Turn of Mind - Alice LaPlante [49]
TWO
The woman with no neck is screaming again. A distant buzzer and then the muffled sound of soft-soled shoes on thick carpet hurrying past my door.
Other noises emerge from other rooms on the floor. The calls of incarcerated animals when one of their own is distressed. Some recognizable words like help and come here but mostly cries that swell and converge.
This has happened before, this descent from one circle of hell into the next. How many times? The days have morphed into decades in this place. When did I feel the warmth of the sun? When did a fly or mosquito last land on my arm? When was I last able to go to the bathroom at night without someone materializing at my side? Tugging my nightgown down around my hips. Gripping me so hard I look for the bruise after.
The screaming, although subdued, hasn’t stopped, so I get up. I can stop this. Prescribe something. One of the benzodiazepines. Or perhaps Nembutal. Something to relieve the anxiety, stop the noise, which is now coming from all different directions. I’ll order a round. Drinks are on me! Anything to prevent this place from descending into true bedlam. But arms are pulling at me, not gently. Heaving me to my feet before I am ready.
Where are you going. To the bathroom? Let me help. In the dim light I can barely make out the speaker’s face. Female, I think, but I find that increasingly difficult to tell. Unisex white scrubs. Hair short or tightly pulled back from the face. Impassive features.
No. Not the bathroom. To that poor woman. To help. Leave me alone. I can get out of bed myself.
No, it’s not safe. It’s the new meds. They make you unsteady. You could fall.
Let me fall then. If you’re going to treat me like a child, then treat me like an actual child. Let me pick myself up when I fall.
Jen, you could really hurt yourself. Then I would get into trouble. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?
It’s Dr. White. Not Jenny. Absolutely not Jen. And I wouldn’t care if you were fired. Another would just take your place. You’re interchangeable enough.
Dozens of people come and go, some lighter, some darker, some speaking better English than others, but all their faces blending into one another.
Okay, Dr. White. No problem.
She doesn’t let go of my arms. With a grip that could subdue a 250-pound man she pulls me to a standing position, puts one hand on the small of my back and the other at my elbow.
Now we can go together and see what’s happening, she says. I bet you could be of service to Laura! She sure needs it sometimes!
Still holding on to my arm, she walks me into the hall. People are milling aimlessly, as if after a fire drill.
Oh good, see, all over! Would you like to go back to bed now or have some hot milk in the dining room?
Coffee, I say. Black.
No problem! She turns to a girl, this one in an olive smock. Here. Take Jennifer to the kitchen for some hot milk. And make her take her meds. She refused at bedtime. You know what will happen tomorrow if we don’t get them into her.
Not milk. Coffee, I say, but no one is listening. That’s the way it is here. People will say anything, promise anything. You can ignore the words, even on the days when you can retain them, because you need to keep your eyes on their bodies. Their hands most of all. The hands don’t lie. You watch what they are holding. What they are reaching for. If you cannot see the hands, that is the time to be concerned. The time to begin screaming.
I study the face of the girl walking me to the dining room. My prosop-agnosia, my inability to distinguish one face from another, is getting worse. I cannot hold on to features, so when a person is in front of me, I study them. To try to do what every six-month-old child is capable of doing: separate the known from the unknown.
This one strikes no chords. Her face is pockmarked, and her head brachycephalic. She has an overbite and her right foot is slightly in-toed, probably due to an internal tibial torsion. Enough work there for many expensive medical specialists. But not for me. Because