The House for Vampire Junkies
By: Elyse Brouhard
The hallways smell like piss and burnt toast. The television is always on, showing the same reruns of Law and Order again and again. The clients are sometimes sober, mostly not. The old farmhouse has been remodeled to serve as a home for mentally ill adults fresh off the streets. It’s been painted a shade of green that the Hillsboro Historical Society agreed was in keeping with its historical integrity.
“How this works,” Jay waves his hands empathically, lecturing the empty room. “I’m gonna hand him his innocence, and he’s going to hand me my cell phone.”
If only it were that simple.
Instead, Jay shouts profanities and disjointed accusations of abuse until my own lungs ache. He takes a swing at the counselor. We hesitate, but company policy mandates we call the police. It’s not fair that I have nothing to offer him. Not even a cell phone.
There are seasons when the house feels still, like we are all hibernating. The mornings are especially quiet. On rare occasions, Heather wakes up early to watch the Evangelical preacher on the Bible Channel. Those days I shut the office door and put music on.
There are seasons where everything is fireworks. The shouting goes on and on. The schizophrenic voices are constant harassers. Sometimes it’s the drugs or the close quarters. Some days someone is scared. Or lonely or bored. One time it was literal fireworks, set off in someone’s bedroom “just because.”
The cops that come to today are a juxtaposition: old and young, relaxed and vibratingly nervous. The young officer lingers behind the more seasoned cop who does the talking. I stand between the officers and Jay—who has gone uncharacteristically quiet and stands in the middle of the room like he is afraid to breathe. I use my body to create a line of safety. Not for the cops. They have guns, the law, the force of society. I have love.
Dan asks for a hug after the police leave. I hug him even though I am not supposed to. He told me that he sometimes goes years without being touched. It makes his skin ache. He becomes a shadow that no one wants.
My clients are the wisest souls I know. I’m walking back to the office when Pete stops me to ask, “have you been talking to the devil?” I say no. Peter tells me that he has angel wings. I find myself jealous of his hope. I do talk to the devil. I am not brave enough to believe in wings.
It rains an average of 160 days a year here. Plus the grey days. We talk about when it will be sunny. We talk about tomorrow. In the middle of a downpour, I offer Dan a ride to the corner-store, where he’ll buy candy and cigarettes. The residents smoke cigarettes fast and hard. Sometimes between meth highs and lows, sometimes instead. Dan is smoking in the cold air when he says “this is a house for vampire junkies.” It sounds like a line of poetry. I steal it. Cradle it like a baby. I have never heard anything so true.
At evening med pass, I promise Heather that the CIA does not have cameras in the ceiling. There are no ghosts living in the walls. I did not poison her food. In more lucid moments she tells me of the dreams that existed before the voices started. She talks about college, speaks of long-gone friends and hobbies. I don’t know if she is lucky or unlucky: sometimes the darkness sets in before dreams or plans can even be made.
A day is successful when the voices are a fraction calmer. I come to work in the morning to see that someone has planted a rose garden in the empty space in the courtyard. Staff tell me that a resident, the one who steals food like a raccoon and hides herself in her room, she joined the house for dinner last night.
I do one last lap through the house, before I sit down to write my shift notes. I can’t hand back innocence or cell phones. I have lost them both myself. I work here, I belong here. I have it easier, my voices are quieter. Jay is in the living room, sunk into a battered armchair, staring at the blank television screen. He is talking rapidly to himself, but the only words I catch are these: “Tomorrow is a safe word for a place that is already here.”
Elyse Brouhard is a social worker living in Portland, OR with her wife and their two needy pets. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in r.k.v.r.y literary journal, and she has published a zine, Handle With Care, with Microcosm Publishing.IG