"Cuckoo's Nest" Part III
I awoke with a headache, backache and nausea. The tarp wrapped around me stank and and didn’t really cover me as I slept. I was naked since I’d had to use the thing I’d been given to wear as a pillow. Someone in medical whites slid a a pen barrel and a permis-sion form under the door and and told me I had to sign it to receive treatment. I read it - and refused. I don’t recall the entire list, but one item said I must give up my visits unless I got permission. No way. I slid the paper and pen back out and told him that I couldn’t sign. The man didn’t seem concerned and suggested I talk about it to the staff in the morning.
I looked out of the window into a pea-soup fog. It was beautiful, enveloping everything in a white mist. It had been a long time since I’d seen fog. I’m a rain-loving, fog-loving kinda guy. I can only hear the rain beat down now. I’d really love to see the rain or a lightening storm with my eyes. Sometimes I can hear the thunder boom when it storms. I count: one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, when I see a lightening flash through the small plastic rectangle in the SHU’s roof. Eventually I hear the crash. We get intense storms here on the northern California coast. The rain pounds so hard you can sometimes feel the vibrations as it hits.
Directly under the window I could see an asphalt walkway. I wondered if people actually walked on that path. That would be a trip; to see people walking directly by the window. How long am I going to be here, I thought? What in the hell am I going to do? I went over to the door and looked at the nurses’ station. A man and woman were doing paper work. I heard loud, incoherent yelling from a nearby cell – and a louder response. I listened for a while and then heard a thud, thud, thud on the wall - a dull, heavy sound. I hoped it wasn’t someone’s head.
Back to the window. I couldn’t even see the floodllights in the distance. When I was in DVI (Deuel Vocational Institution) in Tracy, they’d lock the whole place down when the fog rolled in. Damn!, I thought – I should have pulled the tip off that pen and sketched out a 64-square chess board! Any piece of paper can become a chess piece. Oh well – next time. But that would give me something to do; figure out how to fashion a board and pieces. I worked on the kilt and got it about as well fitted as possible. I walked back and forth for a while. I was feeling lost and beyond sad. Nothing made sense any more. They don’t parole people in California and they don’t let people out of the SHU. I’m an 800-mile round trip from home and a burden on my family, and I’ve got to do this until I die. If this were happening in Abu Ghraib maybe I’d get noticed. In California, I might as well not exist.
I threw the tarp down in front of the window, grabbed the few sheets of toilet paper I had and began to make chess pieces out of them. I scooped a palmful of water from the sink and spilled it onto the window sash. Then I twisted a piece into a tight, strinkglike form. dipped it into the water and made a candy-kiss shape. These shapes become the pawns and I’d color the tips of opposing pawns with something from the breakfast tray. My head felt like it was going to explode. At least the nausea abated and my back felt better standing up. Everything aches now that I have hepatitis. Sometimes even my teeth and bones ache. I can’t swallow pills because the nausea and indigestion make me throw them up. I twisted the paper and walked back and forth to the sink until I ‘d made all the pawns. Now to shape the big pieces. I made bases with the same kiss form and attached thin appendages in the desired shapes. At this point I ran out of paper. I’d have to wait for the next shift to get more.
I drank some water and strolled a bit. There was as much room to walk in this cell as there was in the SHU’s ‘yard’ - a dog run, more accurately. I had to wash up somehow. I rinsed my face, hands and underarms and swept as much water into the toilet as possible. Then I stood on the sink and held up my hands to the small, square vent in the ceiling as if I were under arrest. Pretty soon I was dry.
Afterwards, I lay back down and wrapped up the funky kilt as a pillow and tossed and turned and wrestled with the tarp until I found a position that was the best of the worst – and closed my eyes. I half slept until breakfast. I’m naked with nothing to clean myself or even a cup to drink from or a spoon to eat with, and this is supposed to be helping me? I felt worse than when I came in. I thought of what Orwell said in 1984: “To die hating them…that was freedom.” Freedom and remaining human. Yes, I hate their vicious institutions – the torture of SHU. At the same time, my commitment to human rights grows stonger every day. In some way,that strengthens me.
Breakfast was coming. I heard it rolling along the corridor with its noise of squeaking cart wheels and tray slots opening and closing. I rinsed my nands off and put on the kilt. ( I wondered if, under their kilts, Scotsmen are as naked as I.) The staff reached my cell, opened the slot and handed me a paper tray. My appetite was gone so I don’t even recall the food. I ate about a third of whatever was on the tray and saved the decaf coffee pack. I drank the milk and rinsed the carton out so I could use it later for a cup. I hoped they wouldn’t ask for the carton as they sometimes do. I dumped the remaining food down the toilet, folded the tray in half, stepped on it and pushed it under the door. That way, maybe they’d forget about the carton. And yes, I ate with my hands. I picked up what I couldn’t get with my fingers with a torn-off corner of the tray.
It worked and they didn’t ask for the carton. I lay down and looked at a sliver of blue sky. It was like I was seeing it for the first time. It was literally sky blue. The summer heat had burned the fog off early so the view was vividly clear. Then someone walked by the window. Cool, I thought – I can actually see people moving. They picked up the trays and I got up and looked out the window. A lady walked by and didn’t look at me. She was so close I could’ve touched her. It was only a glance, so I couldn’t make out much. Then I saw a few guards going here and there – some in groups of two or three and some alone. A block letter ‘A’ was painted on a building opposite. I guessed that must be ‘A’ facility - the mainline. There were fenced-in areas around some buildings with strips laced into the fencing, no doubt so no one could look in or out,. The rest was a courtyard of heavy rocklike gravel and two-story bunkers that all looked the same. Everything was dull and flat and boxy and banal. Only the sky had color and the contrast was awsome.
A doctor looked into the cell and the guard told me to cuff up for an examination. I walked to the door, turned around and cuffed up. The man was pretty cool. He asked how I was. “Lousy,” I told him, “achy, nauseous, depressed and plugged up.” We talked about HCV and I explained that I couldn’t digest pills. He suggested something mild for the clogged pipes. Sure, I said – if it’s not harsh. So he wrote a prescription. That was it – the morning rounds. I asked the guard for some toilet paper and soon a roll slid under the door.
I ran water into the cup, grabbed the toilet paper and took a position at the window. I finished the chess pieces relatively fast since I didn’t have to make trips back and forth to the sink. I molded the two queens and all the other men and was done. I tinted the tips of half of the pieces with the decaf, and still had enough left to make a small drink for myself.
An escort guard came and told me that I had to see the psychiatrist. I went through the routine of a strip search, donned the kilt and cuffed up. Damn! I thought – I hope this thing doesn’t fall off off as I’m walking down these halls. I made it to the same holding cell I was in the day before and the gate shut behind me. The guard said the psych will be here shortly and went on his way.
Dr. Levin entered with a polite good-morning and how are you. “Look at me,” I said. “I’m naked, eating with my hands, and in a filthy strip cell without even soap or a towel. How would you feel?” Then I asked about my visits. “I can’t lose my visits,” I explained. “So I can’t sign that release form” We talked about why I was there and I said that I understood the reasons; but that the cure was worse than the disease. She asked if I wanted to go back to the SHU cellblock. “Yes.” “O.K., that’s fine, I’ll just process the paperwork so that we can get you out of here today.” She really was concerned – her eyes even welled up with tears seeing me in such an abject state. I figured she was so proscribed in her duties by the CDC that there just wasn’t much she could do for anyone in the SHU.
Dr. Levin walked out to the desk and worked the phones. I was able to see her since the outer door was open. Then she started filling out forms. She popped in to say that it should work out that I’m discharged by lunchtime. She asked if I had a visit coming up soon. “Yeah, “this weekend or next.” She said she had to go and finsh the paperwork so that it could get processed by count time. We said our good-byes.
Eventually an escort guard came. I was relieved not to have lost my visit with my Mom. I still felt like shit, physically and mentally. But at least I had that: my only contact with the world out there – my beautiful chats with Mom. The guard brought the plastic bag with my clothes in it. He popped the slot and handed me the jumpsuit and shorts, shoes and socks. What a relief it was to have some clothing on – and shoes. The guard told me I’d be going back when the bus came and that I’d be kept in the cell until then . I cuffed up and was escorted back. “You don’t remember me, huh Johnson?” the escorting guard said. “Back in the first Gulf War we used to talk about the war and stuff.” I looked at him and recalled his face. I was pretty numb and kind of looking through things at this point. “Oh yeah, I remember you man. Sorry ‘bout that; I’m just kinda spaced out right now.” “You don’t want to be here, Johnson, because this place is fucked-up.” “Yeah, I can see that. And dig this, man, there’s another phase of that same war going on right now.” By then I was back in the cell. “I’m out of here so do you think that I can get a pen barrel and some paper?” “Here, let me see what I can find.” The door was opened, I entered the cell and it slammed behind me. The tray slot opened and I got uncuffed. Before long he handed me a pen and a couple of sheets of paper. “Thanks a lot,” I said. I made a pen holder out of a half a sheet of paper rolled into a tube around the barrel and tied it off with some stray orange string from the smelly tarp. Then I took a jelly packet I’d saved from breakfast, opened it and glued the remaining pieces of paper together. I folded about an inch-and-a-half of it, tore it off for a straight edge, then roughed out 64 squares on the paper. Having set all this up, I played bad chess with myself until my escort came. I know how to move the pieces correctly but not strategically since chess just isn’t my thing. But I had barely reached the end game when that escort came. It was a lady and a man and the war-strategist guard who’d chatted with me earlier. “What’s that?” the lady said, as she peered in, looking at the chess game on the floor. “ Chess,” I said. “Hey – that’s alright.” She stepped aside as the men stripped me out. We went through the usual routine, the cuffs were put on, and the door opened. “Later Johnson,” the war strategist said,” And stay outa here,” “I hear ya. And you try and stay out of the war if you can.” (He was in the reserves.) I walked down the corridor and into a beautiful day. It was April the ninth and I’d just turned 44. The sun felt great as it bathed me in its rays. I stepped onto the bus and took a short ride to another circle of Hell. I’d fallen into the cuckoo’s nest and out again – with all due respect to the tortured souls who remain there. That place is actually worse than SHU, if such a thing can be imagined. I picture the words of Dante above the SHU gates: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
August 2004