is also her daughter, but she’ll always think of her as her little sister. Her parents are both in jail, and that’s why she doesn’t get visitors. She thinks of this place as home.

  We listen. A woman who probably has kids gets up and walks away with tears in her eyes. No one else cries even though they do when they share. I don’t cry either. An inquisitive girl who seems to have taken a liking to me waves when she leaves. I wave back. Her parents look nice. The nurse-in-training has kind eyes. It’s only her second day. She seems a little embarrassed when I pull up my gown so they can inspect my legs.

  They tell me that I have to keep my socks on at all times. But I see a girl walk by barefoot. A male staff member with a floral tattoo on his bicep tells a pitch-black fellow whose back after a week on the outside to stop talking about alcohol and guns. He ended up playing pool by himself, I think.

  A 20-something vet lets us know that a little girl’s head fell apart in his hands, and his four best friends exploded when they ran into an IED. His rifle jammed. The radiator slave said he was meant to be here. Some blowhard stretches and talks about his sponsor. No one talks about god or heaven.

  The guy whose room I got has shaky hands and is angry that I got his room. There’s a girl who doesn’t talk to anybody, and has a blanket with the words “sex” and “love” patterned on it. She’s probably been raped but doesn’t look loved. 

  They gave me a menu but I didn’t fill it out. I get eggs, hash browns, milk, and a piece of toast. The girl who waved as she left offered me the rest of her breakfast. She didn’t have an appetite. Maybe a side effect of her meds. She was cute with long lashes, average legs, and had gashes on her wrist that looked like maybe she actually tried.

  There’s another pretty little one in a turquoise gown who is on the verge of some sort of seizure. The vet asks her how she’s doing. She says that her nurse is a bitch. He says the lady in question does indeed look like a bitch. I wish I could do something for her. Even if that something’s just slipping a ring on her finger, and holding her every night for the rest of our lives. But there’s a policy about not touching. There’s a purple line you can’t cross. And the bathroom sink’s in the bedroom. I get a piece of nicotine gum every hour.