Conditional Voluntary

Patrick never even knew that he had been shifted from fifteen minute to hourly tracking. But because of that, he was able to fantasize about Justine and not be disturbed. He had wiped himself off and fallen asleep before a counselor on the second shift peeked into his room at eleven o’clock.

  The next morning, Patrick knew where he was when he woke up. He felt no anxiety at first, hurrying along to shower and dress before breakfast. Fear caught up with him, however. Patrick was just about to walk down to the day room when trepidation kicked in.

  Patrick was willing to believe that Hillside Hospital wasn’t a concentration camp. But what if it was something else? Maybe he was really on an elaborate soundstage, a TV studio. It could be like one of those Mission: Impossible episodes where everything was fabricated to trick the villains.

  “Trick you into doing what?” He could imagine Dr. Kearney asking him that. Of course, the so-called doctor was just an actor, anyway. They’d found someone like Will Geer, a Grandpa Walton type, to put Patrick off guard just so he’d confess. “Confess to what, Patrick?”

  That was the terror of it! Patrick had nothing to confess. But the DEA officials assumed that he did have some hidden crime that they’d somehow managed to miss despite all the years of spying. They had already tried the soft way, using the approachable “Dr. Kearney” and “Simon the Counselor”. Hadn’t the old man asked whether Patrick had committed a crime?

  That there was nothing to tell was not what the DEA would ever believe. They’d turn to torture next.

  But no, that was craziness. They wouldn’t do that, would they?

  Patrick breathed deeply and gingerly took hold of the doorknob. It was all right: this was a real hospital, not some fake set for the movies or TV. If anything, he’d be safe from the DEA in here; as a harmless and helpless little psych patient, Patrick wouldn’t be a threat to anyone.

  He had waffles for breakfast, sitting with Charley at the far end again. Justine was skipping breakfast; neither of them had seen her so far that morning. It occurred to Patrick that having claimed this end of the table as theirs was something like the enclaves that always sprung up in school cafeterias.

  Patrick watched Simon for a moment. He was standing by the kitchen cart, chatting with another counselor named Kris. Patrick had met her during the evening shift, having been assigned to her after Simon had checked out for the day. Kris was a chubby yet solid-looking young woman with frizzy black hair. One of the reasons Patrick had been assigned to Kris was that she also worked on Dr. Kearney’s treatment team.

  While Kris had been more confident than Brenda, she wasn’t as friendly as Simon. Patrick had also observed Kris handling Justine very firmly at one point; his new friend had actually backed down.

  Although Patrick knew better than to expect to see Justine prior to the ward assembly, he was so eager to speak with her that he barely tasted the waffle morsels in his mouth. Either speak to Justine or – still better – have another kiss. But it would be hard to get the girl alone for either prospect during the busy day shift.

  The ward assembly was easier for him this time. Patrick was no longer the center of attention, not even for a moment. Justine arrived a bit earlier than she had on Thursday but there had already been so few chairs available that she didn’t sit next to Patrick. He had been too shy to save a seat for her.

  The most significant difference between this assembly and yesterday’s was that a patient was leaving instead of arriving. The patient being discharged was a woman named Colleen. Patrick had been only barely acquainted with this patient and watched her group farewell without emotion.

  Later, during the reading of the groups schedule, he heard his name spoken twice. He was assigned to two activity groups, one at ten in the morning and the other at three in the afternoon. Simon took Patrick aside after the assembly to let him know that Dr. Kearney had come through with basic privileges for him.

  “That means I can take you downstairs if you like,” Simon explained. “And maybe outside, if you feel up to it.”

  “Uh, not now,” Patrick mumbled.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll just show you the snack bar. Five vending machines and a microwave…”

  “I… I mean I’d rather stay up here for now.”

  Simon couldn’t hide his disappointment. His eager smile collapsed and his shoulders drooped slightly.

  “Well, if you change your mind, let me know.”

  Patrick nodded, too distracted to give the big counselor a more emphatic reply. There was still a possibility that a DEA agent might be staking out the hospital lobby, for one thing. For another, Patrick didn’t want to miss the chance for another stolen moment with Justine because Simon was showing him how to operate a candy machine.

  Thanks to Simon, he had already been diverted long enough to lose Justine in the crowd for the second day in a row. Now Charley was at his elbow, wanting him to help carry the tables back into the day room.

  Looks like I’m finding a routine here, Patrick thought wryly.

  The dispensary nurse gave him another pill during the nine o’clock medication schedule. He met Justine in line for the window, politely letting her go first.

  Justine had explained that she had been washing her hair and otherwise getting ready to use her high-level privileges. She congratulated Patrick on getting his first step up the privilege ladder.

  “You’re on the way,” Justine said.

  Patrick felt frustrated. Not only could he not ask Justine about the kiss out in the pill queue, the kisser herself was hardly giving any indication that it had happened.

  Maybe she’s a good actress, he considered. She’s obviously done a lot more kissing than I have. She also knows better than to show it in front of everybody. So relax…

  Patrick tried to simply admire Justine’s body instead. This time, she was wearing black denim and a tight T-shirt. Her waist and hips were narrow and her ass was small yet shapely. Something about that flat chest was attractive, perhaps because it went so naturally with the rest of Justine’s skinny build.

  As Justine was taking her pills, Patrick looked at the weight scale over to their left. It was next to a classroom chair used for taking blood pressure readings. The chair had one of those little folding tables built onto it where a patient could rest his or her arm while the blood pressure cuff pumped up.

  But Patrick was more interested in the scale. He wondered if he could cajole Justine into letting him see just how underweight she actually was. Maybe they could weigh each other.

  I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…

  “Here you go, Patrick,” the medication nurse said, interrupting his modest fantasy.

  He swallowed the single pill and turned to see Justine smiling at him as she stood by the exam chair. The moment Patrick took a step away from the dispensary window, he was startled by the noise of a pay phone ringing. Justine walked over to answer it so Patrick followed her.

  “Hello?”

  Patrick leaned against the other phone.

  “Who?” Justine asked, her tone rude. “No, there’s no Chester here. Yeah, I’m sure! You called Hillside Hospital, understand? The psych ward! Yeah, I’m a God-damned, raving lunatic! But you’re just a dumb asshole!”

  She banged the receiver down hard enough to make Patrick jump. Her outburst caught the attention of Kris the counselor, who had just rounded the corner.

  “Justine,” she said loudly but calmly, “do you need to cool off in your room for a while?”

  “No!”

  “Lower your voice, please.”

  “Hey, I can’t help it if I got upset! Somebody just made an obscene phone call!”

  “Is that so?” Kris asked skeptically.

  “Yes!” Justine insisted shrilly. “We need to be protected from shit like that, not called liars!”

  “You’re upset, that’s for sure,” Kris said, approaching them. “All I’m saying is that you should take some time
to calm down. Just fifteen minutes in your room. Can you do that?”

  Justine didn’t answer.

  “If I have to ask again, it’ll be one hour in your room instead,” Kris warned her. “And we may have to consider suspending your privileges for the rest of the shift.”

  She reached out to touch Justine’s elbow but the patient dodged her fingers.

  “I can walk!” Justine snapped, then proceeded to march down the hallway.

  Kris followed her at a brisk pace, keeping a discreet distance between them. Patrick was so frustrated, he felt like kicking the wall. He checked his watch to see how long it would be before he would have another chance to speak with Justine. Patrick could at least be sure of where to find her. He’d be in the smoking room by 9:25.

  “New admission coming in,” Rachel said after hanging up the phone in the staff room.

  Her colleagues, Gloria and Stacey, looked up from the charts on the table. Stacey was Dr. Adams’s team leader. She was a short, impish woman whose age fell exactly between Gloria and Rachel’s. Stacey had long, dark hair and her head was big in proportion to her small-shouldered upper body.

  All three nurses had worked the day shift together for over two years, since Rachel had been Dr. Kearney’s team leader and Gloria was in charge of the dispensary. Rachel and Gloria’s reassignments had come only four months ago when the previous head nurse resigned. Gossip among the voluntary unit counselors indicated that while Gloria had been indifferent to the notion of becoming head nurse, Stacey had coveted the position. But she wasn’t even interviewed since hers was an associate degree in nursing while Rachel and Gloria had bachelor’s degrees. Another assumed obstacle for Stacey was her own sarcastic attitude, which had annoyed the director of nursing all too often.

  Rachel had no love for the hospital’s administration herself but was more circumspect than Stacey. Just how much Stacey resented being passed over for the job was something she kept to herself but she didn’t seem to blame Rachel for it.

  “New admission, huh?” Stacey asked. “Is it a repeat?”

  “I’m not sure,” Rachel answered, looking at the notes she’d taken during the admission coordinator’s call. “Does the name Anthony Gingarella ring a bell?”

  “Wasn’t he that big, dumb kid who thought he was getting mescaline at the dispensary?”

  “Maybe,” Rachel said, still reviewing her notes as she approached the table. “The age looks about right… twenty-two. But he’s not completely ambulatory. The guy you’re thinking of was able to walk just fine.”

  “Gingarella’s handicapped?” Gloria asked.

  “Suicide attempt,” Rachel said, taking her seat. “Jumped in front of a bus earlier this year.”

  “Maybe he came down from the mescaline,” Gloria suggested.

  Stacey laughed out loud while Rachel grinned. Then she looked to the bulletin board and read the list of treatment team patient assignments.

  “Looks like Adams has an opening.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Stacey said with a scowl.

  “What’s wrong with Gingarella?” Rachel asked.

  “Yeah, he wasn’t so bad,” Gloria added.

  “It just sounds like we have some serious medical issues with him, that’s all.”

  “Well,” Rachel said, consulting her notes once again, “according to the intake, he’s not totally disabled. He can walk short distances but he usually prefers to use a wheelchair.”

  “Prefers?” Gloria echoed. “What does that mean?”

  “Not sure. That’s what the referral source said, apparently.”

  “He’s still going to need extra medical attention,” Stacey persisted. “I guess we have to take him but I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “Assign him to Frank,” Rachel suggested. “You know how he loves a project.”

  That seemed to be enough to reconcile Stacey to the Gingarella admission. He could keep Frank busy and out of her hair, as Rachel had implied. Stacey leaned back in her chair and reached over to the bulletin board for the team assignment form.

  Before the admissions coordinator came up from her second-floor office with the telephone intake form, Simon wandered into the room to join the nurses.

  “Gingarella’s back,” Gloria told him.

  “Who?” Simon asked, edging past Rachel’s chair to the patient chart shelves.

  “You remember him, don’t you? From last year, the kid who thought we were giving him mescaline.”

  Simon shook his head.

  “That guy’s name was Gianello, not Gingarella.”

  “So who’s Gingarella?” Stacey asked with a confused frown.

  “Hell, I don’t know,” Simon responded, pulling out one of the three-ring binders. “Why, was he supposed to have been here before?”

  “We’re waiting for the full report,” Rachel said, looking up at him over her shoulder. “Sheila seemed to think he had.”

  “Maybe he was on the secure ward,” Simon speculated. “Or he could’ve been here back when I worked nights and he didn’t make an impression on me.”

  “What time is he due in?” Stacey asked.

  “Before the shift ends, anyway,” Rachel told her.

  “I hope they run a little late,” Simon declared, looking up from the open chart he was holding.

  “Why?” Stacey asked.

  “’Cause I hate processing admissions. They’re depressing. Discharges, I enjoy.”

  “Relax,” Gloria said. “He’s being assigned to the Adams team. We’ll leave it to Frank.”

  “I like that,” Simon chuckled. “So this Gingarella’s going into Patrick’s room?”

  “Actually,” Rachel said, “now that you mention it, we’d better figure out the room assignments. I think we’ll be moving Patrick. The new guy needs some closer attention and probably should have a room to himself.”

  Simon watched as Stacey pulled the floor plan from the bulletin board. Then he looked over Rachel’s shoulder as she and Stacey examined it. The head nurse picked up a pencil.

  “We’ll just put Mr. Gingarella in here,” Rachel said, writing the surname in the box indicating the room across the hall. “And,” she continued, erasing Patrick’s name, “we’ll put Mr. Coyne in here.”

  Rachel wrote “Coyne” in the box representing the bedroom next to the staff office.

  “His new roommate will be Fred Dawson. Does that work?”

  “Sounds fine,” Simon replied with a nod.

  Fred was a thin, middle-aged alcoholic who had been transferred up from the detoxification ward on the second floor. His was a “dual diagnosis” of acute alcoholism and depression, as if the two might otherwise be unrelated.

  “Patrick ought to like it,” Gloria remarked. “He won’t feel like we’re keeping such close tabs on him.”

  “As long as you don’t move him next door to Justine Edwards,” Stacey warned them.

  “It might give them a challenge on the third shift,” Simon responded.

  “Why’d you kiss me?” Patrick whispered to Justine furtively.

  It seemed worth the risk. The only other patient in the smoking room just then was Trudy. And she looked preoccupied, sitting and rocking at the edge of her chair, a cigarette clutched fast in her right hand.

  “Oh,” Justine giggled in reply to his question. “I kiss all my friends.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah,” she said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “I mean, it’s not like the way I kiss Todd.”

  “Your boyfriend.”

  Justine nodded.

  “Do you kiss your female friends, too?”

  “Ewww! Don’t be gross!” Justine wrinkled the bridge of her nose. “I only kiss guys.”

  Patrick’s head was swimming. He clasped his hands together over his knees and stared down at the linoleum.

  “You… must enjoy kissing.”

  “Well, duh! I even kiss Todd’s brother. Hey, don?
??t feel bad. I don’t kiss just anybody, Patrick. Only guys I really like. Only…”

  Justine nudged his knee with hers.

  “…the good-looking guys.”

  Patrick looked into her pale face and allowed himself to smile.

  “Well,” Justine said, “I’m going out for a walk. Gonna buy some more smokes. You want anything?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m almost broke, anyway.”

  “Don’t worry. It’d be my treat. I mean, within reason. You want something sweet?”

  Yeah, another kiss, Patrick thought desperately. But he couldn’t say it out loud.

  “M-maybe some real coffee?”

  “No sweat, cutie.”

  “Thanks,” Patrick murmured, suddenly too nervous to keep looking at her.

  He stared at Trudy instead, taking in her stiff posture and bright eyes. How many years had she been taking the potent medication Dr. Kearney had warned him about? And was the stuff cruising through his own bloodstream really that much safer? Patrick wanted something to drink. But food and drink were forbidden outside the day room, which now seemed so far away.

  “Patrick?”

  He snapped his head over towards the doorway. There was Frank, holding a sheet of paper.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’ve got occupational therapy group,” the counselor told him, “starting right now.”

  “Oh, right,” Patrick sighed, looking at his watch.

  “Go on,” Justine said, dropping her cigarette into the sand bucket. “I want to get going on my walk, anyway.”