Day Two: The Booty Juice

I shuffle into the dayroom for breakfast, which appears to be eggs (although the texture is very different); two wet, swollen gray fingers (sausages); a yellow triangle of hash brown; and a yogurt. I avoid the fingers and a fellow inmate, Stella, asks if she can have them. She’s young, with a gap-toothed smile and hair pulled back into a smooth bun. Her gray sweatpants have orange stains on them, likely from the Cheez Its. She’s giddy because she gets to go home today and see her 8-month old son. “I’m so excited just to hold him, smell him, cuddle him all day,” she says. 

I find Peaches and thank him for the t-shirt. He tells me about working in the Navy for 20 years as a cook on an aircraft carrier. “You know that when they land the planes, there’s a net that helps stop them. It’s crazy to see these huge jets zoom down the strip and bounce back when they hit the net,” he says with a smile. 

Immediately after breakfast I go to the Nurses Station to ask about my clothes and my meds. The nurse says they have not yet found my birth control pills.

“They’re in the blue and gray backpack that I came in with, along with a change of clothes that I need, too.”

“We’ll look and see.”

“I’m already late with my pill from yesterday, so I need to take the Thursday pill in the morning now, and then the Friday pill tonight.”

“We’ll have to check with the pharmacist about that.”

“I’ve been taking these pills for over twenty years now, and I have to stay on schedule so that I don’t get my period. I have a condition, dysmenorrhea, and if I get my period I get really bad cramps and pass out.”

The nurse nods and waves me away. 

Back in the dayroom I locate the crayon box and sheets of coloring book pages that have been copied only on one side, so I at least have something to write on. The guy sitting at the crayon box table has black hair, dark rimmed glasses, and line tattoos on his arm. He’s focused on a coloring book outline of a sea turtle.  I’m calling him Brian.

As I’m scrawling notes at another table, the short kid with the face tats and hiccups sits next to me. 

“Hey, are you in the military, or a cop?” This is not the first time I’ve been asked this question. 

“No, I just have really good posture.”

“Oh, cuz you kinda look like a military-type.”

“No, not at all. I’m Irene. Nice to meet you,” I say and we shake hands.

A somewhat older kid (I later find out he’s actually 33) comes over to sit by us. 

“Hi, I’m Nick,” he says, extending his hand politely. He has bright green eyes, freckles, and strawberry blonde hair.

“Hi, I’m Irene. How are you doing?”

“I’m really sad. I miss my mom, and my friends, and my dog, and my house. This place is so boring.” His hands shake and his “r” sounds aren’t quite formed - he may have some type of cerebral palsy? I don’t ask for fear of sounding rude. According to a notice posted in the dayroom, patients are not allowed to touch other patients, and “only share personal information with those you trust.”

As Nick continues, his face and ears become red as he holds back tears. 

“I really need to get out of here,” Nick whispers, forming fists with his shaking hands. 

“I know, it sucks here.” None of the scheduled activities have happened. The Longest Yard is playing on the TV; three people are using crayons to color photocopied sheets from a children’s coloring book. There are no games, no books, no magazines, no therapy sessions. 

“Is it ok if I hold your hand?” I ask Nick. He grabs my hand and cries. 

DJ gives him a hug. “It’s going to be ok, my dude. You’re going to get out of here and you’ll have so many fun things to do with your mom, and your friends . . .”

I go get a napkin for Nick to blow his nose and DJ brings him a cup of water. 

“Hey, drink this cup of water and we’ll go for a walk,” DJ suggests.

“Ok,” Nick gulps down the water and we walk up and down the hallway for a while. 

DJ and I continue like this for the next three days - comforting Nick, distracting him with some activity (walking, playing Tic Tac Toe, doing pushups, stretching), wiping away his tears, holding his hand. DJ specialized in activities, and I was the emotional support human. 

As we walk down the hallway, I see Stella on the floor beneath one of the phones, humming and bobbing her head. 

“How are you feeling?” I ask

“Oh my god I cannot wait to get out of here. I signed my 5-day so this is it!” she says. I learn from Stella that a five-day is a form that you can complete if you’ve voluntarily checked yourself in. It means that if you demonstrate good behavior, you can be released after five days (not counting Saturday or Sunday). I sign a five-day right after talking with her and promise myself that I will be the most optimistic and stable patient. 

Lying is a survival strategy here, as it is on the outside. All you need to do is convince your doctor or nurse that you are not a harm to yourself or others. If you’re persuasive enough, they may even let you out early. 

I ask Stella what she’s looking forward to most, other than seeing her son.

“I just wanna sit on my porch, on a rainy morning, early enough so no one is out, and I can listen to the rain, smoke a blunt, drink some hot coffee.”

When I imagine her free, enjoying a rainy morning on her porch, I start to cry.

The guy who introduced himself to me yesterday, Pat, sees me in tears and sits next to me. He grabs my hand and says, “It’s ok - why are you crying?”

“I’m just happy for her!” I explode in one heaving breath.

“You’re a good person - you feel for other people. But you’re probably also really hard on yourself, which is why you’re here.”

I say nothing but blubber and wipe snot on my shoulder.

“I’ve been battling this my whole life,” he says, pointing to his bandages. “Sometimes it gets pretty dark but you’ll get through it. You’re going to be ok, I promise.”

My inhales are jagged and I weep in pathetic intervals. 

“Ugh, I was such a bitch to my husband,” I tell him, remembering how I threw out the food that Victor was giving me for four days before I checked in; remembering how I told him I wanted to jump in front of a train and didn’t care about him or anything anymore. 

“Your husband is going to understand that you’re going through a tough time and it’s hard for you to control your emotions when your brain chemistry is off. Trust me, I know,” he says. 

We sit quietly together until I start breathing normally and stop crying. 

As I walk back to my room, I see a patient, Bailey, sitting under one of the phones, picking at her bare feet and toenails. I walk by that spot later at night and see a pile of skin sprinkles and nail scraps.  

Back in the dayroom, Brian is still sitting at the same table, but now the coloring book outline has realized a life of its own. Using only crayon, he has beautifully rendered a sea turtle gliding through seaweed as sunlight from above filters through the current. 

“That is insane!” I say

“Oh, it’s nothing - there’s just nothing else to do here.”

“No, seriously, this is art,” I counter. 

Brian works at Wal-Mart in Peoria but has always wanted to make a living as an artist. 

I wave over DJ and Nick, who are later joined by Taylor and Melissa, and we admire the level of detail Brian was able to create with just the stubby dayroom crayons. Now everyone (except me) is inspired to make their own artwork, and I go back to writing until Phone Call time. 

Making a phone call from a psych ward is not just emotionally difficult, it’s also physically exasperating. Phone Time is only 30 minutes, and there’s 12 other people in line behind you. Reminiscent of the payphones of my youth, the psych ward phones are mounted on the wall about 4 feet above the floor, and the cord is short (to prevent harm to oneself or others, of course). A normal-sized adult has to hunch down to speak into the mouthpiece. After two minutes your neck and back ache with stiffness, so you try to relay as much information as possible in a short amount of time. 

I call my Dad and tell him about the five-day I signed, that I’m doing ok, everything is generally fine, and that there’s visiting hours tomorrow from 1:30-3pm. The first question my dad asks me (in Polish): “So, what’s the parking situation like? Do they got a garage there, or is it street parking, or meters?”

I hear my mom screaming in the background (also in Polish): “She’s in a mental hospital, Krzysztof! Ask her how she’s feeling!”

“Can we bring anything?,” my mom asks.

“Honestly, I don’t think so. We’re not really allowed to have stuff. We can’t wear shoes. I haven’t gotten my birth control meds. It’s pretty bare bones here.”

My mom sounds distressed. “Well, we’ll see you tomorrow anyway.”

I go back to the dayroom to tell DJ and Nick about my dad’s concerns with parking. They laugh. DJ and Nick make fun of my laugh and how I stick out my tongue while tilting my head back. It was getting dark out so I stood up on a chair to see if I could spot the sunset. Pink and purple clouds hover above a tall gray building outside. 

“Nick, hop up and check out the sunset.”

Nick stands on a chair and goes, “Whoa, that’s cool.”

After lining up to get my dinner tray, I grab the closest table to the line and start to dig into my iceberg lettuce salad and dry chicken sandwich. DJ crouches next to my chair and says, “Hey, Nick saved a spot for you at our table.” I quickly gather up my stuff and move over. We chat and laugh for the rest of the night, talking about our exes, our stupid bosses, how much we hate AI. 

I learn Nick is an actor and drag queen who tears up when he thinks about how much he misses his friend Pierre. DJ has a girlfriend and ended up here because he tried choking her, and then tried killing himself afterwards. DJ explains:

“I even tried killing myself in here the other day - with a sock. That’s why they moved me across the hall to be with another person, like, for safety purposes. They also gave me the booty juice to calm me down.” Booty juice is Haldol, a powerful sedative injected into an inmate’s butt when they’re agitated.  

I spend the rest of my days looking around my room, wondering how in the hell DJ managed to attempt suicide in a room with no sharp edges, no hooks or poles, no handles.

After dinner, Nurse Julia pulls me aside for a short, stand-up meeting about how I ended up here and how I’m feeling. It’s the first meeting I have had with a mental health professional at Montrose. I tell her how I was planning to step in front of the Red Line train at the Loyola stop. She says I have major depressive disorder and prescribes me some sleeping meds. 

9:30pm rolls around and we’re nearly finished watching The Longest Yard for the second time. I take a shower with the “shampoo/body wash” they provide, but it only makes my hair greasy and my skin tight. I pace the halls again. 

I miss home and the window that faces my desk. It looks down at the street, the sidewalk, bare tree branches, the brick buildings with windows that become rectangles of light at night. The tall pine tree outside creaks and leans to one side, forever tilted from years of eastward winds. I miss my water bottle. I miss my chapstick. This is what it means to long for the banal.  

I wonder if the tablet tappers (my new name for BHAs) ever imagined or wished to be in the roles they’re in. No one spends tens of thousands of dollars on a college degree just to tap a tablet and track ankle monitors for twelve hours a day. This place isn’t about care, nurturing, or reaffirming anyone’s humanity. It’s about eliminating the possibility of suicide or homicide.

I toss and turn in my cot. I am a bar code, a thing to be scanned, tracked, and accounted for. Rounded. I’ve been here for 24 hours and no one has asked me how I’m feeling or what happened to me (other than my fellow inmates). The sleeping meds aren’t working and I pace the halls. At 1am I think of David Gramling. He was a German Studies professor at The University of Arizona. He went missing about 11 years ago on a January afternoon. He stopped responding to emails and phone calls; stopped showing up to meetings and classes; his car was gone and his home locked up. Colleagues posted flyers all over campus and the local news did a few stories about his disappearance. After two weeks it turned out that he was in San Francisco. Gramling up and left, took some cash with him, and temporarily disappeared. He returned to his job with no consequences, and is now a professor at the University of British Columbia. At some point we’re all pushed to our limits.