Thirteen West

by Jane Toombs

  Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Dr. Jacobs turn back toward the desk. Barry. She doubted that he got to call the superintendent Lionel.

  "Ever work in a psych hospital?" Ms Reynolds asked when they were walking along the corridor together.

  Sally shook her head.

  "You're being thrown in to sink or swim then. Hey, don't look so scared—it's all right. Old Nellie's bark is worse than his bite. Or so they say."

  Nellie? It took Sally a moment or two to make the connection. Lionel E. Fredericks—Nellie. She smiled.

  "That's better," Ms Reynolds said. "My name's Alma—you can call me that except on duty. Rules. Like the damn caps. What's your first name?"

  "Everyone calls me Sally. I've had all my psych theory, but I know it won't be the same working with actual people who are mentally ill. I'll try to—"

  "I know you'll try, Sally. Don't worry so much about it. Thirteen West is so well staffed compared to the other wards that your tour here should be a breeze. Maybe you'll even learn something." She smiled.

  Alma Reynolds was really pretty, Sally thought. Sexy, too. She wished she had a better figure in spite of what her militant feminist friends said about the undesirability of being a male sex object. Alma filled out her uniform in a way that would certainly make men notice her. What was wrong with that? Or with the men noticing, for that matter? Maybe if she'd looked more like Alma she wouldn't have…

  No, don't start on the past. It's gone. Never again. "Is Dr. Fredericks always like that?" she asked, wishing she had the nerve to call him Nellie.

  "No. Sometimes he's worse. But he's a good superintendent. We hear Calafia is the best run hospital in the state system.

  "I didn't realize psychiatrists would ever—well, pick on anyone."

  Alma shrugged. "They're people, too, after all. Being a psychiatrist doesn't make you automatically nice."

  "I've met some weird ones, believe me," a woman's voice said from Sally's right and she turned to see the LVN—what was her name? Young? She wasn't, very.

  Peering over half-glasses, Ms Young moved closer. "I think it takes a weirdo to get interested in this business in the first place." She waved a hand about.

  "Including present company?" Alma asked.

  "Oh, well, I meant the doctors." The woman fingered a name pin that said she was Janet Young, LVN.

  "What did Dr. Fredericks mean about you being a PT II now?" Sally asked her.

  Janet gave her a huffy look. "I'm still an LVN, I can wear my pin if I want to."

  "PT is a state designation," Alma told Sally. "II is Ms Young's level as far as the state is concerned. PTs and LVNs have about equivalent training."

  "That's what you think," Janet said.

  Alma raised her eyebrows. "The PTs can take the LVN exam for their state license."

  "A lot of them fail," Janet said.

  Alma shook her head and turned to Sally. "Want to take a peek at the Admission Ward?" she asked. "I'm still working there till Monday."

  "I—I'm not in uniform."

  "Afraid someone'll take you for a patient?"

  Sally tensed until she realized she was being teased. "What I meant was—is it all right?"

  "You don't see the social workers or the office help in white." Alma took her hand, edging her away from Janet Young. "Don't worry so much. No one will care."

  The tall and slim young man from the first row followed them through the door Alma unlocked. Sally couldn't remember his name.

  "Hey, David," Alma said. "Look where that commendation got you. I'm sorry—I know you didn't want to go back to the west wards."

  "That's okay," he told her. "This new one sounds like it'll be different. We're sure getting a lot of help—four techs and an RN on PMs is more than minimum staff."

  "Plus Sally," Alma pointed out.

  "Hi, Sally," David said. "What do you think about drawing a ward numbered thirteen for your psych affiliation?"

  "It doesn't bother me."

  "I think it's kind of unlucky," he said.

  Alma unlocked and relocked the last door and Sally stared all around. A hall with some closed doors, some open ones. A heavy mongoloid girl—no, Down's Syndrome, they'd changed the name—waddled out of one of the rooms and caught at Alma's arm.

  "Hi, hi, hi. You here." Her words were slurred but intelligible.

  "I'm here, Susie Q."

  The girl clutched a rag doll in one hand. She wasn't really a girl but a woman.

  "How old is she?" Sally asked in a whisper.

  "Susie Q is thirty-six, aren't you, honey?" Alma said in normal tones.

  Susie Q stared at Alma, mouth open.

  "Is she—she isn't mentally ill, is she?" Sally asked.

  "No. We admit retarded here as well." Alma linked her arm in Susie Q's. "Come on, honey, walk down to the day room with me and watch TV a while."

  A man darted from a room and took a stance in front of David, crying, "I want my jacket. You got no right to keep it. It's mine, gimme my jacket."

  Alma sighed and let go of Susie Q to interpose herself between David and the man.

  "Mr. Benning," she said in a no-nonsense tone, "David doesn't have your jacket. None of us do. We'll try to get it for you but right now it's not here."

  The man glared at Alma, his eyes wild. Sally shrank back. David took Susie Q's arm and led her away but Sally couldn't seem to move.

  "I want it," the man said. His face changed, crumpling, tears rolling down his face. "It's green," he sobbed. "My jacket."

  "I know, Mr. Benning," Alma said. "We'll write your wife about your jacket. Perhaps she'll bring it when she visits you. You didn't have a jacket when you came here so I've never seen it."

  No longer scared, Sally peered at the man, noticing his right hand was bandaged. Somehow he looked familiar. She watched him turn away and shamble along the corridor until Alma guided him back into his room.

  "Wish they'd up his tranq dose," Alma said to Sally when she returned. "He had a bad reaction his first night here because he'd been drinking before admission so they're limiting his Thorazine. He's acquired this fixation and we go through this same scene at least once a shift. For some reason he seems to associate David with his missing jacket."

  "Is his name Dolph?" Sally asked, finally recalling where she'd seen him before.

  "How did you know?"

  "The afternoon I got here he was in the lobby waiting room with another man who called him Dolph. All of a sudden he ran off. For what it's worth, I'm not positive but I think he did have on a green jacket."

  "That's really strange," Alma said. "Things do have a tendency to disappear around here, though—unfortunately. A lot of the patients don't know—" She broke off abruptly and dived into another room.

  Sally followed her as far as the doorway.

  "Laura Jean, we do not strip on this ward," Alma was telling a girl who looked like a teenager. "Clothes are to be kept on."

  "Why?" the girl asked, curling up on the floor. Her blond hair, tousled and unkempt, straggled over her face. She was totally naked.

  "Put on your clothes, Laura Jean," Alma ordered. "Now." The girl stared at her sullenly but didn't resist when Alma crouched down and began dressing her.

  I'll never be able to approach these patients like Alma does, Sally thought. How can she keep her cool? How does she know they aren't going to be violent? She realized she ought to go in and help Alma get clothes on Laura Jean, but she couldn't bring herself to enter the room. Maybe because she didn't feel like a nurse without her uniform. At least she hoped that was why, because very soon she'd be in uniform on another ward, on Thirteen West, and she'd have to take care of patients.

  "Laura Jean, stand up so I can get your jeans on," Alma ordered.

  The girl obeyed slowly. As she came erect, she raised her head and looked straight at Sally, who tried not to flinch at the feral gleam in those pale blue eyes. Laura Jean smiled. Then, while Sally watched in horrified disbelief, she leaned over and bit Alma o
n the shoulder.

  Alma screamed and brought her free hand up to pound her fist against the side of the girl's face until she let go. Then, blood staining the shoulder of her uniform, she knocked Laura Jean backwards onto the bed.

  "You little bitch," Alma muttered. "You're going to get zonked for that and I don't care if you never wake up."

  Chapter Four

  "Some excellent recovery rates have been reported," Dr. Fredericks said to the three men and one woman who'd accompanied him onto Thirteen West. "We're trying our own experiment with the maximum mix concept here." He waved a hand.

  Standing inside the nurses' station, Alma smiled at the VIP visitors when they glanced her way. Showcase was the word he'd used and you'd better believe old Nellie always meant what he said.

  "The set-up is traditional," Dr. Fredericks went on, "since our physical space didn't lend itself well to any other configuration. Behind the nursing station is a lounge for personnel. This is separated from the rest of the ward by partitions so our nurses and technicians can have time to themselves during their breaks and yet not be off the ward. It resembles an island both in fact and philosophically.

  "The day room is here," he continued, moving off with the four visitors in tow. "We have a color TV for those patients who care to watch it, plus a place for them to interact with one another."

  Alma could see Frank's back through the safety windows of the day room. He was inside making sure the patients wouldn't act out in any particularly weird ways while the visitors were present.

  "Be glad you're not on days," he'd told her when she complained about this second tour within a week. "They get the brunt of it."

  Sally was in Laura Jean's room, trying to do her best to prevent the girl from stripping. For some reason the girl had taken a liking to the student nurse after meeting her on the Ad Ward. Alma shook her head, unhappy Sally had been there to see her flip out that day—but getting bit was one intolerable thing. Her shoulder was still sore.

  Connie Dominguez and David were in the four bed men's ward cleaning up old Mousie who'd deliberately crapped all over his wheel chair in the day room just before Dr. Fredericks was due with his VIP tour. The day room still stunk despite all the spraying housekeeping had done.

  Grace Geibel was teaching Susie Q to brush her teeth properly, an unusual occupation for afternoon, but it kept Susie Q from hanging on the visitors because she did love to brush her teeth.

  Lew Alinosky was in the lounge on a break and, thank God for small favors, Janet Young had a day off. She just naturally didn't like that woman.

  "The staff tailors the approach to each patient," Dr. Fredericks said. His high-pitched voice carried extremely well. Alma had never quite gotten used to it coming from his huge bulk.

  "For example, bowel retraining may be the goal for one of our elderly chronics..."

  He had smelled the crap then, Alma told herself. Personally, she didn't think Mousie was going to do zip with bowel retraining. She'd seen the glitter in his eyes when he decided to be incontinent right after he'd been toileted in vain. Purely mean, that old man.

  "...whereas the young adolescent needs acceptance, with firm reality direction at the same time."

  Teach Laura Jean not to bite? Alma snorted. Lots of luck.

  "While schizophrenia is an increasingly unpopular diagnosis," Dr. Fredericks went on, "I do believe there is a specific group of responses that can be termed nothing else. There's a movement afoot to overthrow all labeling of mental illness. I ask you—will not naming a condition cure the patient?"

  He paused and Alma saw he was staring at the four visitors. Intimidating them, daring them to argue with him. Too bad if they did—he'd bring out the big guns and demolish them. Not wise to tangle with Nellie. She'd never heard of anybody coming out one up on him.

  Seeing movement in the hall between the group and the exit door, she stepped into the lounge to alert Lew.

  "Dolph Benning's on his way to demand his green jacket from Dr. Fredericks," she said. "Take him around the other way to the day room. Frank's in there and can hang onto him till the tour's over."

  Lew passed her, his black hair accentuating his pallor…not really good-looking, different was a better word. Didn't talk much. If she hadn't set up her taboo about personal relationships with techs, he might prove to be interesting.

  Lew skirted the nurses' station on the opposite side from the VIP group and approached Dolph from the rear. "Hey," he said, "there's a good western on TV. How about—?"

  Dolph whirled to face him. "No. I got to get my jacket. I got to find out if they—"

  "That's the head doctor," Lew said. "We already asked him about your jacket and he doesn't have it either. You don't want to go bothering him again."

  "I got to find it," Dolph said. "It's green."

  But he allowed Lew to take his arm and lead him away from the visitors. Lew handed him over to Frank in the day room, then stood watching the TV for a moment. "Picture's skewed," he said.

  Frank shrugged. "Usually is. I checked the holds—it's not that."

  "I used to do repair work. Maybe I could take a look inside the chassis sometime."

  "Not now."

  Lew turned away. I didn't mean now for Crissake. Does he think I'm retarded? Why the hell did they have to transfer him off days anyway? Working the PM shift, how was he supposed to keep an eye on that little sneak Becky? She'd be up to her old tricks in no time. Midnight when he got home and no telling what she'd been doing before he got there. She'd damn well better not be leaving Timmie alone in the house.

  Lew unclenched his fists. No use to get uptight. Maybe Becky could get her shift changed, too. Then they'd have to find a sitter for Timmie, though, 'cause the nursery school wasn't open after five.

  "Glad the rain's finally stopped," Frank said.

  "What? Oh, yeah."

  "Ms Reynolds will be setting up a program for taking the patients outside. If the weather holds you can get started on that next week."

  "Yeah," Lew repeated. He glanced around at the patients in the day room and decided most of them wouldn't care one way or the other whether they were out or in. He wished he was still on C West, third floor in the main building, where the teenagers were. Couldn't trust a one of them but they acted out in ways he could understand. Not old enough to know better.

  Unlike Becky—twenty-eight, her last birthday.

  In Chester Mausser's room, David lifted him into his wheelchair, ignoring the old man's attempts to cling to his bed.

  "He's a slider, Connie," David warned the tech who was helping him. "Tie the Posey tight. You know, Connie doesn't sound like a Chicano name."

  "Short for Conception," she told him, winding the Posey ties around the lower handles before pulling them across the back of the wheelchair.

  "You got any kids?"

  "Five."

  "Wow. And you still work."

  "The money's good."

  "You don't hardly look like you have five kids—you're so little."

  She smiled at him. "I don't have time to get fat."

  "Put me to bed," Chester Mausser demanded.

  "Mousie, you know you have to stay up till after supper," David said.

  "I'll have you fired, young man."

  "Go ahead. Then I won't have to clean up old freaks who shit in their pants. You did it on purpose—I just got you off the toilet."

  "It wasn't me," the old man insisted. "They put it in there to embarrass me."

  "Sure they did. Well, you better not let me catch them doing it again."

  "Reality orientation," Connie reminded him.

  David made a face at her.

  "You needn't hide behind me, young woman," Chester said. "I know what you did just now and you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

  David guffawed.

  Up the hall, the touring group paused before being let out of the ward. The woman peered into the last open door. "Why that's a Mongol," she said in surprise, turning to Dr. Fredericks. "
I didn't think you mixed mentally ill and mentally retarded on the same ward. I thought the practice went out countless years ago."

  Dr. Fredericks smiled. "We're bringing back on Thirteen West just such concepts, once wrongly labeled as outmoded. That's what maximum mix is all about—total desegregation. As near to a community cross-section as possible. The retarded are part of our patient population—part of our community, as it were. Perhaps our girl here with Down's Syndrome will be the catalyst in—"

  "Hi!" Susie Q called, clumping from her room. She reached for the woman's hand. "What's you name?"

  Grace Geibel hurried up behind her. "Susie Q," she said, "the lady has to go now."

  Susie Q paid no attention, staring up at the woman open-mouthed.

  The visitor smiled nervously and tried to disentangle her hand from Susie Q's grasp, exclaiming in over-hearty tones, "You're certainly a friendly girl, aren't you?"

  Susie Q snuffled and green mucus dribbled from both nostrils. "What's you name?" she repeated.

  Grace reached for Susie Q's other hand. "Say bye-bye to the lady. Time to wash up for supper. Maybe there'll be candy after you eat."

  "Candy," Susie Q echoed, dropping the visitor's hand as she turned toward Grace. "Want candy."

  "After supper." Grace said, urging her back into the room. "We have to wash first."

  As she wiped Susie Q's nose, Grace heard the ward door close and the lock click shut. Serve that snooty woman right, she thought, if Susie Q had smeared snot all over her. She night have acted a little friendlier—Susie Q loved attention. Yesterday afternoon Susie Q had sat for an hour next to one of the old ladies who couldn't utter a sentence that made sense. But she'd patted Susie Q's head now and then while she jabbered nonsense and Susie Q had been in ecstasy. Unfortunately, Susie Q was the token retardate in the "community" of Thirteen West. All the others were crazies of one sort or another.

  Grace chewed her lower lip. She was afraid of most of them, never mind how harmless they acted. Why couldn't she have been left on B East with the retarded patients? They loved her, were used to her. Yes, Susie Q was doing all right on Thirteen West but what about Grace Geibel?

  Dr. Fredericks might think he was God as far as running Calafia was concerned but he wasn't The Almighty. What right did he have to take people and put them somewhere else whether they wanted to go there or not? Just so he could show off to others. See my creation. Using the number thirteen like it wasn't unlucky…no hospital she'd heard of ever called a ward thirteen. Thought he was God and could do no wrong.