An Idiot in Love (a laugh out loud comedy)

by David Jester

  “No.” I paused, lifted my head. ‘Yes,’ I amended. ‘I took Ecstasy once.’

  She nodded as if she understood. ‘To help you feel and connect, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said meekly.

  I was at a friend’s house, I had a headache and I thought it was aspirin, but I liked her answer better.

  ‘Are you a heavy drinker?’

  ‘Only when the pain gets too much to bare.’ I was on a roll.

  ‘Do you have any compulsive habits? Gambling? Sex?’

  I didn’t want to push it. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you hear any strange voices, or noises?’

  I opened my mouth to repeat the negative, but quickly decided against it. ‘Yes,’ I said confidently.

  She wrote this down, I was onto something.

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘I--I--I--’ I stammered, hoping a spark would ignite in my mind. It didn’t. ‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ I finished.

  ‘Do they say helpful things?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘No, wait,’ I stopped her before her flurrying pencil scribbled more rapid words. ‘That was a lie.’

  She paused, raised her eyebrows. ‘You don’t hear voices?’

  ‘Not at all.’ I shifted in my seat again, the sheet nearly fell, I clasped it and pulled it tightly. ‘I just wanted to sound more interesting.’

  She placed the pen down carefully. ‘I see.’

  ‘Yes, you say that a lot.’

  She smiled and shook the comment off. ‘Do you often find yourself lying to make you sound more interesting Mr McCall?’

  I shrugged a weak yes.

  ‘Maybe you think more people will pay attention to you if you lie?’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, feigning a mask of depression.

  She seemed delighted with this. She picked the pencil back up and began to jot more words down. It took her awhile, halfway through she glanced at her watch and then hurriedly finished the rest, turning the paper, jotting something on the flip-side and then stashing it away in a sparsely occupied folder.

  She greeted me with a smile when she had finished.

  ‘Is that it?’ I wondered.

  ‘For now.’

  ‘Does that mean I have to see you again?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  A little voice inside me began screaming in jubilation.

  ‘Can I go home now then?’

  She was putting the folders back in the bag, but she stopped. She looked at me sympathetically. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘They’re keeping me in here?’

  ‘Not here, no,’ she lowered the bag again, caught my stare in hers, ‘I think it would be best for everyone if you came with me.’

  I loved that idea; I was already standing up, moving forward to join her. ‘Where?’ I asked happily.

  ‘The hospital. St Peter’s.’

  I sat down sharply, suddenly glum. I knew that hospital, I had heard stories, everyone had. ‘The loony bin?’

  St Peter’s psychiatric hospital was on the outskirts of town; it sat imposingly on the top of a steady incline and could be seen for a mile in every direction. It was shut off from the world and was completely self-contained.

  Necessities could be bought at a small local shop, owned and run by a family that had catered for the hospital for over fifty years. They sold everything from newspapers and magazines to sweets and bread.

  There was small onsite cafe attached to the back end of one of the wards, it was run by a small number of select patients and it catered for visitors and those patients with an equally loose rein as those cooking the food and operating the till.

  For those who didn’t like the idea of the inmates running the kitchen, there was a small, sleek, newly built restaurant just over the road, where a sane chef served expensive meals to customers who weren’t due back on the wards after they paid their cheque.

  The hospital was also staffed with its own GP and dentist, it had its own team of security guards who monitored the grounds and controlled any aggressive patients, and it had more recreational rooms and activities than the average town.

  As a child I had heard many horror stories about the complex, and had stayed well away. It was the stuff of nightmares, campfire stories and games of truth-and-dare which I had never fully committed to. As a teenager I had taken a school trip to the onsite facilities to learn more about the history and sociology of the hospital. I had retained a sense of childhood apprehension and had been somewhat disappointed to discover that not only was the hospital not run by a team of sick, sadistic doctors who tortured murderous, insane patients on a daily basis, the entire complex was actually a fresh and enjoyable place. I even mentioned that I could imagine myself living there, and, as it turned out, as an adult it became my temporary home.

  The police were polite enough to take me home to pack a few belongings and put some clothes on. Then they took me to the psychiatric hospital and left me in the care of a friendly male nurse who, when showing me to my room, gave me a happy soliloquy about the hospital.

  I had never knowingly encountered anyone suffering from a mental illness, therefore visions of the mentally ill come from television and films. I imaged these to be false and prepared myself to ignore any preconceptions they may bring, but Donald came right out of a Hollywood script.

  He was standing in the centre of the room when I saw him; I froze in the doorway, surprised. He grinned at me with the wide-eyed stare of a stimulated drug user. Both of his hands were pressed to his face, the palm of his left firmly on his cheek, the fingers of his right in his mouth, rapidly being chewed.

  He was dressed in a blue dressing gown which trailed the floor around his feet; it was open down the centre and exposed loose fitting pyjamas. His penis was also hanging out of the fly in his pyjama bottoms. He either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care.

  ‘Donald,’ the friendly nurse spoke quietly. Donald's attention darted across to him. ‘This is your new roommate,’ He laid a hand gently on my back, gesturing me inside.

  I took a step forward and offered my new roommate a meek smile. ‘Hello Donald,’ I replicated the nurse’s soft tone, wondering if anything higher would spark a fit of aggression.

  I held out my hand, he didn’t take it.

  His eyes bore into mine, he didn't blink. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, lifting his fingers temporarily out of his mouth; a thin line of drool trickled down his chin and soaked into the collar of his dressing gown.

  ‘Kie--’ I tried to reply, but the nurse startled me.

  ‘Donald!’ he said abruptly and sharply. ‘If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times: Put. Your. Penis. Away.’

  Donald looked down and grinned at the dangling member. He was well endowed, no doubt part of the reason for his cheeky smile, or his insistence on letting it hang out.

  ‘Keith. Maybe Keith. Likes it. I thought,’ He replied, his words were quick and stuttered. ‘Keith. I thought Keith would want to see. Keith may not have a big one. Keith’s may be small. Mrs Embleton says I have a big one. I should be proud.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean you should wave it around for everyone to see.’

  He reached down and grabbed it like a wild snake. ‘Keith. Want to see?’ he said, pointing it at me like a curious question mark.

  It took me a few seconds to realise he was talking about me, and a few more to reply. ‘I--I--’ I realised I was staring, wondering why he seemed so intent on twisting it like it wasn’t attached to his body and wasn’t an incredibly sensitive organ. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said, feeling like a parent praising a child's scribble; glad I didn’t have to pin it to the fridge. ‘Very nice.’

  ‘He’s seen it, now put it away.’

  He tucked it into his pants like his was stuffing a scrap of paper into his pocket. Then he beamed at me. ‘Keith. Show Keith’s penis now.’

  I didn’t show Donald my dick. Nor did I hang around so he could tr
y to talk me into it.

  I went on a walk, taking a small tour of the hospital. After a few laps around the sterilised hallways, passing a number of dole faced patients who flashed meek smiles, and equally sour faced staff that didn’t, I decided that the place wasn’t so bad. It had everything I could possibly need and more. There were snooker tables, dartboards, a fully stocked library, a television room, a computer room, and outside, in the expansive grounds, I was informed there was everything from tennis courts and a football pitch to a trampoline.

  I was going to be well looked after by qualified nurses. I would be fed three square meals a day and I had a comfortable bed to sleep in. It would be like a holiday, and one which didn’t cost me a penny.

  I contemplated this whilst I tucked into the final meal of the day. They had served up roast beef with all the trimmings; I ate it like the starving man I was. It felt so good to finally get some food into my stomach and I instantly felt better, the remnants of the hangover and the atrocities that had followed, dissipated.

  I spent the evening talking to two young men in the television room. They seemed normal enough, certainly more so than Donald, and I got on well with them. I went to bed that night delighted that I had made two new friends on this exciting new holiday of mine.

  That night things soured slightly with Donald. He talked at me for three hours straight. He mentioned my name, or what he thought was my name, over three hundred and sixty times in the first hour, after that I stopped counting and tried to turn my brain off. That night I dreamt that a man called Keith was attacking me with a six foot penis.

  The following day I showered in the communal area, changed into a new pair of clothes and went to my second appointment with the beautiful Doctor Peterson.

  ‘I believe you may be suffering from a case of auto-phobia,’ Doctor Peterson said plainly. She raised her eyebrows questionably, gauging my reaction and understanding.

  ‘Fear of cars?’

  ‘Fear of yourself.’

  ‘Oh,’ I nodded slowly, hoping to give the images some time to sink in, ‘you mean like mirrors and stuff?’

  ‘It’s more of a personal thing,’ she explained, shifting in her seat and looking at her lap momentarily, hiding a grin with the tilt of her head. ‘A fear of loneliness, of abandonment. I think that is why you refused to let Ally go after your dates, why you went to the extremes to win her back when you thought you had lost her.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  It did make sense and I was amazed and a little impressed by her reasoning. It was completely wrong of course, but it was impressive nonetheless.

  She looked happy with herself; I was happy for her.

  ‘I think -- inadvertently admittedly -- I may have done the best thing for you by bringing you here. I think this place can do you a world of good.’

  I was a little less impressed now. I had only been here one night and already, after the penis dream, I was feeling far more insane than when I had entered. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This place is full of life! There’s no place to hide in here, no place to run!’

  She was intelligent and good at her job, but she wasn’t very reassuring.

  ‘There is no cure per se,’ she continued. ‘And we can’t really keep you here for more than a week. I don’t think you pose a threat to yourself or anyone else.’ She paused and tapped her pencil tip against her teeth; the vibrant white enamel gleamed underneath her dark red lipstick. ‘As for the stalking incident, well, I’m sure that was a one-off. You have no history, you didn’t intend to do harm and I don’t think you would do it again, am I right?’

  I thought about this, saying no might have given me an extended stay, but probably not. I reasoned that I didn’t need it anyway; a week was probably long enough for me to work up the courage to ask the doctor out. If I did it at the end of the week I would also be signing off as her patient, thus ridding her of any moral or legal doctor/patient objections she had.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Excellent, I thought so. So why don’t you treat this like a holiday Mr McCall.’

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘Go out there and enjoy yourself, kick back. We’ll keep an eye on you and I’ll be here if you need me. But the best thing for you would be to forget about your troubles, forget about Ally,’ she wiped a hand across the air as if to wipe Ally out of existence. ‘Go and relax! Try not to think about your life back home, about anything that has gone on in the past or about anything that might happen in the future. This is a holiday of complete relaxation, funded by the taxpayer. So I order you to go out there and relax!’

  I smiled and stood up. I offered her my hand and she shook it merrily, her face still alight with joy that she hoped would transfer to me. It did. ‘Thank you Doctor.’

  She winked at me. ‘You’re welcome,’ she was getting carried away with herself now, I felt a little embarrassed for her but retained the smile and turned to leave.

  ‘Oh, and Mr McCall?’ she called.

  I turned around, still smiling. She was scribbling something down on a prescription pad. I sensed what was coming and really hoped I was wrong, I didn’t want her to ruin a successful moment and devalue in my eyes.

  She ripped off the top sheet and handed it to me.

  ‘To be taken every day,’ she stated tritely.

  I looked at the pad, unable to hide my disappointment. The word Relaxation was scribbled in messy doctor’s script; it was even properly signed and came with a suggested dosage.

  And it had been going so well, I told myself.

  I sighed inwardly and forced the smile back to my face.

  ‘Thank you Doc,’ I said, holding it up. ‘Will do.’

  In the cold light of a sober day, after an awkward meeting with a woman I realised wasn’t perfection personified, I realised that getting myself locked up in a psychiatric hospital probably wasn’t the best thing to do.

  Like most psychiatrists Doctor Peterson had found the perfect solution to a problem that didn’t actually exist, but in a way she was right. I did feel like I needed a break, not because my life had been particularly stressful -- I hadn’t worked in over two years and had spent my spare time chatting up women with Matthew -- but because I needed a holiday in general. The last time I had been on anything that qualified as a holiday was the trip to the caravan site when I was fifteen.

  Stuck in a state of ambivalence I waddled back to my room and found that Donald was awake and waiting for me again.

  ‘Lovely,’ I told him as I brushed by. ‘But I saw it yesterday.’

  ‘Keith. Where’s Keith’s?’

  ‘You wouldn’t like mine,’ I ducked and slid into the bottom bunk, it had been disconcerting having Donald on top of me all night and may have contributed to my threatening penis dreams, but there was also a degree of comfort to it. The walls and ceilings were sterilised, dull and spacious, it was good to have them shrouded in darkness or blocked from view.

  ‘Keith. What’s wrong with Keith’s?’

  I sighed deeply. Donald had turned towards me now, and, as the monstrous member swung from side to side a mere four inches from my face, I realised why lying down on the bottom bunk wasn’t the best place to be right now.

  I sat up with a start, wiped imagined penis juice from my face and slid out from under the bed.

  ‘Keith, penis now? Donald wants to see Keith’s penis.’

  I left the room without replying, not quite sure how I was supposed to reply to such a statement.

  A short walk down an empty corridor brought me to a small door that flushed with bright light from a clear day. I pushed it open, expecting it to be locked like a tempting mirage in the dessert. It wasn’t.

  The door led out into the grounds. The day was warm, bright and fresh.

  The outside area was fenced off, but the fence was a few hundred metres ahead and stretched around an expanse of grass, concrete, gardens and recreational areas.

  Within minutes I wa
s smiling again and enjoying a walk in and around a garden. The flowers were all in bloom. The hedges neatly trimmed and well-manicured. The lawn crisp. The gravel chips that wove paths between flower beds and patches of grass were neatly confined within cylindrical wooden borders.

  At the end of the path, around the corner from a bloom of wild poppies, I stepped onto an island of the gravel. The cylindrical lattice wrapped a spherical border all around. Flowers sprung up behind it, gravel sat patiently before it.

  A two seater chair rested at the nearest end of the gravel island, sitting in the shade of a tall tree. A young woman, about the same age as me, sat on its centre, she was smiling at me; she had a warm and reassuring smile.

  I walked over to her, drawn by her beauty and kind features. She had jet black hair which flowed behind her head and disappeared into the shade. Her bright face was alive with a fresh smile, which I gladly returned.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Hiya.’

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets. She moved aside on the chair and gestured for me to sit, I did. There was a foot or two between us, but I could sense her warmth and smell her perfume.

  I sat in silence for a while, contemplating the peace and beauty of the little garden paradise. Birds sang in the distance; insects busied themselves; patients squabbled far off; but here, away from the hospital and tucked neatly in a this man made Eden, it felt like perfect silence.

  ‘This place is lovely,’ I said after a while.

  ‘It is isn’t it?’ she replied.

  I turned to look at her and caught her eye, she smiled back. At that point I would have usually looked away in awkward shyness, but I felt comfortable, at ease. The garden had such a calming effect on me.

  It was also possibly that they were poisoning my tea with sedatives, but I didn’t entertain that idea for long. They didn’t think anything was wrong with me, and a sedate man might have not run out on Donald and his repetitive ramblings.

  Why Keith anyway? I thought to myself. And why so much? So many times. Keith. Keith. Keith. Keith. Keith.

  The woman turned to me, a pleasant smile still plastered on her pretty face. ‘What’s your name?’