Boy Interrupted

The
man I am sharing a room with has just finished his 7th 2 litre bottle
of Coke Zero. He's a strong man; too strong, proud, stoic. But he's here so he's vulnerable and he looks at you with a devastating clarity
and says, with his eyes, that he is hurt. At other times his head is
down and full of purpose, his eyes shifting as he lopes to the ice
machine. I guess he drank rum and Coke all his life. He gave me an egg
salad sandwich, sighed, popped a Nicorette between his pursed lips, and
stared directly ahead at a line up of empty plastic bottles as though
he were waiting for a waitress.
All
of a sudden he tells me he saw Sly and the Family Stone in 1968 at the
Pacific Coliseum. Simple Man plays on the ward's stereo system. Then,
just as suddenly he stomps out.

A few minutes later he
changes the topic. He tells me that he saw "the Al Qaeda" playing
volleyball in Guelph Park in Mount Pleasant. Crazy Train plays on the
ward's stereo system,

A girl has just walked into my room.
She takes a seat, stares at the ground, adjusts her headphones, and
sighs. She's not allowed to be in here. She has a massive belly she
couldn't possibly be responsible for, stretched thin over her indian
bones, they buckle under its girth. So many scars...

After
returning from the washroom where I realize that although I'm able to
lock the door, there is a door inside the door that can be opened by
staff, I look in my bed to find her massive frame slumped and waiting.

There
are some here, at the university hospital, who are no longer
pretending. They can no longer play the game; you know, acting up to
get meds, acting normal to get TV priviledges. One such man haunts the
hallways, staring out at the wet yellow leaves of fall. The natural
light floods in, making the most banal of inanimate objects look like
poetry. It taunts me. It knows I have no camera, just these words:
hospital pink curtains weep while evergreens outside sleep solemnly
above the soggy humus.

I find solace in the piano and push
ups, and in the inane banter of classic rock djs. "Radio DJ's are the
same two motherfucking asshole clowns all over the country. I hate
radio interviews. 'You didn't know it David, but you're just in time
for the Friday Morning Fart Song!' No, sorry, I'm not doing that". Its
funny because most of the songs are about drugs, women and insanity. So
just to add to the thick cloud of irony, I phone in and request
'Basketcase" by Green Day.

Meanwhile Jerry Springer blasts
in the TV room: a midget and a lesbian are fighting and I think, yeah,
that's a good show for people coming out of the darkest recesses of
their mind. A commercial for Nintendo DS comes on; lightning fast edits
of numerous teenage 'gamers' with the portable device in random
locations throughout a non-descript city, rapt, standing there like a
mental patient stares at their plastic tray of inedible plastic food,
drooling as the world rushes past. Its all about context, in another
time and place they'd be tossed into the isolation room; aloof and
antisocial. But this is technology, indecipherable from magic, severing
the the last tenuous ties to reality. Why am I the one in the East Wing
of the mood disorders clinic, decoding the TV to patients no worse off
than most. This is the simulacrum at work: The Myth of Sanity, The
Sorrows of Young Wherther, and a videocassette collection that
includes, no joke, Insomnia, Stir Crazy, Bad Medicine, and perhaps the
most appropo of all: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Who, really, are
the crazy ones? "Even Disconnection Can't Connect Us Anymore. Even
depression's not depressing anymore". (Milemarker)

It appears
the man I'm sharing a room with doesn't speak to anyone else. I have no
idea how long he's been here, or how much longer he's been committed
for. He tells me he's been smoking for 45 years. His creased forehead
and crows feet wrinkles only hint at the joy and pain of a man whose
only ritual now involves nap time, snack time, taking his meds, and
procuring Coca-Cola. His ears are massive but his hands are shaky.

The
native girl has been put into isolation. The wind has picked up outside
but the Seroquel makes it calm inside, too calm. There is supposed to
be a storm today.

I remember who The Man reminds me of:
that guy in Fargo; the big, quiet sociopathic sidekick to the funny
lookin' one. Menacing and filled with maelstrom, he's the perfect
storm, perfectly contained.

Then there are those who don't
seem to warrant such a rigorous asylum as this. One such girl, calm,
serene, and wearing 'civies'apparently hung herself. Her conduct
betrays the torrent of emotions which brought her here.

There
is a poem, a partial poem written on an unfinished concrete wall in the
plexi-glass encased smoking room that reads, "At peace with the
present. Words fixed in my head. My thoughts not of truth. Or lies I
have said", as it tapers off into jibberish and I'm left sitting in the
sanitized cafeteria, my thoughts unfinished like those words.

"The
ideas swarmed around his head like angry bees. His writing hand was
cramped from the pages he had scrawled, trying to capture them all
before they dissipated" (Luke Jackson,
'The Saving Power'). There are Kierkegaard quotes carved into oak hand
rails, while Heidegger hangs from the tattered cork board. Indeed, the
air is thick with coincidence.

And the calls of concern
come flooding in, suddenly a mistral of emotions on the horizon,
mimicking the coming storm outside. I try to put it all into
perspective: there's no electro-shock therapy, straight jackets, or
rubber room. But maybe all that doesn't matter. I've come undone and
everybody knows it. I'm picking up a million little pieces (no lie).
"I'm in over my head in a shallow waterbed". Under pressure. Broke
down. Fucked up. But "yesterday's gone. Yesterday's gone". Today? Today
is all styrofoam coffee cups and creamers, blister packs of Paxil and
peach-pink Epival, disposable slippers and plastic spoons.

"Otherwise I am very happy here. The solitude in this heavenly place is sweet balm to my soul, and the youthful
mournful time of year warms with its abundance my often shuddering
heart". The seafoam green hallways haunt my mixed up dreams and the
medicine pink bed sheets soothe upon awakening.