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Four Puerto Rican men were playing dominoes with bits of paper at a card table in a slow motion brought on by all of them being heavily drugged, like everybody else. The game seemed to occur under water. A child, a boy of eight or nine, sat near them picking his nose in the same kind of slow motion with such a look of blank despair on his small face she had to turn away. Most of the women were sitting on the plastic chairs that came in ranks of four against the wall, but there were more women than chairs. Though some were old, some children, some black, some brown, some white, they all looked more or less alike and seemed to wear a common expression. She knew that in a short while this ward, like every other she had been on, would be peopled by strong personalities, a web of romances and feuds and strategies for survival. She felt weary in advance. Who needed to be set down in this desolate limbo to survive somehow in the teeth of the odds? She had had enough troubles already, enough!
“Lunch, ladies. Lunch. Line up now! Come on, get your asses moving, ladies!” The dining room was around a bend in the corridor in the same ward. Back and forth they went, back and forth in the confined space from doorless bathroom to dining room to seclusion (called treatment rooms here) to the dormitories to the day room.
Lunch was a gray stew and an institutional salad of celery and raisins in orange Jell‑O. The food had no flavor except the sweet of the Jell‑O and she had to eat it all with a plastic spoon. At least the food did not need chewing in her bloody mouth. The objects in the stew were mushy, bits of soft flotsam and jetsam in lukewarm glue. She tried to think about how to get out of here, but her mind was mud.
Lunch was over in fifteen minutes and then they were back in the day room, milling around to line up for medication. She needed her wits to plot how she would get out of here. The effects of the shot had not worn off. Then she held her face rigid when she saw the paper cup with the pills. Gracias, gracias. A pill was easily dealt with, unlike the liquid you had to swallow at once. She slipped it under her tongue, swallowed the water, and sat down on an orange chair. It did not do to head too quickly for the bathroom to spit out the pill. She kept it under her tongue till the coating wore off and she began to taste the bitter drug.
Visiting hour came in midafternoon. Hope stabbed her when the attendant came to say she had a visitor. Dolly!
Dolly was heavily made up. She was not wearing her fur‑collared coat but her old red belted coat Co
“Dolly, get me out of here!”
“Honey, I can’t just yet. Be a little patient. By the middle of next week.”
“Dolly, por favor! No puedo vivir in esto hoyo. Hija mнa, ayъdame!”
Dolly chose to reply in English. “It’s just for a couple of days, Co
“Dolly, how could you say I hit you? Me?”
“Geraldo–he made me.”
She lowered her voice. “Did you have the operation?”
“I’m going into the hospital Monday.” Dolly fluffed her hair. “I persuaded him not to use that butcher on me. It costs a lot, but it will be a real hospital operation. Not with that butcher who does it on all the whores cheap.” Dolly spoke with pride.
Co
“Daddy won’t let me have the baby either, that old …” Doily picked at her cuticle, ruining the smooth line of the crimson polish. “I did ask him. He says he washes his hands of me. Listen, Co
“Please, Dolly, take me out before you go in for the operation. Please! I can’t stand it here.”
“I can’t.” Dolly shook her head. “You really busted his nose. He’s going to have to have an operation himself! It’s going to cost a bundle, Consuelo. He looks awful with a bandage all over his nose–he looks like a bird! Like a crazy eagle with that big beak in the middle of his face!” Dolly began to giggle, covering her mouth with her hand.
Co
“Well …” Dolly turned her eyes up. “I guess they can fix him with plastic surgery. You really lit into him! Mamб, how you slammed him with that wine bottle! I thought he’d kill you.”
“I wish I had killed him,” Co
“He is my man,” Dolly said, shrugging. “What can I do?”
“Listen, can you bring me some clothes and stuff here before you go in the hospital?” When blocked, maneuver to survive. The first rule of life inside.
“Sure. What you want? Tomorrow I’ll bring it to you, around this time.”
She went into the bathroom after Dolly left and stayed there as long as she dared. Stalls without doors. In spite of the stink, it was a place to be almost alone, precious in the hospital. How could she scream at Dolly? What use? Dolly chose to believe Geraldo, and if she tried to shake that belief, Dolly would only turn from her. Then Dolly would not help her to get out, would not bring her clothing and the small necessities that could make the passing hollow days a little more bearable. She judged her niece for choosing Geraldo over her unborn baby and over herself; but hadn’t she chosen to mourn for Claud almost to death?
Outside, did rain slick First Avenue? Was the sun bleeding through a murky overcast? Was it a rare blue day when the buildings stood crisp against the sky? Here it was time for meds. Here it was time to line up for a paper cup of mouthwash. Here it was time to line up for all starch meals. Here it was time to line up for more meds. Here it was time to sit and sit and sit. Here it was time to greet a familiar black face from the last time.
“Yeah, I was brought in three, four days ago,” Co
“My caseworker brought me in Monday. Same as last time. You too?”
Co
Here it was time to sit facing a social worker, Miss Ferguson, who looked at the records spread out on her desk rather than at her. Miss Ferguson sat tightly and occasionally she glanced toward the door.
“You don’t have to be nervous about me,” Co
“Was that how it was with your daughter?” Miss Ferguson had light brown hair curled at the ends. She wore gra
“It isn’t the same this time! It isn’t!”
“How can we help you if you won’t let us?” Miss Ferguson glanced at her wristwatch, shuffling the papers in the folder. Her folder. “Three years ago you were admitted to Bellevue on the joint recommendation of a social worker from the Bureau of Child Welfare, your caseworker from welfare, and your parole officer. You were then hospitalized at Rockover State for eight months.”
“They said I was sick and I agreed. Someone close to me had died, and I didn’t want to live.”
“You have a history of child abuse–”
“Once! I was sick!”
“Your parental rights were terminated. Your daughter Angelina Ramos was put out for adoption.”
“I should never have agreed to that! I didn’t understand what was happening! I thought they were just going to take care of her.”