The Joy of Madness

A Story

A Trip To Hell

He leaps off the curb into an ocean of headights, across a wide
boulevard, in time to see an old man jamming on his brakes, barely missing him. Hi sadrenaline pushes him in front of one more car and across a bridge, across the L.A. River. He continues to sprint behind a stadium and stands amid a crowd exiting a football game. He sees his wife driving by in a van looking for him. "I know she is poisoning the lemonade. She was going to kill me with the iron." He sits on a curb for an hour and then a car drives up. "Mike I'm scared Renee is trying to kill me! She hates me." he says in a slow baritone.

"She wouldn't try to do that to you Billy. You're sick and you need to go to the hospital."

"But I have a party to go to. Robert is having a party up by Cal Arts."

"O.k. I'll take you to the party."

An E.R. nurse walks in. "Billy here's a Benadryl. This might help you sleep."

Billy is 6'5 and 200 pounds. He has black hair cropped short and peircing blue eyes against light brown skin. You can see his muscles through his black t-shirt. He is wearing Levis and Doc Martin shoes. He goes to the bathroom and tries to vomit up the poison.

Billy lies down in a bed next to a woman who has had a heart attack. He can't sleep and two hours later he is finally seen by a blonde, curvy psychiatrist. She has a walkie-talkie and is on a cell phone. "Are you a cop? " Billy asks, smiling.

She smiles and says " We need to send you to another hospital."

He is smitten and walks compliantly to the ambulance.

"Are we going to Roberts' party?"

"Are you gonna get in or do I have to tie you to the stretcher?"

In the ambulance Billy thinks that the oxygen tank is a gun aimed at him. He leans over in case it goes off. "Is that the map to Robert's place?"

The E.M.T. looks annoyed with him. Billy has no clue where they are taking him. They go around a lot of curves. He starts to hyperventilate because he thinks they might take him somewhere remote to kill him.

The hospital is large and terraced. At Kaiser China Town a nurse greets him.

"Is this Robert's party?"

"Yes, come on in."

He is admitte to the hospital where people play games, do activities, and eat. It is the middle of the night and everyone is asleep.

"Are you taking any street drugs?"

"No, are you?"

"Are you hearing any voices?"

"No."

"Are you having visual hallucinations?"

"No, is there a camera behind that window?"

"No, there's no camera in here. Are you taking any medication?"

"No, I stopped taking my Mellaril and Prozac a few months ago. They were making me gain weight and fall asleep in classes. I had to quit driving because my visison got so blurry."

Fo the third day in a row Billy refuses the poisonous medicine and doesn't sleep. One night in an observaiton room he is laying on a plastic padded bed, staring at a bright flourescent light and reading the etchings in the window that say "Hell," "Satan," and "I'm dying, help." The clicking window and the creaking crickets might be a code from his dead grandfather. He keeps hearing this high pitched squeeling noise that sounds like a car in a long drawn out spin out, but just won't crash. This reminds him of the time he spun out on the 405 by UCLA on the way to a club with Mike. All of a sudden a group of male nurses enters, unzips his jeans, pulls down his underwear, and gives him a shot in the ass. He doesn't struggle. This feels like a dream. They leave behind a book entilted "Neuroleptics and You" and another one called "Haldol" He finally sleeps.

The dinner trays are delivered to the locked ward. Billy sits down with a couple of guys who are also in their twenties. Billy eyes the food and asks a skinny kid if he wants his rice pudding. The kid says no. Billy laughs. "Don't you think it looks like come?" They all laugh. During the meal there is this old woamn sitting across the room and she has the msot evil expressio on her face. She is staring strsight at Billy, bug eyes like she is really angry. "She scares the shit out of me like she is going to put a hex on me."

Billy sits alone in his room reading and a fat woman across the hall cackles. "Hey Gerald, Billy wants you. Go on, he is waiting for you."

Billy waits nervously. Yhe door opens and there is Gerald, all seven feet, naked and brwon from head to toe.

"Get the fuck away from me!" Billy yells, pointing at Gerlad with his whole arm.

Gerald blinks a couple of times and turns and leaves. Billy gets up and moves tree dressers, nightstands and beds to block the door. "I want outa here!"

He takes a chair and tries to break the second story window but it is made of plastic. "Maybe I can jump down to the patio tablr and run away." He is not afraid of dying. Finally the next day a team of nurses tries to come in.

"Open up! Why'd you block the door? Your're strong!"

"I feel like I'm in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest! I was sexually abused as a child and I am not letting that happen again! Were you sexually abused too?"

The petite woman answers " Yes, how did you know?"

I jsut had a feeling. You know you look like Sandy Duncan. And you look like B.B. King. The other nurse looks like Angela Davis."

To Be Continued....

Posted by Butterfly Emerging at July 20, 2007 01:45 AM