“Are you ready to do this?”
“As ready as I'll ever get.”
My name is Celine Bishop. I've known Keira Anastassiades for a grand total of fifteen minutes, but it's like we're best friends already. We met in the waiting area of the psychiatric emergency room. We went outside so Keira could have a cigarette before we're called. Keira's on her fifth cigarette now, and I just finished calling my brother, who's in the hospital himself but at a different place.
“You act like you don't think you need or deserve to be there,” my brother, Willem, said. “But you do.”
You see, it's my family that convinced me to come here. My other brother, Stefan, hanged himself last week and after we buried him my parents, Willem, and my sister Krystyne all committed themselves.
I don't know if I'm here because my brother is dead, because I'm stressed about my family's stress, or because I'm scared my family will get a court order if I don't volunteer. I'm leaning towards the latter.
Beeeeeeeeep! says the metal detector.
Damn! I knew I should have taken my phone out of my pocket and put it in the plastic bin, but I was afraid the x-ray machine would do something to it, so I just carried it through with me. I take it out of my pocket to put it in the plastic bin, but--
“Drop it!”
“Put it down!”
“Hands UP!”
“Get on the ground!”
“On your knees!”
“On your face!”
“Come with us!”
“Where are you going! Get DOWN!”
Are they talking to me?
They're shouting contradicting orders. Who am I supposed to obey? I don't want to obey any of them; they're rude. So I do what I would have done anyway. I put my phone down in the plastic bin on the table and turn around to try the metal detector again.
“Where do you think you're going!”
Someone is behind me, kicking me in the back of the knees. Two others grab me, by my arm and by my hair, before I have the chance to fall.
Something falls over my head, then surrounds the rest of my body. A net. They've just thrown a net over me. And now they're dragging me down the hall.
The one behind me boots me into a room and I land on my face. I taste blood in my mouth. The net comes off me, at least. The heavy door slams behind us and finally the two men get off me too.
Then the orders start again.
“Put your hands on the wall!”
“Put your hands on the table!”
“Put your hands on your head!”
“Get your hands out of your hair! I told you to put them on the wall!”
With my hands on the wall, they give me the thrice-over with the metal-detecting wand.
Then--
“Get naked!” (I don't.)
“Bend over, cough, and spit in this bowl!”
“Run your fingers through your hair!”
“Get your hands out of your hair! We need to search it! For the last time, put them on the wall!”
They go on to make sure I've got no drugs, no weapons and no dignity.
“All right, listen up, now. I want you to give me your shoestrings, your belt, your glasses, your earrings, your hair clip and your wallet. First I'm gonna take the knife from your pocket. Got it?”
I understand I can hang myself with the shoestrings and the belt. I understand that my earrings and hair clip have some very sharp parts. And of course the knife.
But without my glasses, I can only see about a third of what I should. I'm going to be walking around two-thirds blind. Well, walking around if I'm lucky. I'll probably be in a little room so small I can barely turn around.
And why my wallet? I ask them. “Why my wallet?” They already searched my wallet, then just threw it down beside me.
“You know why.”
“The cards in it are weapons.”
“They're sharp.”
“Then,” I say, “can I have my wallet with just the money in it?”
They look at each other, smiling smugly.
“What money?” the female says. And she reaches down her shirt and stuffs the $250 I'd been carrying around into her bra.
“Come on! Get a move-on! Get naked!”
“You know why no money! So that you'll be fucked if you try to pull a Midnight Express!”
Not “Get naked” again!
I stall for time. “When do I see the doctor?” I ask.
“When he feels like seeing you,” says the lady that kicked me in the knees and stole my money.
“When he's up to looking at your ugly face,” says the guy that's eating falaffel out of a Styrofoam container. “Hey-- falaffel face!” He points into my face.
He's referring to my acne. I pretend I don't hear, but that backfires, because the woman now says, “Ain't she stupid? She's like a slow robot, not recognizing an insult.”
Well, what do I do? If I could only somehow find out how much power these people actually have, I'd know what to do... whether to obey them or demand to call my lawyer.
Oh, by the way, I wrote my lawyer's number on my arm before coming in here. I'm glad I did. But will I get to use it? Will they ever let me near a phone? Where's my phone?
“I want to call my lawyer,” I say, taking a chance and also stalling for time.
“Nope. Intake procedure first, phone calls later. If you're good.”
“No,” I say, getting pissed. “Whether I'm good or not, I have the right to call my lawyer. Not only that, but since I'm not disturbing anyone or anything but your egos, I have the legal right to make as many phone calls as I damn well please, as long as I let the other patients have a turn.”
Well, they're getting pissed, but I'm still not naked. Maybe the doctor will come in the meantime. The reception people told me and Keira that they'd already called him.
Keira! Where's Keira!
“Where's Keira, the girl I was hanging out with?”
I'm stalling for time, but genuinely worried about her.
“None of your damn business. Now get naked. We're in a rush.”
The woman is putting on blue hospital gloves.
“You've got two choices. You can get naked and jump up and down until we tell you to stop, or we can bend you over that table and check you ourselves, then lay you out on the floor and check you again.”
I slowly bend down. Slowly, I undo the laces on my shoes, then remember that they asked for the laces. So I start to take the laces out, as slowly as possible.
“Hurry it up!”
“Let me do that!”
They grab my shoes right off my feet, knocking me on my ass.
I slowly give them everything they asked for, except for my wallet and my glasses. Sure, she confiscated the cash, but she never confiscated my debit card. Maybe I can order pizza in there or something.
An unfamiliar woman's voice cuts through the snickers and jeers.
“Dr. Howard is here.”
“Give us five, will you? We ain't done!” the woman says.
Then I notice the little tinted dome in the ceiling, which I know, or guess, contains a camera. Can the camera pick up sound too? And even if it can't, the powers that be will surely see the footage and find out that these people beat me up, robbed me and are sexually assaulting me?
No, they won't find out. They already know. And they're letting it happen. They're all friends. They'll destroy the footage if I ever get the chance to take them to court.
But they can't destroy all their footage, or the court would be suspicious.
But that would mean more people might have to be abused before these people are brought to justice.
“Dr. Howard!” I shout, grasping at the last straw. At the same time I'm slowly stripping so they don't do it for me and basically rape me. “They're going to search inside me!”
“I'm sorry, I don't make the rules here,” a male voice that is probably Dr. Howard says. “I recommend that for your own mental health's sake, you just do as they say and get it over with.”
He doesn't want to lose his job. Money, money, money.
Finally I'm stark naked, but I'm not going to be a bowing, trembling, weeping naked person. I strike a sexy pose. Then I realize I can use this to my advantage. I can get things I want and need from these evil people if I just give them sexual favors.
Wait a minute. What am I saying! That's what they want me to think! I'm already brainwashed by them, and I've been here what? Half an hour. Half a fucking hour.
How am I going to survive five to ten days? I can sense that whatever “therapy” I get in here will cause me to need more, real therapy if I get out.
That's right. If.
Not that I'd be able to afford therapy on the outside anyway. Isn't that why I'm here in the first place?
That and my family. I hope they're having as good a time as I am. But I get mad remembering that when talking to my brother, he seemed alright. He said the food was too good, he was spoonfed his rights, they had a room for people to smoke in, and he and his new psych ward friends went on accompanied walks around the beautiful grounds.
But that place he's at is full now. No room for me. The places my parents and sister are at are also full.
I do a little naked happy dance that includes jumping up and down. I might as well show them that at least in a way they didn't get to me mentally.
“Look at that slut dance!” one of the men says.
“But you gotta admit, she's good,” Mr. Falaffel says. “Hey, if I tell you how to dance and you do it, I'll get you somethin' free from the vendin' machine. How's that, chubby cheeks?”
I don't know if Chubby Cheeks is a compliment, an insult, or both. But Mr. Falaffel is pretty chubby himself, so I guess it's either a compliment or both.
So I jumped up and down, and nothing fell out, because nothing was in there. They were disappointed, hoping for drugs or something.
After they were done and I got dressed again, I was shoved down the hall into the little interrogation room, where I tried to tell the doctor what happened, but he made me feel like a spoiled brat who thinks I should get special treatment. He said they do this to everyone, that I'm no different. He isn't interested. He isn't interested in anything about me. If he was, he'd surely be interested in that.
So I just told him what he needed for his files, making it sound like I was pressured by my family and don't really belong here at all. If he thinks I don't belong here, maybe he'll let me go. Or let me go sooner.
Then two big guys took me upstairs onto a unit and the first thing I thought was “Ooooooh Lordy, trouble so hard,” because it looked a bit like that nursing home in Moby's Natural Blues music video.
It's pills time. Everyone is lined up getting their meds. Except me; I have no meds yet unless the doctor went behind my back.
A man is fidgeting, pacing, squirming and shaking so much he can't drink the water they're giving him with his pills. “Stop playing games with us!” the nurse barks. “I told you to drink the water, not slop it down yourself!”
A nauseated pregnant girl is told that if she can't keep her pills down, they'll have to give her an injection of “something that will make you very uncomfortable” to produce the same effect the pills would have.
Standing in line, when it's his turn, an older man (supported by a teenage boy-- where's his cane or walker? Did they take it away?) is told he stinks and is dirty and needs a shower. “But none of you ever have time to help me! I need help!” the man says. “And you won't let any of the patients help me!”
“Oh, shut up. Do you want us to put you in seclusion? You're causing a ruckus.”
They're trying to make him cause a ruckus.
But he knows. He doesn't take the bait.
But as the teen boy helps him walk away after they take their pills, I hear him say to the teenager, “If I told one of them to shut up I'd be put in the iron body, or a straitjacket, or the A-suit or something.”
“All you have to do is ask a question and they'll four-point you for like three days,” a young teenage girl says as the boy and the old man sit down at the table she's sitting at.
I look around for Keira.
And find her.
She's sitting on the floor against the wall, reading a newspaper. We lock eyes as I drift over to her. I sit down, knocking some paint off the wall, and she shows me the paper.
MENTAL HEALTH FUNDING CUT AGAIN, the headline screams.
I read the article. Less staff, the staff that are left working three eight-hour shifts in a row, less qualified people being hired as staff, less background checks being done on staff, no more activities or group therapy for inpatients. It doesn't look good.
I'm supposed to be voluntary, but they didn't treat me like I was voluntary. Or could I have said I wanted out and had changed my mind while I was still downstairs being sexually assaulted?
“Let's go ask to leave AMA,” Keira says, reading my mind.
“Not at the same time, though,” I say. “That wouldn't be a good idea. It'd be like one of us talked the other into it, or like we're together trying to cause trouble, or like we're impulsively deciding to move in together or something.”
Keira goes first. She comes back crying. “That BITCH,” she says. “She said 'You's here under depression; you ain't goin' nowheah, girlfriend.' This place is ADDING to my depression.”
But where are the court papers? I look around for a phone to call my lawyer. There are two phones.
Behind the desk.
I go to the desk, taking my chances. Well, Keira never got four-pointed for asking a question. I might as well see for myself who does that and who doesn't.
“Excuse me,” I say, “Can I use the phone? I notice there's no phones out here.”
“Who do you wish to call?” the fat female nurse I haven't seen before says.
“My lawyer.”
“Has he been here before? They actually have to come visit you and meet the doctor before being on your call list. The doctor wants to make sure they're a therapeutic person for you.”
“Well, that's stupid,” I say, my temper rising. “They can't come visit me if they don't know I'm here.”
“Well, are you voluntary? You should have told your lawyer you were coming here. And if you're not voluntary, well, you need to be here, so you don't need no lawyer.”
Actually, you do. But I hold my tongue. Instead I say, “Can you call him for me?”
“Look, ma'am, I'm a nurse, not a secretary. Just sit tight and be good is all I've gotta say.”
I head back to Keira. “My family will get out of those nice places,” I say. “And I'll still be stuck in here. They'll come with my lawyer, but the doctor can just say they're not therapeutic people for me and ban them from coming any more or calling. The doctor wants more patients in here so the government can give him more money. They'll go to court and protest groups, but I don't want to burden them with that. They already lost a son, a son who was the high school valedictorian, a football player, an A-plus student, then a firefighter doing online psychology courses.”
I let the next sentence sink in before saying it. “They're not going to fight for me for long. And if they did, I would feel so bad. I'm a nobody. I'm a high school dropout. I can't hold a job for more than three months. I'm on employment insurance. I accidentally killed my pet turtle when I was six years old. Poisoned him. When I was eight, I stole my teacher's wallet out of his vest pocket. His vest was hanging on his chair. When I was nine, I--”
“Celine, STOP,” Keira says. “If I'm worth springing from here, so are you, and my family already came to see me and say they'll get a lawyer. I have a different doctor from you. Dr. Barrett. She's letting people see me.”
But now that I remember all the things I did in my life, I feel I deserve to be here. I think I'll just tell my family and my lawyer not to try anything.
“Celine, no, please,” Keira says, reading my mind. “You are not going to die in here and neither am I. And neither are any of those other people. We'll expose this place. When my sister comes, I'll tell her to bring her camera glasses. Then we'll send the footage to ALL the press outlets. All of them.”
“You saved my life,” I say, breaking into a grin. “I was going to hoard my pills and die.”
“Don't. Something exciting is going to go down,” Keira says. “And you don't want to miss it. And you'll want to share the fame and the glory with me.”
It was all over the news, and now I’m out and in a group home. Keira’s still in the hospital, but they were forced to change their ways, so she doesn’t find it so bad now.
They’re making me take pills, and there’s nothing I can do about that except try to fight it in court. But at least through what I did I proved to that particular doctor that I was was sane enough to be let go.
I spend my days bitching about it online in a support group on Facebook. And encouraging people to fight back.
And that’s when I get the private message from Hettie.
Hettie tells me her own story at length… how the International Incident Instigation Initiative saved her ass and then recruited her.
She was in the hospital for no good reason, manic as heck though, and the Initiators saved her and other patients from a deadly shooting they knew would happen but that they had no proof would happen to tell the authorities. The Initiators broke them out of the hospital. Kidnapped them against their will, actually, by luring them out and then herding them onto a bus. They took them to their secret hideout until the shooting was over, then the police caught up with them. The police had also, however, caught up with the potential shooters, and it was proven that the Initiators had been right, but they were still charged with a crime.
But they had still saved Hettie’s and her friends’ lives, and that Hettie and her friends could not ignore.
Hettie joined the Initiators and helped them with their next project: saving people from electroconvulsive therapy by breaking them out of the hospital, which they did by starting a fire in the file room (with the help of the guy that worked there, who was one of them, in on it too) and pulling the alarm to empty the building. Which was an epic fail, because when they heard one person died in the fire they got sidetracked talking and fighting about that and didn’t dispose of their cellphones fast enough, and the police caught up with them.
But their next project, a communal camp up in the mountains of British Columbia, was a success.
The bus turns into a clearing surrounded by high, steep mountains. There are some paths and staircases cut into the mountains going up further, some of them even paved, but none wide enough for a vehicle.
We are overjoyed. We leap out the door of the bus, and some pull the emergency latch to make the widows swing out and jump out that way. Others crawl out the hatches onto the roof and then jump or are helped down by a swarm of people that suddenly appears. Then a man I recognize as Hettie’s boyfriend Mike stands at a metal podium on a wooden platform and reads our names and one by one we go up to Hettie, who’s standing next to him, and get the papers with our maps of the camp, cabin numbers and assignments.
I look at my paper. Bishop, Celine. Cabin 37. Journalist. Report to the Press Room in Lodge 14 immediately.
Journalist! I’m a journalist! I’m so thrilled. I’ve always wanted to be a journalist.
I’m good at it too. Which is exactly why Hettie and Mike picked me, or rather, picked that job for me.
Things are looking up.
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