Get Well Soon

by Julie Halpern

  As we rounded the circle, the last person to introduce himself was Bobby. In a way he reminded me of Mara. He said that he was only twelve years old, but he was here because he got into a lot of fights with his brother. When Eugene asked him to elaborate, Bobby said, “I hurt him.” That reminded me of one time when Mara and I were wrestling. She started to pull my hair, I pulled hers back, and then she kicked me in the face. I had a black eye for weeks which showed up in my 7th-grade yearbook picture. Fighting with siblings is normal. Everyone here looked relatively normal to me or, at least, not crazy, which is more than I can say about myself. Nobody else cried at all. They probably think I’m a freak and should be locked up in a ward with Harold. I’m sure the socks and sandals didn’t help my case.

  TUESDAY AFT

  As I waited around in my room with nothing to do (I’m not bad enough to be punished somewhere, and I’m not good enough to be doing anything else), I decided to do some decorating. I’ve been saving the foil lids from my juices, and I used the sticky power of the wall covering to create a design on the wall. It looks kind of cool, and gives the wall a juicy fragrance. Until it molds, that is. Too bad I don’t have that hilarious ’N Sync poster that you and I fake autographed in grade school with “Anna, I’d like to be ’N Sync with you! Signed, Lance Bass.” That would spice this place up, although it would also mean I’d have to look at their deranged ’90s hairstyles.

  Future Cars from the Past Update: Either whoever owns the cars has moved them while I wasn’t looking and then put them back in the same spots, or the cars have not moved. Mysterioso.

  PRE-DINNER

  Dear Tracy,

  By some amazing stroke of luck, I have skipped Level I and am now a rockin’ Level 2 girl. Apparently all of my crying during Group gave me a butt-load of bonus points, so now I can go down to the cafeteria to eat! Which means two things: I may find something I want to eat besides Cap’n Crunch, and I hopefully get to see Justin! I’ll report back after dinner.

  POST-DINNER

  Dinner was kind of cool. Since Jolene was released today and Tanya was on Restriction, I was the only girl on the floor allowed to go down to the cafeteria. Normally, boys and girls are taken on two separate elevator trips to prevent touch-age, but lazy-ass Eugene decided I wasn’t trouble enough for a second trip.

  There I was in an elevator full of boys, and for the first time in my life I felt kind of attractive (even with the socks and sandals). When Eugene wasn’t looking, boys would actually sneak smiles at me! Victor, the reformed drug dealer, was standing next to me, and I swear he kept touching his arm to mine on purpose. Kinky.

  Once we got into the cafeteria we were allowed to talk to each other. It made everyone else seem a lot more normal, so hopefully I seemed like more than a pale, dumpy, crying girl with dark circles under her eyes wearing flip-flops with socks. The cafeteria was just like any cafeteria, except that instead of jocks at one table and Goths at another, there were drooly old people at one table and people talking to themselves at another. They must be on other floors, thank god, because they were creepy. Is that mean? I guess even in the world of crazy there’s a coolness scale.

  Since Matt O. has been here the longest and we are in Group together, I asked him what was good in the cafeteria. “Nothing,” he answered with a small smile. It was a predictable TV show moment. Justin was a couple of people behind me in line, and I glanced back at him a few times while everyone talked. He was pretty quiet, but he smiled enough that he looked like a friendly guy. He ordered a hamburger, Tater Tots, and red Jell-O. (I have to question the Jell-O choice. It seems so hospital cliché. The only time I’ll ever eat Jell-O is if I have puked and I can’t stomach anything else.) I had a little nervous stomachache, but I didn’t want to seem odd, so I ordered a cheeseburger and Tater Tots and took a fruit punch that was in the same type of tin-lid cup as the OJ. Then I was worried that I looked like a pig for ordering so much food. Like they were thinking, “No wonder she looks like that. Look at all that shit she eats.” But I couldn’t eat most of it anyway. I usually do most of my eating alone. Unless I’m put back in my room again, that doesn’t seem like it’s going to be an option here.

  Since there were less than ten of us (due to all of the people that remained upstairs on Restriction), we all sat at the same table. It was the kind that has individual circle seats attached, ensuring that everyone has their own equal amount of butt space. The cafeteria was far better lit than our floor upstairs. It made me feel more awake than I’ve felt in days. I was getting tired of being so mopey. Those guys were talking to me and laughing, and they didn’t make any references to all of my crying and carrying on from the past few days. It was almost like our school lunches of yore.

  Bobby sat on one side of me, and Victor sat on the other side. Matt O. was across from me, with Justin on his left side. They seemed to be friends, despite the nasty “pencil incident.” They included me in their conversation, so I felt brave enough to ask, “Why do they call you ‘Matt O.’?”

  “Matt’s such a common name that every few weeks or so a new Matt comes in. It gets too confusing, so they added the O. from my last name. They never bother to take it away when there isn’t another Matt here.”

  “Hmmm. Sounds kind of rock star-ish.” I smiled.

  “Yeah, like Madonna,” Bobby chided.

  Everyone laughed like this was the funniest thing in the world. Bobby’s so cute and young, like a cuddly team mascot.

  There weren’t any dinner convos about the real world; we mostly talked about stuff going on inside the hospital. Kind of weird. They did cue me in on a bunch of rules and tricks of the mental hospital trade. Following is a selection of the weirdest:

  You must not drop your pillow in Relaxation. Set it down gently, lie on the floor, and try to be lulled into boredom by the soothing sounds of James Taylor.

  The easiest way to get points is to give an Appreciation at Community. That way you don’t get anyone mad, and you make yourself look good by saying nice things.

  Smiling will get you into trouble because an adult will think you are either planning something against them or making fun of them. Hence, no one ever smiled back at me.

  Never cross your arms because it may be construed as a confrontation or gang-related. (I’m one of the founders of the Socks and Sandals Gang. Watch your back!)

  We go to “school” for a couple of hours each day. This is the best time to “mess around” because there are only two teachers and there are lots of little rooms that the kids are spread out in. I’m not sure if “mess around” meant goof off or something else. Seeing as I was the only female at the table, I didn’t want to ask.

  The two most important rules, according to the boys:

  No relationships. Meaning, no one is allowed to become boyfriend and girlfriend, or boyfriend and boyfriend, or girlfriend and girlfriend. This is because we are supposed to be working on our problems, not making new ones.

  No touching. At all. No shaking hands, no touching shoulders, not even touching arms in the elevator.

  At the dinner table, everyone looked stiff as they sat next to each other. I think it’s pretty cold not to be able to feel the warmth and texture of another person’s skin, even if it’s not in a sexual way. Like when Mara leans her head on my shoulder on long car trips. I can’t imagine what it must be like for Matt O., who hasn’t had any human contact for six months. Trace, try walking down the halls at school without touching someone for an entire day. It makes you walk differently, doesn’t it? I feel stiffer already.

  They also told me to, from now on, refer to Lakeland as Lake Shit. Sounds about right.

  Day 6

  Wednesday, Day 6

  Tracy!

  It’s a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day! (Gross! I hate that song!) First thing in the morning, a worker came into my room with a bag of clothes that my parents dropped off last night (I will not yet get into how disturbing it is that my parents were here last night and didn’t visit me), a
nd I got my Chucks back! Not to mention my favorite soft jeans with the red stitching around the bottoms and my black Ramones T-shirt with the bleach stains from when we tried to highlight your hair. I put the shirt on, and now I can at least feel a little more like myself.

  Before I tell you about the even cooler thing that happened at Community, I am going to rant about my parents. Prepare yourself.

  WHAT THE HELL?! How could they be here and not come see me? How could they come and bring me more clothes, meaning they’re not going to get me out of here anytime soon, and not talk to me about it? I feel so betrayed. Like they trusted all of these adults who don’t know anything about me and who, of course, think I’m crazy because they saw me screaming and crying and because I said I wanted to kill myself (who doesn’t think that from time to time?), and they didn’t even bother to talk to me about how I haven’t been eating and how my psychiatrist is a dickhead and how I got into trouble for dropping my stupid pillow! How is it that they manage to go to work every day? The part that gets me is that my dad can go to work and be with all of his students’ bullshit, but he can’t handle dealing with mine? And what is my mom telling her customers at the knit shop? I know they gossip and brag about their kids all of the time. Is she pretending nothing’s wrong, as usual? I almost don’t want to go home now, so I don’t have to be with those traitors. But I still want to ’cause I miss you. Go teepee my parents’ house tonight, will you?

  Now for the cool news: Matt O. stood up at Appreciation and said, “Anna, I appreciated eating dinner with you last night.” Someone enjoyed my presence! Albeit, not the right someone, but I felt like I kind of fit in. I thought about standing up and saying, “Justin, I appreciate your hotness,” but I didn’t think I’d get any points for that. I also noticed Justin looking at my Chucks possibly thinking that we were soul mates for wearing the same shoes. (Or should I say sole mates?) If only I had my retired Converse collection here. I could be irresistible in my green Chucks with the duct-taped bottoms. Although, if I recall, they do have a distinctive scent. Or, should I say, distinktive. I’m so punny today!

  LATER IN THE DAY

  Guess what—I’ve got a roommate! She calls herself Sandy. (Ever notice how in other languages you introduce yourself by saying “I call myself … ,” like “Me llamo Lupita”? I am bringing that into the English language. I call myself “Bored Person.”) Sandy is from Joliet (the city on the South Side with both a casino and a jail!). She’s teeny but has huge, blond, fried hair. Already she has plastered twenty-six pictures of her buff boyfriend up around her desk. She hasn’t said much, but it doesn’t strike me as bitchiness as much as sadness and confusion.

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s ’cause I don’t get along with my parents,” she tried to explain to me how she got here. “I ran away to live with my grandparents, my parents didn’t like it, came to get me, and now I’m here.”

  It seems more and more evident that parents don’t know what to do with their kids, so they just pawn them off on morons who don’t know anything about their kids and get paid a lot of money to enforce lame rules like no pillow dropping. I wonder if my parents checked this place out before they brought me, or if they just trusted that this place would “fix” me and they could feel OK about themselves because I’m being “taken care of,” when really they should feel like shit for abandoning me.

  Sandy was smart enough not to tell the staff that she was contemplating suicide, so she’s wearing her own clothes. Unfortunately, she seems to be stuck in some sort of small-town ’90s time warp of big hair, stone-washed overalls, and white leather Keds. At least she hasn’t given me the finger.

  After briefing Sandy on the rules, I went down to dinner. Sandy is only a Level I; therefore she ate in our room.

  I am starting to look forward to the elevator rides. There’s something very forbidden about touching someone’s arm “by accident” when there’s no touching allowed. Unfortunately, I am always next to Eugene on one side and Victor on the other. So far no Justin contact, but I’ll be sure to keep you up to date on any pertinent arm-touching occurrences in the future.

  Dinner was once again kind of fun, in the “I’m-still-trapped-ina-mental-hospital-and-eating-shitty-food-with-a-bunch-of-guys-I-barely-know” kind of way.

  Justin complimented my Ramones shirt in the food line. “You like the Ramones?” I asked, too eagerly.

  “Well, I used to.” It was his turn to order food and then my turn, and by the time we got to the table that conversation was gone, and the buzz was all about Sandy.

  “Is she hot?” drooled Phil/Shaggy. He’s sick. He looks like a hyena, all desperate and greedy. He even laughs like a hyena! I can picture him doing that little prancy pacing that hyenas do while they wait to feed off of someone else’s kill. I told him that Sandy was cute and that she has a very large boyfriend back home.

  “Well, he ain’t here.”

  “As if that would make your chances any better,” I retorted. I wish I could have thought of something spunkier, but I’ve never been one for classic comeback lines. Still, I got some laughs. Even my not-so-funny lines are funny here in Bummerville.

  I noticed that Justin was eating with his left hand. Another lefty? I must have died and gone to beautiful left-handed boy heaven (if that heaven has fluorescent lighting and smells like burnt mac and cheese).

  SNACK TIME!

  We get Snack Time every night before Relaxation. They bring raisins or apples or granola bars and one of those juice cups around on a cart, and we have snacks in our room. How quaint. If Sparkle is here during Snack Time, she slips me and Sandy an extra box of raisins. Tonight she told me I looked good. “You looked pretty messed up when you first got here, but now you look nice. I like your hair down.”

  In suckier news, I got my period tonight. I have to use hospital pads because SOMEONE forgot to pack them (OK, that someone is me, but my mom could have thought about that in my fragile state). It makes me think of when I first got my period, and my mom had to help me buy pads. We went to Cub Foods, and she let me pick out the “Teen Style” ones. Why my pads had to be stylish, I don’t know. Then we celebrated with DQ. I wish she could bring me some teen pads and DQ now, because these pads suck! Not only do they not have wings, but they’re so thick it’s like wearing a couch in my underwear. Can you imagine how nasty it would look if I was wearing one of these with a pair of bike shorts (not that I’d even wear bike shorts)? I wonder if people can tell I have a giant pad on. It feels like I’m walking all widely, like a cowboy approaching a showdown. I hope Justin doesn’t notice. Pardner.

  Speaking of Justin, Sandy is in Justin’s Group. I’m dying to ask her about him—what does he talk about? Who does he sit next to? Has he confessed his undying love for anyone (wink wink)? But I haven’t said anything yet. I don’t want her to think I’m some crushing dork. Not this soon in our friendship anyway.

  Day 7

  Thursday, Day 7

  Tracy,

  Well, a week later and I still haven’t actually mailed you a letter. I’m kind of afraid what they’ll do at the front desk if I ask for an envelope and a stamp. Maybe they’ll take my bra back or make me sleep in the hall again. I never know here.

  Today I get the exciting addition of school to my schedule. I haven’t been down there yet. (“School” is on a lower floor of the building. According to the elevator buttons, we live on the third floor, and there are four floors total.) Yesterday the hospital staff made me sit in my room during school hours. I did some reading from a random English textbook the staff found left over from a past inmate. I really loved the story “Kaleidoscope” by Ray Bradbury, where all of these people are floating around in space because their spaceship blew up. They still had radio contact with each other, but they knew that sooner or later they would all drift apart and lose communication. Some went crazy, others berated each other, and then in the end they all died as meteors sliced their limbs off or they burnt up in the Earth’s orbit. I wonder which was the bes
t way to die.

  I have cramps. I wish I had my ugly brown cardigan here. What I wouldn’t give to snuggle up in some brown acrylic. In other clothes news, my pants are definitely looser. I still don’t have much of an appetite. That would be so amazing if I was actually losing weight without trying.

  They’re coming to get me to go to school now. More later …

  AFTER SCHOOL

  Whoa! I don’t know where to start! School is cool! (Don’t be a fool!) It’s like this little maze of classrooms, so we get left alone a lot when one of the “teachers” (I don’t think they’re actual teachers, since they don’t actually teach us anything. And we get to call them by their first names) has to go help someone else. I was in the same room as Matt O. and Colby, and across the hall I could see Justin, Tanya, and this short buff guy named Luther from Group A. My teachers at real school finally sent my homework, and—oh joy!—I get to read The Crucible. How sad that someone could write a play about witchcraft and make it so boring. Being in a school set me on edge again. The classrooms weren’t full, but they were quiet. I started bouncing my knee up and down, which is what I do when the stomachaches start. I was about to ask the teacher if I could go to the bathroom when she stepped out of the room. The instant she walked away, Tanya and Luther started making out! It was totally weird and kind of gross, but also funny. I never would have thought of the two of them together, but I guess it’s pretty slim pickings here. The whole time Phil/Shaggy was simultaneously peering into the hallway to see if the teacher was coming back and leering at the young lovers. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Justin, who looked so cool and studious sitting next to them and writing in his notebook. Then he looked up at me, and I totally wanted to turn away but couldn’t because he looked so good. Then he smiled at me, and I nearly let out a moan. Phil broke the moment by zooming back to his desk. Tanya and Luther wiped their forearms over their mouths and went back to their homework. When the teacher got back, it was as if nothing happened.