2
He was awakened at eight a.m. when a burly attendant did not so much knock on as pummel his door, shove it open, flip on the too-bright overhead lights, and bellow in a sing-song yet impatient voice, “Time to get up, come on, breakfast in five minutes,” before walking on to repeat the ritual elsewhere.
Martin swung his feet down onto the floor, and for a moment sat staring at the light-colored tile there. Hadn’t he read something once about how places like this used neutral-to-soothing colors? Nothing that would agitate someone? Bland but not boring. And why was he pissing away brain cells pondering the decorating scheme?
This floor needs to be stripped and re-waxed, he thought. A good buffing wouldn’t hurt things, either.
He swallowed, was barely able to work up enough saliva to complete the action, and realized he had a major case of cotton mouth. It also felt like his stomach had imploded—Christ, he was hungry.
Breakfast in five minutes.
He stood, pulled in a deep breath, and took exactly three steps toward the door before his right leg buckled and his left decided that looked like the thing to do and joined it, which is why he was sitting on his ass in the middle of the floor when Sing-Song the Impatient came by again.
“Having a little trouble finding your legs this morning?”
“No, I found them just fine. It’s getting them to cooperate that seems to be . . .” He couldn’t think of any way to finish that, so didn’t bother trying.
The attendant—whose name tag identified him as B. WILSON—came into the room and helped Martin to his feet. “Want me to lend you a hand getting to the dining area?” “If you don’t mind.” And as the attendant was helping him up, Martin asked, “What’s the ‘B’ stand for?” “Bernard. But everybody just calls me Bernie.” “But you prefer ‘Bernard’, don’t you?” The attendant looked at him. “Actually, yes, I do. How’d you guess?” “‘Bernard’ sounds like a good, strong name. ‘Bernie’ sounds like some weasel bookie whose math is always questionable.”
Bernard laughed. “I like that. If you can make me laugh, then you ain’t as far gone as you think. C’mon, food’s getting cold.”
Breakfast was scrambled eggs, three links of sausage, toast, orange juice, milk, tea or coffee, and a fruit cup. It was brought in (as were all meals) in plastic-covered hospital serving trays. Clients were allowed to use only plastic utensils (all of which had to be accounted for at meal’s end), coffee and tea were always decaffeinated, you were allowed only three small packets of sugar, and if you were in a mood and didn’t want to eat, you went hungry until the next meal was delivered.
The main area—which also served as the dining room, break area, television room, group therapy space, and activities room—consisted of two large, long folding tables with a dozen folding chairs, a small sofa and two easy chairs that had seen better days (judging from the amount of duct tape used to repair the various tears and gashes), a color television with an actual honest-to-God channel dial, a VCR that appeared to have fallen from the cargo hold of a plane cruising at twenty thousand feet but somehow still worked, a shelf filled with donated books and videotapes, a coffee table whose surface was hidden beneath piles of magazines (most of them at least six months out of date), and a single wire mesh-covered window that looked out on a parking lot with two Dumpsters squatting at the edge. There was only one door for people to enter and exit by, and that had to be opened electronically from inside the nurses’ station. As for decorations, the walls sported bulletin boards with various outdated announcements tacked to them, posters of the cute-kitty Hang In There! variety, pictures and watercolors drawn by children who’d come to visit parents or relatives, and a large dry-erase board where the daily schedule was written:
8:00 – 8:30 – Breakfast and Morning Medication
8:30 – 9:00 – Showers
9:00 – 10:00 – Individual Sessions
10:30 – Noon – Group Session #1
Noon – 1:00 – Lunch and Afternoon Medications
1:00 – 1:30 – Free Time
1:30 – 3:00 – Group Session #2
3:00 – 3:30 – Free Time
3:30 – 4:30 – Individual Sessions
4:30 – 5:30 – Dinner and First Evening Medications
5:30 – 11:00 – Socialization
11:00 – 11:15 – Wash-Up and Second Evening Medications
11:15 – Lights Out
Martin was already worn out from just reading it.
Look on the bright side, he thought . . . then couldn’t come up with any way to finish it.
He was starting in on his second sausage link when one of the nurses—an attractive black woman in her early fifties—walked up to the board, picked up a red marker, and made a large red X through everything between 9:00 and Noon. As she passed by Martin, she stopped for a moment and smiled. “We’ve only got three clients right now, Martin, including yourself, I think, and the doctor here doesn’t like to conduct group meetings if there’s less than four—but don’t worry, we’ll have a fourth soon enough, probably more, and probably in time for the second session; it’s Friday, and we tend to get full-up for the weekend. You came in during one of our rare slow periods.”
“So I’ve got nothing to do between now and lunch?”
The nurse shook her head. “I didn’t say that. We’ve got a gymnasium of sorts around the corner and through the only door there It’s mostly just a basketball court, but you can walk around or shoot some hoops if you want—be careful, though: there’s four steps that lead down onto the court once you go through the door, and they take some folks by surprise. Anyway, Dr. Hayes will be in around ten a.m. to talk you through things. In the meantime, my name’s Ethel; if you need anything, just knock on the nurses’ station door, all right?” She pointed to the station, which was actually an oversized glass-walled cubicle separating the main area from the sleeping rooms; you had to walk (squeeze, almost) through a semi-tight hallway to move from the bedroom corridor into the main area, and because the nurses’ station had glass walls on all sides, at no time were you out of anyone’s sight; even the ultra-small smoking room could be watched from there, despite its having a door that closed it off from view of the main area.
Martin took in all of this with a single, sweeping glance. “Looks like you keep a close eye on everything.”
“We do,” replied Ethel; it was both an answer and a warning. “Now, you finish your breakfast and I’ll go get your medicine.” On her way out, Ethel stopped long enough to turn on the television: a network morning news show, two oh-so-pretty hosts chatting incessantly about nothing in particular and making it sound like the most profound thing they’d ever discussed.