Poster Child: A Short Story

Poster Child

By Alexis Mizell

     Her hair is filled with curls so perfect that I imagine myself, a smaller version, sliding freely down them in a spiral with arms in the air and screaming at the top of my lungs.

Her hair looks like fun.

In the back of the cafeteria she sits, looking down at the lackluster colors of the food decorating her plate, and I can feel her anguish. When she first arrived here, all the guys in my block drooled when they caught a glance at her in the hallways. Granted, some of them drool unintentionally. The medications glaze their eyes over and create many uncontrollable side-effects, but the ones who are coherent all agree that she is something special. Every day since she arrived I wait for the perfect opportunity to speak. It’s been 125 days and I’ve yet to think of anything reasonable to say. “Hey pretty lady, come here often?” As if a mental institution is the equivalent to some hip and trendy bar on the outside. No that won’t do.

     But, Monday is the day. Today, we will finally talk. I repeat these words over and over while I wait for us to happenstance into the same vicinity. Usually, our only capacity for nearness is when I walk past her in the hallways, but this is different. I can feel the perfect moment arising now and as she walks towards the trash bins by my table to discard her untouched meal, I rise. “Hey!” flies out of my mouth louder than anticipated and her small frame jumps a little. She’s frozen. I can feel my legs moving me from my seat towards her, but before my nerves release the hold on my ligaments she scurries, fast like a scared mouse, out of the swinging cafeteria door. I look around to see numerous patients laughing, while the ward staff shoot puzzling eyes in my direction.

#

     Wednesday is bus day. The ward patients with more minor mental issues, like extreme social anxiety and manic depression, are sent to outside facilities for therapy on Wednesdays. I am no exception. They view it as a sort of outside perspective so that our, “psychiatric care isn’t tainted by the “he said, she saids” of the hospital itself”, or at least that is what the pamphlets claim. The bus is uncomfortable. The torn leather cushions provide no back support and the stuck windows provide no relief from the sweltering Florida heat, but I make it feel like a safe harbor with daydreams of her.

Jessica.

I learned her name after eavesdropping on her nurse, in hallway B, talking about how much she loves self-help books. By the time the bus is parked I’ve already dreamed up six versions of first dates we could have and fifteen versions of what I plan to say to her the next time I work up the courage.

“Anything new today, Tom?” Mrs. Miller is always so kind. Her greeting, accompanied with a hug, makes me feel like I’m not so different after all. I inhale and exhale the smell of her perfume and pause in the doorway as it runs through every inch of my body, soaking deep into my marrow, reminding me of my mom and every morning breakfast she would cook in high school those many years ago.

“It’s Jessica again.” It was always Jessica. For months I’ve been droning on and on about each nuance I’ve learned just by watching her. As always, Mrs. Miller is lecturing me about the amount of time I spend talking about Jessica. She says the word stalking. A lot. I assure her I would never do such a thing. “Come visit for yourself, I promise you Mrs. Miller, I am being nothing more than an observer to a beautiful girl.” As she fumbles through her calendar looking for a free moment to pencil me in, my heart is beating fast with the excitement of my psychiatrist being there, finally seeing what I see for the very first time.

“I’ll be there on Friday at 10 am, ok Tom? Look for me in the visitors office. Do I need to write a reminder?” No reminder. I know I won’t sleep for the next two nights, and I will not, would not, could not. Forget.

#

     Friday came quick. I wrote down details about Jessica yesterday after we brushed shoulders in hallway C on the way to Bingo. For the most part, she is always looking down. Sometimes at a book or sometimes at her shoes. Either way, I annotate the details of her long eyelashes and dark eyebrows; the way they arch in the same fashion as the cupids bow above her lip. I can’t wait to explain these things to Mrs. Miller. It’s 9:45 am and I’m beginning the trek to the visitors office near the second floor lobby. Like a trail of bread crumbs, I’m following the scent of Mrs. Miller up the stairs, and my pace quickens. Before I step into the doorway Mrs. Miller motions me to sit down in the lobby. The office door shuts. Through the room blinds, the ward director sits with her mouth moving a mile a minute, and I wonder what they are chatting about.

The door opens.

“Come in, Tom.” That’s not Mrs. Miller’s normal greeting, but maybe she just seems different in front of Director Lane.

“We want to have a little chat with you Tom. Before you say anything just let Mrs. Miller get her words out and try to let what she is saying soak in.” As I take my seat she begins softly patting my leg like I’m a small child getting ready for a Flu shot. I hate that.

     “Alright Tom. As you can guess, because I know you are smart enough to, this is about Jessica. For the safety of everyone involved, I don’t want you getting as angry as you did with your mother in 2008, but this has to be explained. I see here that you’ve taken your sedative today which is good. The staff have noticed on several occasions that you have been, for months, lingering in the hallways daily. On Monday, they noted that you were talking under your breath at lunch and yelled out loud. After touring the facility- and putting two and two together- I would speculate that you were trying to get Jessica’s attention, but Tom, Jessica is not real. She is not a patient here in the hospital nor has she ever been. Jessica is Jessica Cain, a self-help author whose photo hangs with inspirational and behavioral posters, on a few walls throughout the hospital corridors. Now Tom, I know the last time you started hallucinating you hurt your mom real bad, right? So, promise me this time you will try it our way with proper treatment and dosages that will help you see clearly through the blurred lines between reality and fantasy, that your type of schizophrenia produces.”

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