It's Kind of a Funny Story

“When you’re inside, you’re supposed to put it to OCCUPIED, but people still don’t pay any attention, and there’s no lock on the door, so I like to keep real close to the door. It’s tough, ‘cause the water doesn’t reach.”

“How do I make it say ‘Occupied’? From inside?”

“No, here.” Bobby slides the block. It covers up VACANT and only OCCUPIED appears.

“That’s pretty cool.” I push it back. It’s a simple system, but I wouldn’t know if Bobby hadn’t showed me.

“Is there a guys’ bathroom and a girls’ bathroom?”

“It’s not a bathroom, it’s a shower. You have your own bathroom in your room. But it’s unisex, yeah. There’s a shower in the other hall too”—we keep walking—“but I wouldn’t use it. It bothers Solomon.”

“Who’s Solomon?”

We come to the end of the hall. The windows have two panes of glass with blinds, somehow, between them. Outside it’s a cloud-spattered May Brooklyn day. Chairs line the dead end. As we approach, a wilted little girl with blond hair and cuts on her face looks up from a pad of something and scurries into a nearby room.

“They show movies here sometimes.” Bobby shrugs. “Sometimes at the other end by the smoking lounge.”

“Uh-huh. Who was that?”

“Noelle. They moved her in from teen.” We turn around. “Medications are given out after breakfast, after lunch, and before bed. We take them over there.” Bobby points to a desk across from the dining room, where Smitty sits, pouring soda. “That’s the nurses’ station; the other place is the nurses’ office. All your lockers and stuff are behind the nurses’ station.”

“They took my cell phone.”

“Yeah, they do that.”

“What about e-mail?”

“What?” We’re back by the dining room. I slow my pace. Inside, the stocky bald man with squinty eyes who was frowning is speaking slowly and plaintively:

“. . . Some people here who treat you like they have no respect for you as a human being, which I take personal offense to, and just because I went to my doctor and told him, ‘I’m not afraid of dying; I’m only afraid of living, and I want to put a bayonet through my stomach,’ that doesn’t mean I’m afraid of any of you.”

“Let’s concentrate on our discussion of things that make us happy, Humble,” says the psychologist.

“And I know about psychologists, when they’re writing down what you’re saying they’re really writing down how much money they’re going to get when they sell their latest yacht, because they’re all yuppies with no respect. . . .”

“C’mon,” Bobby taps me.

“Is his name Humble?”

“Yeah. He’s from Bensonhurst.” Bensonhurst is a particularly retro section of Brooklyn, an Italian and Jewish neighborhood where a girl can walk down the street and have a car full of guys cruise up to her: Hey baby, you wanna ride?

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“Sheepshead Bay.” That’s another old-time Brooklyn ‘hood. Russian. All these parts are far out.

“I’m from here,” I say.

“What, this neighborhood? This neighborhood is nice.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Man, I’d give my one remaining ball to live here, I tell you that. I’m trying to get into a home around here, at the Y. Anyway—there’s the phone.” He points to our left. There’s a pay phone with a yellow receiver. “It’s on until ten at night,” he says. “The number to call back is written right on it, and it’s on your sheet too, if you need people to call back. If someone calls for you, don’t worry, someone’ll find you.”

Bobby stops a second.

“That’s it.”

It’s really very simple.

“What do we do in here?” I ask.

“They have activities; a guy comes and plays guitar. Joanie comes in with arts and crafts. Other than that, you know, just take phone calls; try and get out, really.”

“How long do people stay?”

“Kid like you, got money, got a family, you’ll be out in a few days.”

I look at Bobby’s deep-sunk eyes. I get the feeling—I don’t know how I know the rules of mental-ward etiquette; maybe I was born with them; maybe I knew I’d end up here—but I get the feeling that one big no-no in this place is asking people how they got here. It’d be a little like walking up to somebody in prison and going “So? So? What’s up, huh? Didja kill somebody? Didja?”

But I also get the impression that you can volunteer the reasons you got here at any time and no one will judge; no one will think you’re too crazy or not crazy enough, and that’s how you make friends. After all, what else is there to talk about? So I tell Bobby: “I’m here because I suffer from serious depression.”

“Me too.” He nods. “Since I was fifteen.” And his eyes shine with blackness and horror. We shake hands.

“Hey, Craig!” Smitty says from his desk. “We got your room ready; you want to meet your roommate?”

twenty-one

My roommate is Muqtada.