That’s Dope for the Wicked

Stop Addiction before it begins. In this entry, it’s not about true “dope.” Read and learn.

At the State Hospital, they designate a building’s wing for sex offenders and other comparative crime critters. E2 wing controlled the flow of these gentleman by only allowing them to smoke outside the E building, and not permitting the scoundrels to go cross the grounds to the Hospital store to purchase things like coffee (instant) without the male staff present. Plus, it took each guy months to even attain a level that allowed them outside.

Meds, behaviour on E2 ward, and regular psych evals all pointed the way of the con in or out of the building. Fresh air and freedom, by the time 6-8 months rolled around, got the nuts high by themselves.

Yet, my friend saw money to be made, and she made a tight bundle.

Off of…yes, instant coffee. Folgers, the real deal. She bought the jars, like two or three at a time, and purchased baggies to put an allotted amount of instant coffee into them. I believe she put about the equivalent of 4 small cups of coffee in each baggie. I observed and participated to speed the process along.

We ventured over to the E building during our free-time outside. We practically ran, because the E building’s free-time only slightly overlapped with ours for our protection. She sold Folgers instant coffee grounds in baggies for a dollar a piece. The E building residents bought it all. That opportunity she provided for them several times, and no one got caught or gave up where the “dope” supply originated.

She made almost seventy dollars for the runs over to E building. That counted out  the cost of the jars of coffee and the baggies.

At a State Hospital, with a little initiative, a profit awaited.

I <3 you Barb, Crazy and All

Yes, you loved to be you.

Dear reader, I love the unlovable, because if I look close enough I see the holy glimmer of goodness even in the sickest of men. This dear woman I met at the State Hospital, Barb, an older schizophrenic spitfire, I loved with all of my imperfect heart. God, she used to yell “Yoohoo,” while she took a shower, or when all of us animals fed ourselves, or just walking around the halls or the grounds.

Sometimes, she scared the shit out of me, because do you know anyone who is accustomed to a woman sneaking up behind them while she screamed so fiercely, as if she just came after copulation with a zen monk? I loved her too, because another side of her whispered, so that in order to hear her she required me to approach her. Oh, her ramblings were tragic, but in a hilarious recourse.

When I worked at the library with her, the librarian fired her, because she shouted her  “Yoohoo’s,” randomly while she “worked.” Barb, however, continued to come to work…she ended up with free time to smoke, and scream with a choir of discordant angels.

One day, a day I received a bit of satisfaction from hearty laughter with my peers, I wore a long flowing sundress. The color theme ranged from bright greens to light browns. Barb fell over her flip-flopped feet to compliment my garb all day long. I undressed to get in my jammies, and without a concrete reason I walked over to Barb’s room where she stood by her dresser whistling. I interrupted, and gifted her the dress. I turned and I walked back to my room. She wore the dress for two or three days.

Thin, with longish gray hair, and nice skin–Barb reminded me of a Goddess.  A vision for one of George MacDonald’s short stories. The writing world regards him as the “Father of Fantasy.” I suggest Phantases and Lilith. Adult fantasy fiction about the journey’s of terrific and fabulous creatures. Barb, in my eyes, floated down the hallway, in a fabulous creature sort of way. I loved her.

The doctors placed me on a discharge ward not long after I gave Barb the dress. At 49, she died due to complications of the medicine she took from the age of 16. Her kidneys were spent, as well as, other organs. I wondered what happened to the dress I gave to her.

Her son, in the military, attended her funeral along with the people who lived with her the longest. She gave me a piece wood on which  her son carved a ram.  I knew she adored her son. I still have that memento, and if I ever happen to meet her son I will gladly return the ram to him.

With one last “Yoohoo” for my friend, and with love still preserved inside my heart for dear Barb,I end this story.

Jessica Klein

Yes I Did

A cool fact ironic in nature that happened at the State Mental Hospital:

Well, when I sunk to a level 1 from a level 7 I experienced too much time in my idle brain. At a level 7, the hospital permits the patient to walk around the grounds, and a level one has no privileges except for a smoke break four times during the day (two cigarettes only during a smoke break.) My father, always ready to assist me in positive and negative situations, offered to purchase a few books off of Amazon. It’s not like a list of books I wanted to read I saved up for just that moment. So I pondered this idea for a week- tops. I delivered a list to my Dad who promptly ordered the books from Amazon. For the next 18 months books, books, books, kept finding me through my lists and my father’s credit card. He deserved incentives from Amazon or he should own stock in the company.

Anyway, a movie I never saw, but a book I fell in love with as I devoured page after page like a starved animal, I read in two days.  The season of winter always affects State Hospital inhabitants badly. Too cold to hang outside, we ended up cooped inside this terrible looking building with its muted colors and institutionally, tiled floors. I lived in a room with 5 other women. Each bed, the “decorators,” partitioned in order to allow the woman some privacy. Unfortunately, the screamers and the mute shared the same room. I slept in the bed closest to the window, and made a cordial acquaintance with the girl across from me. A girl yes, lived 19 years on this planet, and ended up in a shitty psych ward. I knew the only person who might save her ass happened to be herself. But…that’s another story.

Thank God, she loved to read also, so we played together (Oh yes that’s interesting too) and read the books my dad sent or brought me. One book my dad slipped into my growing collection I never knew existed. In my small and naive mind, I believed it to live only on the screen. Hint: Jack Nicholson starred in it. So I began to read Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” It never occurred to me that to read this book in the setting I currently lived probably made a few of the nurses and techs laugh like hell. It meant  nothing to me, Ken hooked me from the first word. I imagined me, but as the heroine who frustrated the staff and stirred up the unruly patients with my outrageous personality and my sardonic sense of humor. I laughed and hee-hawed with the entire cast.

I cried when the Indian “helped” his friend, but I flooded with goose-bumps when he left, and never turned back to say good-bye. Once in my lifetime, after the State Hospital, I received ECT, or Electroconvulsive  therapy, so when I recollected the reason for the Indian’s favor to his friend I totally understood. This shock therapy caused cramps in every muscle of my body. A rhumetologist diagnosed me 8 years ago with fibromyalgia, but ECT hurt 100 times worse than my worst day with fibromyalgia.

7 years after my run at the State, I rented the movie. In most cases, I read the book and skip the movie, but in this situation I feel grateful to have read the book, and then watched the movie, on so many different levels.

Read it if your time schedule allows it. It’s an inspiration.

Jessica Klein