Misguided Bravado

[This account contains sensitive content in the form of mental health issues and physical violence.] 

      “Breakfast! Breakfast! Get up for breakfast!” The familiar voices of hospital staff echoed down the hallways as heavy metal doors to the mental patients' rooms were opened, then noisily closed, and the unfortunates were roused for the morning meal. Mike frequently woke up dreading the day ahead. He had been hospitalized for three years and episodically was besought by an existential anxiety he believed could only be resolved by one course of action. Today he was determined to carry through with that action again despite the consequences. He was determined, but, as usual, he was panicky. He felt once more that if he didn’t do it, there’d be chicken-shit consequences, that he would die, or that the world would end. 

           The patients slowly moved down the corridors, some still groggy, others disheveled. Some doing the Thorazine shuffle, others a Haldol-induced unsteady ambulation. All doubtlessly on some form or other of medication, because they were legally required to take them—unless the mentally-ill detainee was slyly getting past obligatory mouth checks with meds tucked away in a cheek. 

           Mike was on an injectable anti-psychotic, so no intrusive swabs of the tongue and gums with a wooden tongue depressor for him. The newer pharmaceuticals were supposedly more effective and had fewer side-effects. His state-mandated drug, however, was raising his level of prolactin, a hormone that could lead to the development of male breasts. He wasn’t too happy about this, and it was part of the reason why he was anxious. Anxious and sad about being a mental patient and being separated from his family and other loved ones, particularly girlfriends. Anxious and angry at having to live in close quarters amongst many people he sometimes didn’t trust and most of the time didn’t like.

           Mike already had in mind the person he was going to do it to. It was one of the patients he had little compassion for, despite their being in the same god-awful situation. This morning, Mike’s chosen victim was a Confederacy-sympathizing white-boy he took to be another Citadel loser—the kind who brought political issues more typical of jail inmates into state mental hospitals. Citadel was the name of the forensic hospital where they were patients.  Its psychiatric detainees had either been found incompetent for court or declared not guilty by reason of insanity. Mike was in the latter situation, and he was doing an indeterminate sentence, waiting to be declared sane enough to return home. 

        Mike had chosen the Confederate boy—not really a boy, but a young adult, most likely in his early to mid-twenties—because he had arrived at the hospital wearing cowboy boots and had already kicked another patient, Crazy Carlos, with them. Mike was on good terms with Crazy and felt indignant not only that Crazy had been attacked, but that Matthew Mullen—the Confederate—had been allowed to keep his boots. Mike figured there’d soon be another target of Mullen’s booted madness. Given the everyday uncertainty of life in a mental hospital, Mike feared he himself could be the next victim.

            Mullen frequently ranted in a melodic language only he knew the significance of. “Doo-whoppers in the do,” Mullen would say—to no one in particular, “Doo-whoppers in the dough. All wetbacks and jigaboos got to go.”  Mullen was crazy, like all of the patients in one way or another were. He was a vulgar cowboy poet who would frequently sing and play guitar to songs he had composed, but his racially insensitive jabs got to Mike, who was as white as Mullen was. Due to Mike’s own unfortunately unkind encounters with police, however, he felt a solidarity with most of the patients of color.

             As a result of his Southern white boy prejudice, Mullen's attack on Carlos had been accompanied by the use of the epithet, “wetback.” To be precise, Mullen had repeatedly yelled, “Attack! Attack! Attack the wetback,” as he had assaulted Crazy with his worn snakeskin boots. Mike was white, but he was also Hispanic, and because he had Mexican kin, he had taken offense at Mullen’s gross insensitivity. But what got to Mike more than Mullen’s voiced dislike of Mexican immigrants was his disdain for blacks. In particular, Mike was rankled by the way Mullen called an inoffensive pudgy black kid who would compose hip-hop beats on a hospital keyboard, “sickle-cell Samuel.” It was this collection of circumstances that made Mike feel compelled to act out this morning. 

             Mike slowly advanced along the chow hall line about fifteen patients behind Mullen. This would give the intended victim plenty of time to find a seat before Mike was served his morning meal. The breakfast tray consisted of waffles and sausage, cartons of orange juice and milk, and, most importantly, hot cream of wheat and even hotter coffee. 

            Mike felt his anxiety mount as he placed the last items on his tray and left the queue. He spotted Mullen sitting at one of the chow hall’s square tables with three other patients. Mullen’s back was to a wall, and Mike chose a route that would allow him to stop and stand directly behind his victim. Once he was in position, Mike’s tray felt light in his heavy hands. 

            “Matthew Mullen, Matthew Mullen, red-neck punk whose face is swollen,” Mike yelled the instant before he raised the hard plastic tray as high as he could and then swiftly brought it and all its contents down onto the unsuspecting Confederate boy’s head, continuing to scream as he did so, to increase the intimidation factor.

           Matthew didn’t fall to the ground, as other of Mike’s victims had. Mullen stood and found a place against the wall. Mike assailed him, fists flying in a flurry, but none of them squarely landing. The young black keyboardist, Samuel, was aglow with admiration. Mike didn’t stop his attack until he and Mullen were separated by intervening psychiatric technicians—formerly called orderlies.

            As they were prone to, when Mike had his episodes, things took a turn for the worse when hospital staff got involved. He regarded them with as much animosity as the patients for whom he felt contempt. Mike turned his fabricated rage against the psych-techs until they were forced to wrestle him to the ground. Once prostate, Mike would attempt spitting at them until a spit mask was brought and placed on his head. He resisted, aggressively wiggled and kicked as they carried him to a side room. Mike continued to lash out the best he could as they fastened him to a metal-frame bed, restraints tied in place. Once bound, he cursed and inveighed against his oppressors until a nurse came in with a sedative shot.

            Mike had a crush on this morning’s attending R.N. She returned his flirtations and would usually have something humorous to say to him during his breakdowns. Today, immediately after she jammed the syringe’s needle into his quadricep, she sarcastically, but gently, uttered the words “Don’t cry” close to his ear.  But Mike’s tears were already welling up, from frustration, from sadness, from misguided bravado.