So It Goes:

So It Goes:

Day 1- 8:20pm (4 hours 5 minutes in):

           

            I knew what kind of shithole this place was when the night nurse huffed in her heavy patois that the rooms didn’t have clocks any more because people kept stealing them.

I’m sitting Buddha-style on the twin-sized brick masquerading as a bed, scribbling a hybrid of literary quotes, TV show catchphrases, and possibly my last independent thoughts before they pump me full of meds on the stack of loose-leaf paper salvaged from the greedy claws of the night nurse who snatched away my notebook because I guess she thought I could hang myself with all ten inches of its wire spine.

Slaughterhouse Five perches open by my left foot, propped up by the mountain of blankets I’ve barricaded myself under. My flimsy gym shorts aren’t helping either, but at least it’s only for a night, until I talk to the doctor to transfer me. They took the rest of my shit away because it was “contraband,” like I was trying to bring in coke and a shiv and not a couple of hoodies. It’s so goddamn fucking cold here, like someone must have died and is haunting the hell out of this place or something—which is totally plausible because you know that if they’re taking all these ridiculous precautions someone must’ve found some pretty creative ways to off themselves. You know how you aren’t allowed to bring nail clippers on planes because they could be used as a weapon? It’s sorta like that. My rationale is, if someone can hijack a flight with a pair of nail clippers, they deserve the damn plane. Same if someone committed suicide via bra wire or sweatpants string. It’s sad, but give them some credit. When you really think about it, you can literally kill yourself with anything if you think outside the box enough.

That is exactly the kind of shit talk that got me in here.

 “To die, to sleep—To sleep, perchance to dream?” I scrawl in a margin. Handwritten monologues and Vonnegut from the belly of a psych ward: I’ve achieved a whole new level of tortured artist. Jacob would be so proud. Jacob also totally called that I was probably nuts since our boarding school days so maybe all that pot didn’t kill off all his brain cells. To be honest, this place is sorta like the middle-class bastard child of the school’s old infirm.  Shitty furniture, migraine-inducing fluorescent lighting, nurses popping in all hours of the day like deranged cuckoo birds, and an inescapable sense of ennui that would drive any sane man to hop out the window. At least the infirm had a TV and, well, technology and access to the outside world. I remember chilling in my adjustable bed, one arm in a sling, and the other elbow deep in a big-ass takeout box of sweet and sour chicken listening to Jacob bitch about having to wear a suit to formal dinner, and sit at a table with the History teacher who had it out for him for always wearing a ratty fisherman’s hat into the dining halls. A Long Island Jew sprouting a fro, and a WASPy Greenwich kid on the hockey team writing subversive poetry about the ivy-and-brick prison we were in and whining about our privilege. God, we were obnoxious. He was actually one of the few people I texted when they came to take me away, even though we hadn’t been talking much in the almost half a decade since Rachel and I started dating. She didn’t like him. Must’ve been a weird text to get on his end: “Yo, so they’re taking me off to the nuthouse. Send help.” They took my phone away before I could see if he responded.

Day 1- 9:10pm (4 hours 55 minutes in):

            Every so often, I poke my head out of my room, and stretch my legs with a brisk jaunt down the hallway, all twenty miserable, stained linoleum feet of it. I know I’m not going to be sticking around long enough to bother getting chummy, but the memory of greasy, B-health rated Chinese food makes me feel the slow burn of hunger for the first time in hours, so with the ratty blankets wrapped over my shoulders like bearskins I decide to brave the common room. It’s weird; they actually encourage us to socialize here. Not even encourage, it’s straight up one of the clauses on the admittance contracts. Like damn, I ain’t talking to these crazies. But I guess I’m one of these crazies, so I can’t be so high and mighty bout it.

            I debate about how I should make an entrance. I don’t know if I should stride into the common room real casual or like sort of shuffle in and show submission so I don’t get torn apart. I’m not familiar with locked ward etiquette, but I’m guessing it’s like a prison yard’s.

            It’s less depressing than I expected. Less Dante’ Inferno-y and more medieval tavern. Not just because of all the wood and the unnecessarily shadowy lighting, but also because everyone in here is either conducting themselves in low whispers like they’re plotting to assassinate somebody, or guffawing like drunken sailors at the traffic reports droning on in a static monotone from the caged in TV overhead. The loudest whoops are coming from Smoker lady teetering on her chair in front of a half done puzzle, with each raspy bark of laughter flashing a graveyard of yellowing teeth. Across from Smoker Lady sits Neckbeard: overweight, sycophantic and simpering, with a constant tremor like a fat Chihuahua. I make the mistake of pulling up a chair next to him with the Styrofoam bowl of Apple Jacks I demanded from the night nurse, and maybe not even minute after he tells me his name, which I don’t give a crap enough to remember, he’s vomiting out his life story and asking for my number and to hang out when we’re both back on the outside. I survey the rest of the room’s occupants, looking for literally anyone else to talk to. A man who looks like he could’ve been part of the Russian mob reclines in a corner—I’m calling him Nikolai—staring apparently at nothing, while a blond lady with the air of Hollywood glamour past its expiration date bundled in faux fur and a cheetah print miniskirt mumbles to him.

            An older lady prattling scripture with a bible clutched to her chest like its her newborn potters in with a kid a couple of years younger than me. College age, if he went to college. He reminds me of a super-drugged up version one of my old frat bros, Peter. Bible Lady keeps clasping him on the shoulder and calling him son in between her accept-Jesus spiel. Druggie Peter and I lock eyes and make a silent agreement to come to each other’s rescue by the pantry.

            “Yo.”

            “Yo.”

            “What are you in for?”

            I laugh as he brews a cup of tea. Everyone used to ask me the same thing when I got sent off to boarding school, and even through college. What was I in for? Back then, dead parents and an only living relative with too much money and not enough fucks to give. “Suicide risk,” I tell him in air quotes. “Apparently being found on the bathroom floor with a gun and a handle of vodka downed doesn’t look too good. You?”

            “Drugs.” Figures. “My parents kicked me out of the house.”

            “Sucks.”

            “Come out for a smoke later.”

            “Happy fun time ganj smokes?”

            “No, cigs.”

            “Sucks.”

            “Yeah.”

            I think I’ve made a friend.

Day 1- 9:45pm (5 hours 30 minutes in):

            Russian-mobster-Nikolai gets off the lonely phone at the dead-end of the hall, and I take his vacated seat with my post-it note of emergency contacts in hand. I really wish I could order Dominos right now, but I pick up the receiver and dial the first number instead. It goes to voicemail. Three times. Jacob doesn’t pick up. It’s kind of shitty that the one person I want to call right now also happens be the flakiest best friend one could physically have. Darren’s number is listed next, and as my “emergency contact,” but even looking at his name makes me want to punch a hole in the mouldy alabaster. I don’t feel like dealing with his snitch-ass, oh-Frans-are-you-doing-ok? bullshit right now. Of course he’d be the one to find me in our bathroom because he has zero sense of personal space, and because he’s made it a habit to linger outside the bathroom door, pacing the narrow hallway from his bedroom to mine, like a goddamn creeper ever since he found the razors caked in dried blood in the trash. And of course he’d rat me out to my therapist— and probably to Rachel too, I don’t doubt. There are sides after every breakup and I thought he was on mine, because, well, brotherhood. Then again, Darren’s pledge name was Narc so I don’t know what I was expecting from him.

            I stare at the last nameless number dashed on at the very bottom of the note. The familiar paralyzing feeling, like cold flames licking my insides, bubbles up. I dig my nails down into my palms, and in the garish light of the hallway the still pink grooves ribboning my flexed forearm from the bites of my straight razor jut out like hungry mouths. My finger hesitates over the dial pad, but I say fuck it and punch in the numbers anyway. There’s no way she’s gonna know it’s me. Each empty echoing ring breaks the dam of memories I’ve been trying to suppress, threatening a downpour. Rachel in a green dress at the orientation week rape talk, when I’m trying to chat up the girl next to her and something in my gut tells me to sack up and talk to her instead. The same green dress the night we started dating coming undone in the glow of tealights onto the rose petal covered floor of my room. Winter break in New York City because she’d never seen snow. Vegas for my frat invite where we joked about getting married. The first broken plate after I came home ten shots too many after a party, and she saw that I was tagged in a photo with a bunch of sorority girls. Meeting her parents down in Florida and finding out they were flaming racists. Our “honeymoon” in Hawaii right after graduation, where everything seemed fixed, like we’d gone through the worst of it and survived, until she stormed off after seeing a congratulations text from some girl in my writing class. Coming home a month after that after a night out with what small faction of the frat she let me keep in touch with to find her with her bags packed for a job in Chicago. “We’ve been together for so long, I feel like I’m missing out on so much. I need to experience other things.” Trying to shoot her a facebook message to see how she was doing and finding that her profile was blocked. Walking into our favorite bistro on Main Street a week later on a lunch break from the shitty soul-crushing monotony of an internship I took just to stay in town with her instead of chasing the one semblance of an ambition I had to go to grad school in London, and finding her there with another guy.

            The line goes to voicemail. My voice cracks as I try to leave a message. I tell her I’m sorry, for what I don’t know. I tell her I miss her. I hang up. My nails have left four angry welts on my hand.

Day 1- 10:03pm (5 hours 40 minutes in):

            One of the patients tries to make a break for it. He hurtles down the hallway, ricocheting off the walls like human pinball of incoherent screeching, his hospital gown flapping and his exposed, wrinkled ass cheeks doing the same. A mob of orderlies tries to subdue him while the night nurse sits on her ass yelling, “Michael, stop” uselessly. The American mental healthcare system, amirite? He was Druggie Peter’s roommate.

            When the chaos dies down, the night nurse herds us outside for our designated smoke break. We pass a group of kids squatting in a hallway in pajamas just hanging out, and despite myself I manage a nostalgic smile. You don’t get to do that anymore when you get to the real world: just hang out with complete strangers. I wish I did more of that in college, but Rachel would always usher us straight off into my room, in the beginning to fuck, and then later usually to fight. If I tried squatting outside my apartment and chatting up my neighbours now I’d probably get the cops called on me.

            “Outside” is a ten foot by ten foot sad slab of concrete boxed in by a tarped off fence and punctuated by a single naked tree growing out of the sole patch of soil. I bum a cig off of Druggie Peter, and sit on the bench beside him, Smoker Lady and Nikolai. Smoker Lady asks about how I ended up here, and then asks why I would want to throw everything away when I have my whole life ahead of me. That’s a load of crap; what I’ve got ahead of me is three times my age’s worth of unbearable tedium where I maybe work a job I don’t really want or need just to have something to punctuate the boredom, or blow all my family’s money drifting purposelessly from party to party like some sad bastard straight out of a Fitzgerald novel. Smoker Lady tells me through a plume of smoke that she’s got five kids with three different daddies, and the one thing she’s learnt is that there’re some people that just ain’t no good. 

            I stare at the embers flaring to life at the end of my cigarette butt with each slow drag, the flame reminding me of Rachel. Looking at her was like watching a wildfire, or a burning house: beautiful and terrible, but you just can’t take your eyes off of it. She’d be the first girl to start dancing on tables, and the last girl to let you know she liked you because she didn’t want to ruin the chase. She was the Bonnie to my Clyde, and honestly, the whole getting hitched in Vegas thing wasn’t entirely a joke. She could shotgun a beer, or fire a shotgun, or swill twelve-year-old scotch, all while in slinky black dress. She had this weird thing about smoking though. She’d be totally cool with doing lines of blow with me, but she’d flip a shit if she so much as caught a whiff of tobacco. Something about her parents being crazy chain-smokers.

            “Women,” Nikolai speaks up for the first time, like a deus ex machina sagely possibly communist Grandfather. I almost giggle when I hear his Russian accent. “They bring much trouble. But a good woman is worth the trouble. Your ex: not worth the trouble.”

Day 1- 10:30 pm (6 hours 15 minutes in):

            My roommate arrives while I’m battling the shower’s icy spray stabbing at my balls. His name’s Francis and he scarfed down a whole bottle of sleeping pills. I can’t tell if we’ve been put together because someone has a poor sense of humor—Frans and Francis, real original guys—or because of our “shared experiences.” Now I’m going to sound like a real asshole, but I reckon there are some people that you can just look at them and you can tell something’s off. Now you wouldn’t guess from the looks of me; decked out in Vineyard Vines and Sperrys—vestiges of prep school days watered with the douchebaggery of spending four years partying my ass off— I look, what we used to call, frat as fuck. But Francis looks exactly like someone who would chug some pills and wait for the end. His eyes are dim and perpetually downcast hiding beneath his matt of curls, and he’s the pastiest Hispanic person I’ve ever seen. When he starts to recount the whole cocktail of fucked up shit that’s happened to him in his life it makes me feel like a little bitch getting pushed to the edge because of a girl. I don’t know which is worse, that I feel bad that he tried to end it all or that I feel bad that he didn’t succeed.

            I ask him if he’d try again. He says he’s been in and out of half the hospitals in the state since he was thirteen, and they aren’t magically going to “cure” him now. He asks if I would actually try to die. Thinking back, it seems so stupid. The very notion of suicide as some sort of a last desperate ploy to get Rachel to think about me, to talk to me, to maybe even get back with me, seems insane. Then again, I guess that’s why I’m in here. Especially since I’m still hoping she’ll call me.

Day 2- 9:30 am (17 hours and 15 minutes in)

            A little after breakfast, Dr. Yusuf arrives taking his sweet fucking time, which I guess I can’t really blame him for because he looks like the fucking Cryptkeeper except brown. Half-eaten bacon-egg-and-cheese in hand, I roll into what I guess is the conference room ready to get Dr. Yusuf to get me the hell out of here. I’d hyped myself up to deliver the finest schmooze that years of bullshitting, and a brief stint as a Psych minor could produce. 

            We sit down, and he starts to check off his laundry list of standardized questions. I’m watching him watching me. I don’t know if he knows what I’m doing, but I can read between the lines and know exactly what he wants me to say like a trained parrot. Have you had a history of self-harm? Only since my last relationship (that’s a lie). Do you hear voices? No, sir (eh). Does your family have a history of mental illness? No (What’s he going to do, subpoena my family’s records?). Do you have a history of substance abuse? Well, Doctor, I was in a fraternity…I couldn’t help myself there. It’s not alcoholism until you graduate; Rachel painted that on the flask she gave me for our third anniversary. 

            I smile placidly at him as he finalizes his notes. “Doctor, this was just a bit of an embarrassing misunderstanding.”

            “It would seem so. ”

            I pass by the common room on my way to the open ward to wave goodbye. They’re halfway through one of the group therapy sessions, some New Age-y bull about music as therapy for drug addiction. Druggie Peter’s parents came to take him back apparently. Good for him. I smile at Francis, and salute Nikolai as I depart. I never found out what he was here for.

Day 2- 3:15pm (23 hours in):

            The open ward looks less like an infirmary and more like a shitty B&B, frilly curtains and all, but without the creeping musty smell of old white people and cat piss—without any smell at all actually. And oh my god: the space. Open space. Fresh air. Grass. Trees. Even flowers. I’m lounging out on one of the benches in the shade, the occasional cascade of white petals from the tree above the only disruption to my otherwise zen moment alone with Slaughterhouse Five. I can see a pool on the other side of the garden’s fence. I contemplate taking my shirt off and working on my tan, but I figured that wouldn’t sit too well with the nurses. If it weren’t for the meds and therapy, this would actually be kinda like a vacation.

            A stout, balding man ambles up the path towards me. It’s the Leprechaun Therapist. He’s not a bad dude, a little snarky with a Napoleon complex maybe, but he is unfortunately short and very Irish looking. My new roommate, Lane, mentioned that his real name is Jeff.

            “Hey Jeff, where’s Dresden?”

            “Germany. Shall we talk?”

            “Let’s talk.”

            I recite to him the who-am-i-why-I’m-here monologue that I’ve got memorized by heart now.  We do a couple breathing exercises: in for seven, hold for four, out for seven. Then we talk Vonnegut. I tell him I used to be an English major before I sold my soul to corporate law. We talk Milton.

            “Frans, do you still want to die?”

            I’ve been musing on the idea since my talk with Francis. “Now? Not really. I’m not sure I ever did. But at the same time, I don’t really care if it does happen. ”

            Jeff is smiling at me, and now he really looks like he should be guarding a pot of gold. “There’s a difference between being suicidal and being apathetic. Like, you wouldn’t go out of your way to jump in front of a bus, but you wouldn’t be particularly upset if it happened?”

            That’s a very Jacob thing to say. “I guess. Other than the whole being smooshed by a bus part.”

            “That’s good progress. And what about Rachel, Frans? How do you feel about her?”

            It’s funny, looking out on a day as nice as this, sun shining, and clouds rolling lazily by, she’d barely crossed my mind. “I don’t know.”

Day 2- 6:15pm (26 hours in):

            The cast of the new ward isn’t nearly as colorful as the last. Mostly alcoholics trying to get clean or people with mood disorders, and the sorry sons of bitches that have the misfortune of having both. We’re all sitting around the round tables overlooking the garden with a hodgepodge of arts and crafts stuff in front of us like we’re back in kindergarten.

            You know what they never tell you about psych hospitals? As open and accepting as everyone is, which is a wonderfully rare thing in this world nowadays, it’s still really fucking clique-y. The popular kids, headed by a skinny, anxious, gay Jew, and a old lady named Martha, have their own table together, and they giggle and give the stank eye to mildly schizophrenic Ron as he leaves the room. He made a joke about raping a pregnant lady earlier, so you really can’t blame them for being a little catty about it. He’s legitimately a creepy motherfucker. Lane and I are sitting with two large rednecks who are here for some drug research experiment thing, four grown men collectively struggling to figure out how to string together bracelets.

            “Hey Lane, maybe if you took your shades off you could see better.” He flips me off. His handlebar mustache, the only hair on his head, grimaces as his knot comes undone and his beads clatter onto the carpet. “Shades indoors. Lane? What are you, a fucking rockstar?” He was. Turns out he’s the lead singer of a famous metal band before he developed a sex addiction, and had a public meltdown, although I’m not sure which came first.

            “I hope your music’s better than your jewelry making,” one of the rednecks chimes in.

            “Fuck. You All.” We burst out laughing as his bracelet falls apart a third time.

I tie a surprisingly dainty knot and admire my handiwork. The bracelet’s translucent, faux emerald beads, split down the middle by a tacky golden heart, looks like something out of a twenty-five cent gumball machine. Its green reminds me of Rachel’s eyes. I want her to have it. I haven’t quite figured out how I’ll send it to her since, well, she’s blocked my number and my facebook. I have no idea where she lives either. I guess I could go to the bistro and hang around until she shows up or something or leave it with them to pass on.

“Don’t do it man, don’t fucking do it,” Lane warns me. “She’s no good.” The two rednecks grunt in agreement.

There’s a ton of spare cord lying around the table from when Lane was measuring out how much he needed, and ended up hacking up most of the roll like a demented axe-murderer. I take one of the more even ones and tie it on my wrist, no beads or nothing, just a thin, plastic string to commemorate my time here.  

Day 3- 11:15 am (40 hours in):

            Rachel’s bracelet rests hesitantly on top of the pile of books and loose-leaf swamping my dresser. I’m having a staring contest with it, idly fiddling with my own bracelet, when one of the nurses flounces in, demanding that it’s time for group therapy.

             “I would prefer not to.” I don’t expect her to get the Bartleby reference. She’s a bleach blonde Valley Girl with pink scrubs and a botched nose job, like Paris Hilton meet Nurse Ratched. She throws a pissy fit, threatening to extend my stay if I don’t cooperate. I weave some bullshit about how I tried it the afternoon before, and being trapped in a room like that makes me anxious, and some of the stories are really triggering, but honestly, I just hate the group counselor. She looks like a washed-out Stepford Wife with a germophobe complex. I already know I’m getting out tomorrow so I give zero fucks. Dr. Yusuf straight up told me that I don’t even really need to bother with this crap, it’s just to make the bureaucrats and insurance companies happy. The nurse’s badly concealed pores gape at me as her nostrils flare, and I swear powder jumps off of her caked on makeup as she continues her tirade. “I would prefer not to,” I repeat. I ask her to turn out the lights as she stomps away as I hunker down for a nap.

Day 3- 2:43 pm (25 hours and 32 minutes till freedom):

            Jeff pulls me aside as Lane, the rednecks, and I are out on a smoke break. It’s our final session. He asks how I’m feeling, and what’s the first thing I want to do when I get out.

            “Take a shower that doesn’t bruise my balls.”

            He chuckles. I propose the idea of the bracelet, and he furrows his brow.

            He probes into my relationship with Rachel and he’s asking things like do I feel wronged, do I feel like it was my fault, and what do I think interacting with her again would accomplish, and I don’t know why, but this time, out of all times, my eyes start to water. Like everything that I’ve been trying to take like man just came flooding out. I wipe them off on the sleeve of my hockey jersey. Keep it together man, what the fuck.

            Jeff unfolds a handkerchief from his pocket. Great, now I feel even more like a little bitch, blowing my nose into his powder blue linen square.

            He looks me straight in the eyes and says, “You’re a charismatic, intelligent young man. You have your whole life ahead of you, and so much to offer. You may have been in love, but your ex is, I’m just going to come out and say it, kind of an asshole. You did nothing wrong. You’re going to move on, and it’s going to be better. Don’t cry over someone who isn’t worth it.”

            I let out a very unmanly sniffle. Thank you small Gremlin man. It means a lot.

Day 3- 6:15 pm (22 hours till freedom):

            I’m watching Lane and the one the of the rednecks perform a weird body weight pilates hybrid with a fallen bamboo rod, with Lane kind of squatting and holding the stick while the redneck pushes against him. The other redneck is running a deformed figure-eight up and down the garden’s path.

            “This time here’s all about a restart, and improving myself. I’m blessed with a second chance you know,” Lane tells me between reps. “When I get back out there I want to put out a new album, maybe go on tour again. But first I got to get better. Body and mind, man. Body and mind.” He offers to show me some of his stuff on the mp3 player he somehow has special permission for. Like damn, if I knew I could petition for that these seventy two hours would have been bliss. Metal’s not really my style, a little too whiny screechy for my liking, but I headbang a little and pretend to get into it. “They’re moving me to another ward in a week. It’s even nicer than this one. Got tennis courts and a real gym and everything.”

            “That’s fucking awesome, man. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

            “Oh yeah. You take care of yourself out there. They’re giving me a phone and everything so hit me up when you can. And hey, remember what I said, don’t ever date a girl who’s insecure because then she’s jealous, and has to control everything. And then you end up the one going crazy.”

            I give him a wry smile. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

            As he and the redneck resume their bamboo rod routine, and I trail back inside to pack, he calls out, “And fuck her man, trash that fucking bracelet.”

Day 3- 10:08 pm (18 hours and 7 minutes till freedom):

            I’m at the nurse station window to get my last round of meds ever. Dr. Yusuf’s prescribed me some stuff for the outside, but nothing like Xanax serious. The phone rings, and one of the nurse’s says it’s for me. My breath hitches in my throat involuntarily. But it’s a man’s voice on the other line.

            “Hello? Frans? It’s Jacob.”

            “Hey man, what’s good?” I throw myself down onto the chair, relaxed.

            “I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I was in Mexico. I got your text and I called Darren and he told me what happened. You okay?”

            I can’t help but laugh. That’s so typically Jacob. Late to every party. “Yeah, it’s been a fucking blast in here. I made a lot of friends.”

            “That’s…great. Concerning, but great. “

            “Yeah, it’s really not too bad. I get out tomorrow at noon-ish. Getting let off a full four hours early for good behavior.”

            Jacob snorts at that. “Want me to come pick you up?”

            “Yeah that’d be nice. God knows this stint’s probably going to cost me a fuck ton of money as it is without the cab home. I mean, you can appreciate me being cheap right? Plus my boss is probably going to murder me. Or be super nice so I don’t shoot up the workplace or anything.”

            I can picture him on the other end of the line rolling his eyes, like we’re back in our freshman Lit class together and I’m cracking jokes about Satan- “Luci in the sky with diamonds.”  

            “See you at noon fuckface.”

            “Later Shylock.”

            Lane is asleep when I get back to the room, The nurse has taken the last of my stuff out of the contraband closet and placed it by my bed; I guess they trust me not to off myself in the next couple of hours. Wouldn’t that be a plot twist? I stuff the mountain of crap on my dresser into my duffel, the looseleaf crunching unhappily as I shove Vonnegut in on top of it. I pause at the bracelet, marveling at how it actually looks kinda fucking gross in this light, like the monstrous creation of a color blind three year old. I chuck it into the bowels of the trashcan with a satisfying thud.