edginess.
But the sense was inescapable that she was the one locked in a cell. The room was tiny, packed with books, paperwork, and files. The desk she kept clear, a last outpost of defense against the surrounding chaos. Her gaze moved across a shelf of videotapes on assault management and AIDS protection; a medication list, a reminder that most psychiatric treatment came in the form of tranquilization; her teaching schedule, with the world
assault
figuring again and again. On theward, she wore earth-toned clothing, pale lipstick, and no jewelry or scarf that could be grabbed.
She took out a compact, touched up her makeup, and paused with her hand on the doorknob. She could hear more patients in the hall now, word of her arrival having spread. Three-Psych had been built to house thirty, which meant in practice that the administration tried to hold it down to fifty. Most of the non-NGIs were public admissions from the community, comprising the full spectrum of mental illness. They gathered around her, and a part of her mind believed that this was the best healing she could give, just to be there.
She recognized most of the voices, not from what they said or how, but a peculiar quality beyond any ofthat, like vocal pheromones audible only to a tuned ear: Corinne, wrists and neck heavily scarred, who occasionally stripped naked and walked screaming down the hall; Lewis, who could get drunk on water and had to be restrained from bellying up to a toilet like a bar; Edward, who had ripped antennas off cars in a supermarket parking lot to keep them from broadcasting his thoughts to the world, and who now paced tensely, flipping the pages of a special Bible to keep demons away. Many of the patients reflected the vast range of subfrequencies known as thought insertion, hearing the voices of angels, demons, the dead, urging anything from suicideto the sacrifice of a baby they pronounced evil; or sometimes voices just keeping them company. It was a major problem in maintaining schizophrenics on medications. Without those inner companions, they got lonesome.
When she stepped out of her office into the crowd that had gathered, some of the faces turned away with quick shyness, while other gazes clung like unseen nets, without social grace or remove, the straight blank curiosity of children or primitives.
“I need,” a voice said. She turned to the man who stood shuffling in a slow dance of agitation: Raymond Coolidge, recently arrived from the streets of Oakland, late twenties, Psychosis Not Otherwise Specified, which in practice meant heroin addiction coupled with HIV dementia.
“Some
pussy.”
Raymond had the habit of declaring himself to whatever female staff or patients happened to be around when the urge struck him. His face was sweating and earnest, grayish skin stretched tight, leaning toward her at an odd angle as if his neck was broken. The thin fingers of his right hand ceaselessly moved up and down his thigh, squeezing his penis, which hung visibly inside his loose pajama pants.
“I need some pussy,” he said again, more firmly now, as if she could not help but agree. “Now, baby. You got to understand.” His flexing fingers left his thigh and hovered imploringly inthe air between them. She considered the textbook response: explaining to this psychotic man, who stood before her massaging his cock, that his behavior was inappropriate.
“If you touch anybody, Raymond, you’re going to Seclusion.”
His face turned morose and he shuffled off, hand returning to its work. He was not known to be assaultive, but she decided to recommend increasing his Haldol dosage. Each four-person dorm slept eight, with patients close enough to touch each other and many unable to defend themselves or fully understand what might be happening.
The far end of the ward’s I-shape was commanded by the Nurses’ Station, which stood glassed-in like a gun turret on a raised dais. Past that were ten identical concrete cells, eight feet
But the sense was inescapable that she was the one locked in a cell. The room was tiny, packed with books, paperwork, and files. The desk she kept clear, a last outpost of defense against the surrounding chaos. Her gaze moved across a shelf of videotapes on assault management and AIDS protection; a medication list, a reminder that most psychiatric treatment came in the form of tranquilization; her teaching schedule, with the world
assault
figuring again and again. On theward, she wore earth-toned clothing, pale lipstick, and no jewelry or scarf that could be grabbed.
She took out a compact, touched up her makeup, and paused with her hand on the doorknob. She could hear more patients in the hall now, word of her arrival having spread. Three-Psych had been built to house thirty, which meant in practice that the administration tried to hold it down to fifty. Most of the non-NGIs were public admissions from the community, comprising the full spectrum of mental illness. They gathered around her, and a part of her mind believed that this was the best healing she could give, just to be there.
She recognized most of the voices, not from what they said or how, but a peculiar quality beyond any ofthat, like vocal pheromones audible only to a tuned ear: Corinne, wrists and neck heavily scarred, who occasionally stripped naked and walked screaming down the hall; Lewis, who could get drunk on water and had to be restrained from bellying up to a toilet like a bar; Edward, who had ripped antennas off cars in a supermarket parking lot to keep them from broadcasting his thoughts to the world, and who now paced tensely, flipping the pages of a special Bible to keep demons away. Many of the patients reflected the vast range of subfrequencies known as thought insertion, hearing the voices of angels, demons, the dead, urging anything from suicideto the sacrifice of a baby they pronounced evil; or sometimes voices just keeping them company. It was a major problem in maintaining schizophrenics on medications. Without those inner companions, they got lonesome.
When she stepped out of her office into the crowd that had gathered, some of the faces turned away with quick shyness, while other gazes clung like unseen nets, without social grace or remove, the straight blank curiosity of children or primitives.
“I need,” a voice said. She turned to the man who stood shuffling in a slow dance of agitation: Raymond Coolidge, recently arrived from the streets of Oakland, late twenties, Psychosis Not Otherwise Specified, which in practice meant heroin addiction coupled with HIV dementia.
“Some
pussy.”
Raymond had the habit of declaring himself to whatever female staff or patients happened to be around when the urge struck him. His face was sweating and earnest, grayish skin stretched tight, leaning toward her at an odd angle as if his neck was broken. The thin fingers of his right hand ceaselessly moved up and down his thigh, squeezing his penis, which hung visibly inside his loose pajama pants.
“I need some pussy,” he said again, more firmly now, as if she could not help but agree. “Now, baby. You got to understand.” His flexing fingers left his thigh and hovered imploringly inthe air between them. She considered the textbook response: explaining to this psychotic man, who stood before her massaging his cock, that his behavior was inappropriate.
“If you touch anybody, Raymond, you’re going to Seclusion.”
His face turned morose and he shuffled off, hand returning to its work. He was not known to be assaultive, but she decided to recommend increasing his Haldol dosage. Each four-person dorm slept eight, with patients close enough to touch each other and many unable to defend themselves or fully understand what might be happening.
The far end of the ward’s I-shape was commanded by the Nurses’ Station, which stood glassed-in like a gun turret on a raised dais. Past that were ten identical concrete cells, eight feet
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