Day Eight: Someone must have shit themselves again.

Again, Michael is bellowing, “BREAKFAST IRENE, BREAKFAST! BREEAAAKKKFAAAAAAAST!” My body feels like cement, weighed down by the nightly pill cocktail, and it takes me a while to finally get out of bed. 

We get to watch the news this morning and I cannot believe my luck! There’s a story about ICE winding down operations in Minnesota, the Bears moving to Rolling Meadows (as they have been for the past 5 years), and early voting for the March 17 primary. The broadcast shows clouds building outside the Adler planetarium. Kayla begins protesting after a story about the Russia/Ukraine war. “Why are we in World War III? I don’t want to be in World War III. Can we watch something else?” 

Michael suggests “Big Cat Diaries” on YouTube and I second his suggestion. The episode follows two cheetahs, one male and one female, about to start their first family. Moto, the male cheetah, has been looking for his mate, Yota, for four days after a violent thunderstorm swept through the savannah. Moto searches the endless grassland for signs of his mate, climbing trees and following winding creeks to track her scent. Finally he spots Yota after climbing up a tall rock outcropping. He leaps down and runs full speed towards her in the tall grass. 

Do you have someone who will look for you? Who will wait for you? 

I go back to my room with my toiletry kit to brush my teeth and see that the bathroom is occupied and my roommate’s bed is soaked. The room reeks of urine. I go back to the nurses station and ask, “Pretty sure my roommate pissed her bed - is there anyone who can come by and clean it up?”

“No, the patients have to do that themselves.”

I nod - this seems like a great system. There’s no option to open a window to let the room air out, lest we launch ourselves into oblivion three stories below.

I use Kayla’s bathroom to brush my teeth and go back to my room a while later to get my book. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpse a ball of poop-soiled underwear on the floor. So it’s not just of piss anymore – it’s the stench of feces now. I ask to get moved to 315, across the hall. 

 It’s getting raucous in the dayroom. Someone is blasting Eminem’s “Slim Shady” and Kayla’s on the mic singing what sounds like a ballad. The nurses are spraying Febreeze all over the hallway. I’m waiting for my 11am phone call to Victor. 

“Wow, you’ve been dealing with a lot of poop this year,” he says, recalling my stint as a home care aide during the summer, where I had to change an elderly woman’s diaper several times a day. 

“Yeah, but I’d rather be changing diapers on a schedule than seeing a surprise poop pile on the bathroom sink,” I reply. “Excited to see you tomorrow!”

I come to the dayroom after my nap and sit with Kayla and Sarah. A short white guy with messy brown hair walks in. His oversized blue scrubs keep falling down, revealing his white underwear. He’s pacing, mumbling, staring at the ground, the words incoherent but crescendoing to yells every so often. (Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, author of Bedlam: An Intimate Journey into America’s Mental Health Crisis, calls this pressured speech: “frenzied, erratic, tangential speed with a constantly shifting focus”). He’s balling his hands into fists, shaking his head, flailing his arms. His greasy hair hangs over his eyes. He’s a cobra coiled to strike. 

We stare at him and Kayla mentions that they were quick to give her the booty juice when she first got here, but because this is a white dude the BHAs just stand around and look at him as he moves closer to where we’re sitting. His chin is tilted down and I can feel his eyes boring into us. We’re being hunted. I tell Kayla to be still and to not look at him. 

Nurse Mercy eventually chases him out of the day room. I go to my room and close the door and read. When the BHA enters to scan my ankle monitor, I jump and gasp. Later on I peek into the hallway to see if it’s clear of the scary guy. The nurses are still misting the premises with Febreeze. Someone must have shit themselves again.

For dinner we have pulled pork sliders with mushy buns, what appears to be peach cobbler, and salad. 

Sarah and I reminisce about Yuengling - how perfectly crisp and well-balanced it is. Not as bitter and watery as Bud Light, and it goes perfect with a sandwich on fresh baked bread, with some crunchy cucumber, cheese, and turkey, and bacon. I don’t eat meat (at least when I’m free outside) but her description is making me daydream about a warm summer day, a picnic on the beach, the smell of sunscreen and lake water. 

Kayla sits cross-legged in a chair next to us and a BHA is having trouble scanning her ankle monitor because it’s tucked under her leg.

“Where is your beacon?” the BHA asks.

“It’s on my ankle, where it always is! Where else is it gonna be? Up my ass?” 

Laying in bed I realize it’s the last time I’ll read underneath the fluorescent lights and see the shadowy outline of a BHA waving a glowing tablet over my body. I realize I never got to tell Cathy that she has gorgeous eyes.