Three Sodas a Day Keep the Psychos Away, Part Three
I saw her open the refrigerator and take my orange yesterday. I don't know what to do. I told the nurses, but they said she denied it. Now, the nurses think I'm making it up.
When asked if I am eating all my food I say "yes", a lie, "but not the fruit. That old woman in the pink bathrobe is stealing it." I can see that look of disbelief and apprehension on my doctor's face for a brief second before he disregards my gaze. He looks through his bifocals and writes
something in my chart. He must be talking to the nurses. He is beginning to act as if I belong here, traitorous. He no longer is on my side. At least he stopped taking my blood pressure every hour.
The first few days the nurses were in here taking blood and my blood pressure every hour. Of course, my heart would act different, I told them when they keep taking my blood. I thought it was a clever remark, but all the nurse said was "You are a very sick little girl."
Today, I managed to do 100 sit-ups before the nurse came looking for me. Yesterday, I jogged in place for almost thirty minutes. I feel so much better when I can exercise, but they don't believe me. The nurses are beginning to give me that same patronizing look they give the others, all most as if they're saying, "It's okay honey. You might get better." I am going to stop asking them about my fruit. Maybe I didn't see what I thought I did. Could it be the anti-depressants they make me take?
My roommate is gone. They took her yesterday. I thought she was in here for a food problem although her weight seemed normal. I never would have guessed in a million years her real reason for being here.
I noticed her auburn hair first. It had so much color and was so shiny it looked like Barbie doll hair. It's a darker version of her skin. Her eyebrows, eyelashes and skin all had an auburn glow that I had never seen before. Her most amazing feature was her green eyes. Not that having green eyes are anything special, but her auburn glow with those brilliant, sparkling green eyes were magical. She looked like a fairy, all shiny and sparkly and full of secrets.
She forged prescriptions. I didn't know they put people in hospitals for forgery, not that I met anyone who did that before, I just thought they would go to jail. August, that was her name, said she would have gone to jail, but her lawyer gave her the chance to be hospitalized instead. She
traded in her choices for tranquilizers, anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs- she was still taking drugs, just not the ones of her choice.
Two men in white pants and shirts came in about four-thirty A.M. the morning the change began. August had been given a sedative a short time before the men showed up. The men moved her soggy, noodle-like body onto the stretcher and wheeled her out. Her body was the by-product. It was her mind they were really after.
Apparently, it takes three sessions and a stick in the mouth to completely burn someone's mind out of their head. Of course, I was wrong when I used the word "burn". A nurse corrected me by sharing the medical explanation. She said that they scramble the chromosomes by tossing them up in the air with an electric shock to the head and when the chromosomes fall back in
place the patient is "better". The professionals really don't know how it works, but by the third "treatment" the person becomes a limp carrot and forgets what they were like before. The up side is the patient no longer needs anti-depressants, because obviously the medication didn't work in the first place.
About an hour after August was taken for her treatment, I got out of bed and began to sneak sit-ups on the other side of my bed where the nurses couldn't see me. When August was wheeled into the room she was crying hysterically and pulling against her arm and leg restraints. I stood up, confused.
She screamed through the cotton of her anesthetic, "Who is she? Get her out of my room! Get her out of my room!"
Holy crap! They took her memory! We shared a room for weeks and she doesn't even remember me. Terrified, I got back in bed, pull the covers over my head and tried to pretend it wasn't happening.
After each of her next two treatments she slipped away a little more into her fairyland. She lost her opinions, her sense of humor and her sparkly-ness. She could have changed her name too because she was no longer August. I began to miss her after the first shock treatment. Finally, after the third treatment they took her to another hospital. I hardly notice she was gone.
I just hope they don't do the same for me. I keep telling them my anti-depressants are working and I am feeling better. I am going to count my sodas again.
The first thing I see, across my room on the window ledge, is a huge orange. It must be for me it's in my room, right? It has to weigh at least a pound! With both hands I bring it to my nose and take a slow breath, letting the clean, sharp, smell break through the sterile hospital odor that I have been smelling for the last month. The glorious orange color in this gray place makes me sad and happy at the same time. I don't need to eat it because the real essence of an orange is its color and smell, not the taste. Most people don't know that.
I wonder who left this orange? Maybe a nurse will know. They know everything else that goes on in here.
Heading down the hall to the nurse's station I see her. When is she going to wash that bathrobe for god sakes? She isn't looking at me, but directly ahead, into that dead space that holds the memory of her grandchild. I don't have time for her shenanigans today. I need to speak with a nurse about this mysterious orange.
I was caught by her quick, striking hold. The rabbit and the hawk. Her claw-like fingers swallow my forearm and I know I am at her mercy. I can feel my eyes bulging out of my head as if a direct result of the increased pounding of my heart and the pressure on my arm. Dang lady, let go. The panic brings an irony taste to my mouth.
"Are you gonna eat that orange?" She nods at my fruit.
"Uh, uh.why?" I am trying to gently pull my arm free of her overwhelming grip as if she won't notice. Not a chance.
"I know you don't eat much. My daughter sent that to me." She releases my arm leaving her splayed fingers in the air between us as if she needs someone to tell her what to do next.
"You? You gave it to me?" I stammer through my astonishment, rubbing my arm to get the blood flowing again.
She doesn't move.
"Thanks. thank you! It's a lovely orange."
She nods with a slight smile then pats my arm, I flinch, and she continues her shuffle down the hall toward her room.
My eyes fill up, but I stop them from spilling over. I can do that if I pretend to suck the tears back in by taking a deep breath and opening my eyes wide. My heart has a dull, vague ache. I set the feeling aside and promise to feel it later. I sense the bizarre kindness hovering like a faint
smell. A vague understanding begins to form almost penetrating whatever barrier is in the way instead, dissolving at the anti-depressant level of feeling.
I move away from the place where she touched me, toward the nurse's station.
I set the orange on the counter in front of the nurse who called me a "sick little girl".
"Here," I tell the nurse. "You can have this. Someone left it in my room".
c2001Tami Gramont
