Kissing your medication away…

After a nice cold dinner, the lot of us were escorted from the dining hall.  We made two rights passing through the long hallways.  At this particular time of the day, there was nothing to do.  You can either sit in the hallways and talk or go to your room.  I of course had no clue what to do so i just sat in the hallway kind of falling in line with the rest of the herd.  Across from me was a guy and a girl who quickly inquired as to why i was in this paradise with them.  “Just came to observe the crazies,” i said.  That seemed to satisfy the girl who smiled and introduced herself to me as Jessie.  The guy, who i now learned was Steve gave me a dismissive “hey” and attempted to pick up his conversation with Jessie.  I butted in and said, “So what the fuck are we suppose to do around here?”  Jessie gave me the quick schedule.  7-8am was breakfast, 815 was meds.  9-10 was either group session or Israel’s group and you ‘wanted’ to be in Israel’s group.  10-11 was arts and crafts and 11-12 was exercise.  12:00 was of course lunch.  Then there was a long break until 3pm where there was another group session, followed by another hour break and then dinner at 5.

OK, great.  This already didn’t seem remotely possible to have thirty of us spend the majority of the time in the hallways doing nothing.

I asked Jessie what exactly we did for the rest of the night and she said this was it until 10pm meds.  She followed up by educating me on the staff.  Which ones will get you cigarettes, which ones will loan you money and which ones to steer clear from.  Good information to have as a new fish…the inside scoop.  I loved the help.  Now it was story time.  It was time to find out the real reason Jessie and Steve were in Building 50.  Jessie was all too eager to tell me.  She was a pharmacy major at a university in philly.  She came from a good family, but her education mixed with a boyfriend with connections got her hooked on several illicit pills.  She told how she digested a concoction of medications that she carefully researched in her PDR.  Next thing she knew she saw spiders everywhere and according to her mother’s experience, Jessie was tripping for hours before her parents even knew why.  So they sent her to the hospital and the hospital sent her here.  Very interesting.  I was eager to here more when someone called out “Jeffrey, Jeffrey M.”

In places like this, its not customary to give out last names.  I stood up and looked down the hall where another staffer held a clip board.  “This way, move it.” She barked.  “Coming honey,” i said as i smiled at Jessie and skipped down the hall.  Ms. C was a caseworker and gave me her rendition of the rules and showed me around.  She was short and to the point with the tour and dismissed any questions i asked.  She finally concluded her introduction to Building 50 in my room.  Well, not my room, our room.  I was sharing a room with eleven other guys.  It was a small room and i immediately noticed the pungent odor.  Showers or any hygiene-practicing habits were definitely not enforced.  There were scattered beds surrounding the walls and even more beds bunched up in the middle of Stinky Room.  I couldn’t resist and turned to Ms. C.  “As i suspected, my travel agent really screwed up this time because i specifically remember requesting a room with an ocean view.”  She didn’t even flinch a smirk.

So there i was, sitting in the middle of Stinky Room with eleven other compadres.  I was tired.  I layed down on the rubber mattress and closed my eyes for what seemed like a minute.  The lights flickered on and they were bright and buzzing to life.  I had slept nearly four hours, it was 10pm.

I followed the rest of the herd out into the hallway and saw a line forming in front of a glass window.  I spotted Jessie and walked up to her cutting in line and not really giving a shit what anyone else thought.  She asked me, “what did they put you on, if it’s good i’ll kiss you.”  This statement shocked me.  First, i was not here to date or hook up.  I was in fact married and had little interest in psych-ward fornication.  I dismissed her remark and slowly two stepped my way to the window keeping the rythm of the line with the rest of the herd.  The nurse said name and then grabbed my left wrist under the small space in the window not unlike the ones you see in convenience stores.  Just enough room to transact your goodies or get a pack of smokes.  She verified my name by the hospital-like name tag on my wrist.  It was my ID to let her know what shit she was suppose to sedate me with.  I refused the medication and instead insisted on a copy of their “Patient’s Rights” booklet.  Believe it or not, i had experience in this sort of matter.  The nurse rolled her eyes, took back the medication and slapped a loosely stapled group of papers on the counter.  “Thank you” i said with a smile.  I turned left walked down the hall and glanced into the activities room.  Jessie was kissing some guy.  It was a short kiss and Jessie looked at me blushing and said, “Got anything worth a kiss?”  “OK, explain this now, i’m not on the same page.”  “Well,” she began “its like kissing your medication away.  If you got something good that you want to pass, you can’t just hand it over with cameras everywhere.  We kiss and this way they can’t say anything unless they piss test you, but they never bother.”

OK, now i know i’m in a new world.  And it’s only been a couple of hours and i had this aching feeling in my stomache that things can only get worse before they get better.

Sleeping was difficult now that it was night-night time.  Here i was, sleeping in a roomful of crazies, not knowing what standard hazing rituals took place and fearing the worst.