Part 4 (1/2)

”A little.”

”Good.”

Casey went on. She had an MA in education and was only in her second year of teaching. She was in her late twenties, that same time of life that had delivered me up to my first depression. No mystery there.

”What drugs have they got you on?” I said.

”Last night they gave me something called Seroquel.”

”What? Are you kidding me?”

”It made me feel really weird.”

”Did you discuss this with the doctor?”

”No. It just showed up on my chart. I didn't know what it was, so I asked. They said it was to help me sleep.”

”Unf.u.c.kingbelievable. They're giving you Seroquel to sleep? Jesus, that's an antipsychotic. Don't take that s.h.i.+t. Really. That's hard-core. Just hold it in your cheek and spit it in the toilet.”

”I'm afraid to,” she said. ”What if they catch me and they use it as an excuse to keep me longer?”

”Look,” I said, ”sit down right now and write your three-day letter.”

I had to explain what a three-day letter was and try not to make it sound like a bad thing that she'd have to write it in Crayola. I gave her some of my paper, though it occurred to me that the missive might have more of the desired prisoner-of-conscience effect if she wrote it on toilet paper or a scroll of rough brown paper towel from the bathroom.

We were just finis.h.i.+ng up the details when a loud splatting sound brought the conversation to a close. Ellen had managed to bring the devil up in earnest on the floor of our room.

After that, Casey sat with me at meals, trying to avoid the Chinese man who ate like a starving animal, and Clean, who had found in Casey another hapless soul to pester for extra pudding. Naturally, she wanted a buffer against Deborah, too, whom she found more unnerving at table, chewing suggestively.

Still, there was no getting around some unfortunate companions.h.i.+p in the dining room. There was the Hispanic man with the chesty cough who hadn't quite mastered the art of breathing and swallowing by turns, such that milk and masticated bread often flew from his mouth in long arcs of chunky beige spray that landed on the tables, floor, and chairs and any diners at close range. There was the other Asian man of indeterminate national origin, who had the long, sharp, yellowed fingernails of a Satanist, which he enjoyed sucking clean of the meal's acc.u.mulated mash.

There was Street Kid, a lanky, ninety-pound twenty-year-old who wore his baseball cap several sizes too big and sideways, like the rapper Flavor Flav. He ”got medicated” often and heavily, p.r.o.ne as he was to tantrums. This put quite a damper on his hand-eye coordination; scooping the food from the tray to his mouth via fork, or any other means, was an elaborate procedure that often failed. He looked like he was moving underwater, and sounded that way, too. He spoke as if he had a mouthful of marbles, and he usually ended meals by wearing on his front, or depositing on the floor, a good portion of what he'd been served. This made him cranky, messy, and volatile. Not an ideal tablemate.

And then there were the talkers, who, though less offensive than the suckers and slurpers, could try you as much. Cherise was a big talker. So, I discovered, was Tracy Chapman, when the mood struck her.

Per her story, and seeming coherence, I'd been laboring under the misapprehension that she'd been unfairly committed by vindictive foster kids. That is, until one day at dinner, when, deeming her the least of the evils on offer at mealtime, Casey and I had chosen to sit next to her, only to learn that she was, in fact, way, way out there on Pluto after all.

She began innocuously enough, telling us that she'd been a model when she was a teen. It was possible. Then she said, ”Let me show you a picture.”

She pulled out a fas.h.i.+on magazine that she'd taken from the dayroom, where there was a pile of newspapers and other recent periodicals set out for patient perusal. This one was only a month old. She opened it to a splashy ad featuring a young dreadlocked girl.

”That's me,” she said.

She pointed to a group photo on the next page, a gathering of celebrity women that included Madonna.

”And that's my posse. I was in with Madonna and all them.”

Casey and I nodded.

”Oh. Uh-huh.”

”That was before I got shot, though,” she added. ”The bullet went through the back of my head and came out my mouth. Ended my career.”

So much for safe harbor.

Ellen and Sweet Girl were best at meals. They kept to themselves, ate pa.s.sably, and if they spoke, it was usually, as in Sweet's case, to themselves. You weren't required to listen. Sweet didn't eat much, which was why they gave her a cup of Ensure with her meds every day at five. She wasn't much interested in solids. This made her a good source of extras for people like me who weren't eating the gristle burgers or the starch subst.i.tute. I could usually get her milk and her veggies if I moved fast.

You had to move fast. Meals were like a bazaar. The minute we sat down, you'd hear someone say, ”Anyone got bread for a milk?” or ”Dessert. Anybody not want their dessert?” Much of this was orchestrated by Jose, whom I had come to call the Spanish Yenta, because he was in everybody's business and fancied himself the mayor of the ward. He took to answering the pay phone regularly and coming to get you for your calls. He knew most people by name within the first day, and he started the bidding at meals, often walking between tables to make the trades.

I always promised my dessert to Clean, and usually my bread, unless I was hungry or feeling self-destructive enough to go against my principles.

By far the safest bet in dining, both for quietude and for extras, was the Yemeni woman, who didn't speak English, didn't talk to herself, and hardly ever ate any of her specially ordered halal meals. They were sealed in plastic, so I knew n.o.body had had his germy fingers in them, and they were usually tastier, if not always healthier than what I got. She usually just handed them over wholesale the minute we sat down.

I have no idea why she was in there. She cried a lot and mostly kept to herself, making copious use of the phone, presumably to beg her relatives for help. I don't know what or when she ate. Probably oranges and peanut b.u.t.ter sandwiches in her room late at night.

When she gave me her meals, I always said the only Arabic words I knew, ”Allahu Akbar,” and she always smiled.

Street Kid was another regular. Though barely an adult, he'd been to Meriwether three times already, in fairly quick succession.

Somebody told me, ”Yeah. His family just gets sick of his bulls.h.i.+t and sends him on a little vacation with us.”

Deborah and Mother T were repeats, I knew, but, it turned out, so was Sweet Girl. They were like family, actually. They knew each other's habits and quirks.

I found this out one night sitting with Kid and Sweet Girl in the dayroom. Sweet was wearing a long khaki trench coat over her hospital issue, sitting in front of the TV having a heated conversation with Patsy. Something about G.o.d's knees and b.l.o.o.d.y Mary.

Kid said, ”d.a.m.n. Is she still doing that s.h.i.+t? She was doing that the last time I was here.”

The b.l.o.o.d.y Mary part was especially interesting to me, because it started with an exchange Sweet and I had had in our room one afternoon, and was one of the clues to her mental leaps.

There was a bit of graffito on the wall above my bed. It said ”Darkside.”

Sweet asked, ”Norah. What does it say on the wall behind you?”

When I told her, she said, ”b.l.o.o.d.y Mary. b.l.o.o.d.y Mary.”

To me the leap seemed clear. Sweet was a college kid. She was remembering her reading. Mary Tudor was famous for her reign of terror, hence the moniker. The graffiti in the Tower of London is equally famous, prisoners scrawling their names and paltry testimonies into the stone. Meriwether was a prison to Sweet. She was not there voluntarily. She was giving her own testimony. Oral history to a deaf world.

I liked the puzzle quality of these exchanges. I spent a good deal of time in Meriwether doing crossword puzzles from the newspapers, and I started thinking in clues and clever answers, because it seemed that that's how the people around me were thinking, too.

I remember looking at my dinner tray one night examining the hard plastic cover that always fit over the hot portion of the meal. It was manufactured by a company called A La Carte. And as I sat there next to the Yemeni woman, eating her halal chicken and peas, I thought, A la carte. Allah Cart. Clue: What is a G.o.d wagon? Answer: An Allah Cart.