Madnesses Again
By: Scott Holstad
CONTENT WARNING: This work may contain material that could be triggering for some readers: Mental Health. (Involuntary) Psychiatric Institutions.
Head Nurse woke us at six am for our meds. We stood in line for them to dope us up again and then waited for breakfast while others, groggy and edgy, yelled for their packs of smokes. We’d soon chow, then share cigs, the communal currency of the madhouse. Some tried to socialize, but when you’re crazy, it’s rough – you never know what to expect from others. Anything from comatose to violent to dazed from the EST, you just never knew.
Nurses were hard, rules adhered with no negotiating or arguing. They kept us busy with group meetings, therapy, art, snacks, and occasional loafing in a communal TV room where I learned about the magic of string cheese.
I found that I could sometimes make or take a rare phone call during some downtime. Marie called me every evening. I wanted her to come visit, but it was a long drive, and she worked, so I understood. She called me one evening and typically I went past the maximum 10-minute phone time. About to hang up, I heard footsteps and panicked because if it was Nurse Jonathan, he’d be hauling my ass to my room and locking me in for the next 12-15 hours. That Nurse was a jerk. If I got lucky, it might be Nurse Patience, a sweet, quiet and caring soul from Ghana. She lived her name.
Thank God, it was her. She wouldn’t get mad, just steer you where you next needed to go. This time she took me to the TV room, but it was a little disappointing
I’d missed the first half of GI Jane starring Demi Moore. Before lockdown I would have sneered at such a movie. I saw films and they were different. Art! But when you have no choices, no options, nothing – you take what they give you and become thankful for the small things, which generally described me now.
There were weird vibes that night though. This was the major “serious” and secretive lockdown ward at the institution.
“Many people didn’t have their freedom; some didn’t have their damn minds.”
Some would become violent and it was only a question of if they’d turn that outward or inward.
There was nothing but a secured cot and mini nightstand in our rooms. Our bathrooms didn’t have doors and we had to ask permission to brush our teeth, shave, shit, and shower. And that meant Nurse was by the door making sure you didn’t do anything stupid. Big Nurses. Some people spent days, weeks, or months confined to those tiny, locked rooms. I spent my first week or so in mine before getting with the program and kissing enough ass, showing enough obsequiousness, to get let out on greater and greater occasion.
One of my wardmates in our smoking group we called The Diva. Both because she was aging gracefully, still beautiful, and at close to six feet tall with a familiar-seeming profile, she was not easily forgettable, as well as because she’d been in The Industry a long time and was widely perceived as an actual diva. It was like that in Hollywood. Everyone had a role, a title, wanted or not. However, I couldn’t even remember her actual name.
The Diva had been acting freaky all week. I couldn’t understand why; she wouldn’t/couldn’t verbalize it, but then we were all crazy, so who knew? Still, with enough cigs, she was a dramatic talker, one who didn’t hold back and knew few boundaries. Still, a kind-seeming soul. This week, though, she just didn’t seem all there. Wouldn’t talk, open up, nothing. She had been getting really stressed out, though, and that GI Jane night, she freaking lost her shit! She jerked herself up from a sofa screaming for Thorazine and then started bashing her head and face into the concrete wall beside the sofa. Hard. Blood spurted and spattered, you could hear crunching sounds. Some of the shaky ones in the room panicked and I worried I was going to be in some Cuckoo’s Nest scene next thing I knew. I also knew Nurses would be arriving fast with security and it took less than a minute. While they brutally grabbed The Diva like she was a rabid dog, one Nurse started rounding up the crazies * dancing in the hall, wailing, or in Ace’s case doing violent-looking karate kicks in the air, aimed at no one, but since he was big and tall, he could cover the whole hall with his roundhouses. A combo of five security guards and Nurses surrounded him, trying to calm him down before they lost their patience and jumped him. They were ticked and definitely not gentle. I think I found a tooth on the floor after they hauled him off.
The Diva? They hauled her out of there. I was surprised to see her the next morning while in line for pills. They wheeled her out of the elevator that went down … there – where you didn’t want to go ever. Her glazed, dead eyes looked like she’d had a fucking lobotomy *, but I later heard she’d just shattered her nose and cheekbone and that they’d zapped the hell out of her while starting her on intensive new daily EST treatments. She was removed from our circle and I can’t remember if I saw her after that. I missed her.
Head Nurse got serious about rules after that. A major one was bedtime. Seemed as bad as the army. Couldn’t be one minute late. On time every time and they strapped some of us in, though it wasn’t as horrid as that last place. The screams got to you there. And the corpse-like inhabitants.
They checked during the night to see if we were alive, but it’s hard to do it with no belt, toothbrush, shoelaces, anything. It’s also damn hard to do it when they’re coming into your room every 15 minutes and shining their flashlights in your eyes until they’re satisfied you’re still alive, whether you wanted to be or not. Nurse Jonathan was a prick. If he didn’t like you – and he didn’t like me – he didn’t care if you were supposed to rest or sleep. He’d sadistically keep a bright beam trained on your eyes far too long on his rounds and your nerves felt like hell in the morning.
Why didn’t Nurse Jonathan like me? He was an autocrat who demanded blind obedience, viewing anything less as a sign of a troublemaker, so questions, complaints and requests were all challenges to his authority.
I got on his shit list because an old woman in the next room started shrieking at 2 AM. “I’m manic, I’m manic! I don’t care if I wake them – fuck them!” *
I saw people from the smoking group in the hall looking irked. I led them to find staff to quiet her. We found Nurse Jonathan. Over six feet tall, built like a linebacker, taut smile on wary face, he asked how he could help. I explained the situation and he looked at me and said, “If you’re having trouble sleeping, you can go to the ‘Isolation Room.”
I said, “Wait a minute. She’s screaming her ass off and you want to put ME in Solitary?”
He retorted, “Seems like you’re the one causing trouble. Now get out of the hallway. Back to your rooms!”
I retreated and stood in my doorway. He snarled to get in my damn room or security would be there in two minutes.
I was aghast. She’s waking everyone up and I’m the troublemaker for complaining? And I’m one inch inside my room and he’s threatening to get security?
“Asshole!”
Turned out he was serious about Solitary.
But most there weren’t like him. Some were like Nurse Patience and actually seemed to care. As for the rest, I watched Nurses walk the halls, tight white skirts clinging to every curve. I dreamed dreams—Nurses in white skirts sliding 13 pills down our throats at a time.
What a thrill.
Scott C. Holstad has authored 60+ books & has appeared in the Minnesota Review, Exquisite Corpse, Pacific Review, Santa Clara Review, Long Shot, Pearl, Wormwood Review, Chiron Review, Palo Alto Review, Southern Review, Lullwater Review, Hawai'i Review, Wisconsin Review, Arkansas Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Pacific Coast Journal, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo!, MSN, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, AIM, Awakenings Review, Catharsis, Kerouac Connection, Main Street Rag, Ginosko Literary Journal, Premonitions, Cyber-Psychos AOD, Processed World, Nihilistic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Big Windows Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, San Pedro River Review, Chaminade Literary Review, Hidden Peak Press, Blood Moon Rising, Mad Swirl, Sivullinen, Gangan Verlag, Horror Sleaze Trash, PULP & Bristol Noir. He holds degrees from the University of Tennessee, California State University Long Beach, UCLA, Queens University of Charlotte & University of Michigan. He’s moved 40 times & currently lives near Gettysburg PA with his family.
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