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Chapter 1
He didn’t really remember what going crazy looked like. All he knew was that one day he went to his mother’s job to ask for his money, and then he knew he had to kill her. So he reached across her desk, plucked the cigarette from her constantly moving mouth, and tried to squeeze all the air from her. Next thing he knew he woke up in this dark place, with cold concrete walls and reverberating voices. He could not determine if the voices were in the hallway or in his head.
All he knew was that he wanted to sleep. He curled under the threadbare blanket on the narrow cot. The door to his tiny room banged open, and the voices grew louder. Shadows unfurled toward him. He felt a draft of cold as the blanket was lifted. Shadows grasped his arm. The sound of tearing. The waft of alcohol. Brisk, terse rubbing against his arm before the brief, bright sting of steel struck his olfactory senses. He jerked, the only power of protest able to swim to the surface through a smog of Benedryl, then darkness fell like a slowly lowering window blind as he watched the shadowy figures retreat.
He smelled the comforting antiseptic scent of bandaid, a light pressure on his arm, almost a balm to soothe in the wake of the hypodermic burn.
Darkness.
CHAPTER 2
He didn’t know how many days he had slept. It could have been one day. It could have been one month. When the small white woman with the flowered skirt and tight gray bun introduced herself as Dr. Herrera he knew that he had slept for three days.
Psychiatrists never introduced themselves until three days after the initial evaluation. Initial intake, where they had made him wait hour after hour in a small, windowless room. Without radio, or television, or cigarette - where two large black men in sterile white scrubs stood by the door, silent like ghosts, only speaking when he asked, “how much longer do I got to wait here?”
“The doctor will see you as soon as she’s done. There’s people waiting before you.”
After the tenth hour, he had done what it seemed the men had been expecting. He leaped up, screaming, threw a chair. They descended like night, pinioning him beneath their weight, ignoring his outbursts, his demands.
“I want to go home!” he had screamed.
Now, Dr. Herrera looked at him. There was a hiss of nylon as she crossed her legs, watching him with kind eyes.
“Do you know why you are here?” she asked.
“Where am I?”
“What is your name?”
He rose from the bed to sit on the edge. Placed his feet on the cold floor, looked down. He noticed the sheen of gray on his skin, flickered that he needed lotion.
“Bowie. Bowie Long.”
She began to ask him the next question. He knew the routine, cut her off, speaking somewhat loudly. “DOB: Christmas, 1984, residence: 1400 MapleLeaf Street. Norristown, PA. It is the year 2010. A Black man rules the world.” He huffed a laugh, short and powerful, like steam from an engine. “First time I was in a place like this, a comment like that would have sealed the deal that I’m bonkers. Where am I?”
“You are at the Norristown State Hospital.”
Jesus. It was worse than he thought. He ran a hand through the tumultuous tufts of his hair, snagging, briefly noting that he needed a comb and some Shea butter. He had never been sent to the state hospital before. This was the place of last resort. Or the place for the true loons.
There were no perks here. Norristown State Hospital was tantamount to the correctional facility. A lock down holding cell where you were expected to get yourself together before the week ended. He had seen the result of longer stays. People with dead eyes wandering the streets of Norristown, rooting through dumpsters, congregating at the McDonald’s begging for loose change, police chasing them away like errant pigeons.
He felt something burn in his eye. This was the place where people were dumped.
“How long I been here?”
Dr. Herrera looked up from her clipboard. Her eyes were gray. Astute. “It is better to focus on recovery rather than how long you have been here. Don’t you think? If you comply with treatment modalities, cooperate with your treatment team, you will be able to discharge in no time. You comply with any individual, as well as group therapy, adhere to your treatment plan, take all prescribed meds, and you aren’t a danger to yourself and others, and you will be able to go home. You have a therapist on the outside, correct?”
He nodded.
“Do you know what brought you here?”
“I tried to kill my mother?”
Dr. Herrera sighed, clicked the tip of her pen. It made a slightly scratchy sound. “Is that what you remember?”
He nodded.
“Describe the moment for me.”
“She wouldn’t stop talking. I wanted her to stop talking.”
“Why did you want her to stop talking.”
He thought back to that day. He couldn’t remember anything other than her voice. Telling him he was hearing things. Hallucinating.
That word. It terrified him. He didn’t want to hear her saying that word. It made him thing of other things. Sitting in the back seat. Watching the back of her head, her hair missing in spots...nerves, she said, from worry about him. Driving him to Horsham Clinic. The nice place. It was like a rich man’s mansion, out in the bucolic countryside, with actual sheep grazing in front of the massive stone structure. Her voice, asking him if he was sick. He saw the car mats spinning around in circles. He saw the back of her head. The missing spots, they moved. It looked like a dark face, watching him, a curve of sparse hair near the base of her neck, grinned a malevolent grin, laughing, laughing at him. It released a tuft of smoke. He kicked at the seat, screaming.
“She said I was trying to kill her.”
Dr. Herrera nodded, looked down. “What do YOU say?”
“I waited all day. Waiting for my check. I wanted to get my money. Buy something to eat. Get a cheesesteak. Maybe take a bus to Atlantic City. She knew I was waiting on my check.”
Dr. Herrera watched him, as if waiting for more.
When the mailman finally got there, he had been so incensed, he roared out the door to meet him on the curb. Furious he was late.
The mailman looked at him bemusedly, shrugged, unbothered by the short man flaring up, speaking with the rapid-fire dialect of the hearing impaired.
He told Bowie that the mail from the social security administration had come yesterday, that he had given it to the woman who had been sitting out front smoking a cigarette as though her life depended on it. Bowie ruminated on the information for a millisecond, then he stormed off down the street, leaving the door to 1400 MapleLeaf Street wide open - the television blaring.
The mailman chuckled, shaking his head as he dropped the mail into the slot of the screen door.
While he was running down MapleLeaf, thoughts were running through his head. She had known he was waiting for his check, and she had not told him that it had come. He heard sounds in his head, and he didn’t like what they were saying. He thought if he could run faster, he could make the voices go away. He could outrun them.
Dr. Herrera scratched a few notes on her clipboard. “So you went to your mother’s job to ask about your check.”
He nodded.
“Do you think it might have been better to perhaps call her on the phone to ask her rather than show up at her job?”
“I knew she had it. I wanted my money.”
“Do you think, in hindsight, that it might have been better to first change into street clothes and get a coat before you showed up at your mother’s place of employment? I mean, let’s think about what people seeing you on the street, your mother’s co-workers must have thought when you appeared in your pajamas...”
Bowie shrugged. “Why should I care what other people think?”
“Well. Is it possible that had your first impression been less abnormal to others, they might not have called the police? Or that you and your mother might have been able to reach a more agreeable solution without leading to a situation that resulted in police escort to our facility?”
He thought about this, then asked, “Why you asking me these questions anyway?”
“Does it bother you? Me asking you questions?”
“These ain’t the normal questions. Like, ‘do you feel like harming yourself’, ‘do you feel like harming others’ ‘how many days have you missed taking your meds’.”
“Those questions are part of regular psychiatric assessments, yes. But so are the questions I am asking.”
“They never asked me questions about why I ended up in the hospital before. All they do is ask about what outpatient treatment I go to, if I been taking my meds. And even when I tell them I been taking my meds, they look at me like I don’t.” Bowie shifted back on the bed, resting his back against the cement wall, lifting a knee and resting an elbow on it. “I just wanted my money. The cops saw me and they brought me here. I just wanted them to stop talking too. Talking at me like I was a patient already. Acting like they know me. Telling me what to do. I said I would break out their windows, but I was bullshitting. I just wanted to let them know what time it was.”
The hiss of nylon as Dr. Herrera uncrossed, then crossed her legs. “And what time was it?”
“I ain’t afraid of no cops. And if they was going to get in the way of me and my money they can catch some, too.”
PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION
BOWIE LONG
IDENTIFYING INFORMATION
The patient is a 32 year old African American man. Patient is a well built, muscular male of dark complexion. He is Five foot four inches tall and 155 pounds. Patient was admitted on transfer from Norristown Police Dept., where he was apprehended in response to a 911 call from the County Administrative Building, where he was seen in an act of aggression against his mother, Magdelene Long. He was uncooperative with police responders, threatening to break out windows of squad-cars. Patient resides with maternal parent who is single. There are no reported siblings. Patient is unemployed. Receives disability related to ongoing bipolar disorder diagnosis. Prior to meeting with the patient I had the opportunity to review his chart as well as discuss patient history with parent.
Admission information describes patient as stubborn, defiant, argumentative and prone to violent outbursts. He is reported to have been assaultive during intake process - throwing chairs and attempting to attack orderlies. He threatened to ‘kill’ orderlies and to ‘burn this motherfucker to the ground if you don’t let me out of here’.
Three person supine restraint applied for twenty minutes. Intramuscular sedative applied to alleviate patient’s stress and subdue aggressive presentation.
Dr. Herrera asked, “What, then, were you trying to do?”
He laughed, as if the answer were obvious. “I wanted her to give me my money, and she knew just like I knew, she already spent it. Stayed out all night at the casino. With my money. Then she was telling me about how I have to pay rent and pay for groceries. Pay my fines and my phone bill. Her usual bullshit. So I just wanted her to stop talking. Stop her bullshit.”
“Have you been violent with you mother before?”
“She says so.”
“What do you feel about paying rent? Or paying your bills? How is that usually handled? Have you used a representative payee before?”
“I don’t need to. Why don’t we ask her how SHE feels about paying her bills. The electric and cable is in my name because she don’t pay her shit. Why don’t we get a rep payee for her?”
“You seem to have a lot of anger when you discuss your mother. Are the things you mention the reason for this anger?”
Bowie looked baffled. “What anger? I’m not mad.”
Dr. Herrera smiled. “You might want to tell that to your face. Because it looks like the Incredible Hulk.”
Bowie started, then laughed; brief, staccato.
“Do you have any struggles with hallucinations?” She watched him shrug, look down into his lap. The doctor’s shift had been swift. Bowie was impressed.
“I had them before. First time I got sick. My mom told me when she was taking me to Brooke Glenn the first time. I saw the car mats spinning around. I heard people whispering to me.”
“What did that look like? Can you describe how the car mats were moving?
He shrugged, wishing for a cigarette. His tongue missed the initial burst of that first inhalation, how it filled him, helped him feel less empty. “She said I started screaming, climbing around in the back seat, saying the mats were spinning around.”
“Can you describe this?”
“I just did. Didn’t I?”
“And what about now? Are you hearing voices?”
Hallucinations. He didn’t have hallucinations. But when he was lying on his back, reflecting, or praying, or sitting cross legged on the floor, shitting on the toilet, and he looked down, with his eyes closed, the darkness wasn’t exactly black. It was a kaleidoscope of grays, blacks and lavenders, shimmering like soot falling from a dead chimney. And in between those hues of monochromatic colors, sometimes, he could see, tucked away in a far off corner, a face smiling maniacally. Nothing terrifying or evil. It was too small to be frightening, but it was there, like a sentry, watching. Grinning. He wondered if that counted as a hallucination.
“No.”
PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION
BOWIE LONG
HISTORY OBTAINED ON ADMISSION:
Original psychotic event reported by mother to have occurred approximately during patient’s eighteenth year, where diagnosis of bipolar shizotypal determined with delusions of religious nature. No reported family history of psychiatric nature. No reported history of family substance abuse. No particular supports given for partial hearing loss. Patient declines the use of hearing aids. Maternal parent reports no current hallucinations, but delusions as it pertains to having a paramour that does not exist.