Detour from Normal (28 page)

Once upon a time, Grace had put her false teeth on a napkin and then mistakenly thrown the napkin away. She'd been toothless ever since. I couldn't help but take most everything she said comically because of the way she scrunched her toothless face and slurred her words when she spoke.

Grace could walk, but her calves were swollen almost as big as her thighs, so walking was very painful. Mostly she parked herself in front of the center of attraction, the big screen TV in the main area. She usually rested her eternally aching feet on an armchair in front of her.

At Gracewood everyone had their blood pressure checked regularly, and it was time for Grace to have hers checked. The nurse put the blood pressure cuff around her arm and then began chatting with another nurse as the machine inflated it. I wasn't paying much attention, but soon I heard "Ow, ow, OW!" I looked over at Grace and she was obviously in extreme discomfort. The nurse was too distracted in conversation to notice Grace's suffering, so Grace leaned forward in her chair and bit her. I mean, she gave a serious chomp to her arm. The nurse pulled her arm back and yelled, "Grace, what are you doing?" Grace matter-of-factly replied, "It's a guud fing I don't haf my teef in."

A few days later, I had an opportunity to experience the bad cuff. Someone had repaired an air line feeding the cuff with tape in such a way that it wouldn't release air between inflations as it was designed to. As a consequence, it pumped up and up without end. After the cuff was placed on my arm and the air pump fired up, the pressure in the cuff just kept building and building. It was horrific. Soon I was yelling in pain as well. By coincidence, only Grace and I had the luck to experience the bad cuff. Thankfully, it is now resting comfortably in a landfill somewhere near Phoenix.

Too Many Footballs

It was 9:25 a.m. and everyone who wanted to go outside was lining up, including a few who always tried to sneak out but weren't on the "good behavior" list. It was always a small battle holding those folks at bay. It seemed the people who actually needed to go out the most were the ones who couldn't go. You had to earn the privilege to go outside.

Finally, with head counts tallied and names checked off, we shuffled in a line through the first level of security, a set of dark blue steel doors with wire mesh-reinforced glass windows. As the last person passed through, the PA locked the door behind us. Directly ahead was another set of locked doors, then another, and finally, one last locked door that opened to the outside. We hustled through all the doors as they were opened and closed behind us until finally we were free. Well, free of sorts. We were carefully watched by PAs from multiple units sitting in green plastic lawn chairs at strategic locations, and the entire area was surrounded by a high-security fence.

The "rec yard," as I called it, was mostly grass dotted with small trees but also contained two enormous mesquite trees. Each mesquite tree was surrounded by a walled, circular garden perhaps twelve feet in diameter. The three-foot-high concrete walls of the gardens were stuccoed and painted white. They were so old that the mesquite tree roots had at some points outgrown them and begun lifting them off the ground, causing large cracks to form, which ran the full height of the walls. Each garden was filled with beautiful flowers of every shape and color. Normally it wouldn't be possible to raise flowers in the July heat, but the mesquite trees provided so much shade that the gardens never saw direct sunlight.

We couldn't roam freely in the rec yard except on one day a week. On that day we could walk the full perimeter and go wherever we wished. Other days we were restricted to a small grass area and the concrete basketball court. There were weathered soccer balls, well-worn and under inflated basketballs, faded Nerf footballs, and some Hula-Hoops in a bin near the basketball court. Aside from that, there were beanbags and colored chalk to play with.

Whenever I had a chance to go outside, I loved to engage people. One kid in particular, Travis, enjoyed tossing footballs with me. Travis very much liked to smoke pot. I believe he'd smoked so much that it remained in his system the entire time he was at Gracewood. With his half-open bloodshot eyes, lazy smile, and slow reflexes, he seemed permanently stoned. The footballs we tossed were Nerfs of various sizes. I liked to grab all of them from the bin so I'd be guaranteed a good time. I usually found that if I nailed someone with a football, he'd get the message and join in. That in turn gave me more targets to choose from. I preferred picking on Travis and would wait until he was occupied throwing to someone else; then I'd hit him with as many footballs as I had—sometimes as many as
six. As I threw them, I'd calculate my trajectories so that each football would hit at the same time. All of a sudden, every ball would pummel Travis at once. He'd always hunker down in surprise with his hands protecting his head while I rolled on the ground laughing. With a big, stoned grin, he'd half-heartedly attempt to get even, but when the balls came my way, I merely collected them for my next barrage. Sure enough, in a few minutes, Travis would have forgotten and I'd do it all over again.

One day Grace was sitting in her wheelchair watching us play. Curious as to what might happen, I tossed a football her way and it landed squarely in her lap. A big grin spread across her toothless face, she slowly pushed herself out of her wheelchair, took a few steps in my direction, and let loose. She wound that ball up like a professional slow pitch softball pitcher and yelled "whoop, whoop, whoop" as she did so, then let that ball fly. It was so comical I nearly died. I tossed the ball with her for a while, and then Len came over and joined in.

Len and Grace were mortal enemies. Len was a homeless veteran who had lived on the streets for thirty-five years and was as hard as they come. Most words leaving Len's mouth were of the four-letter variety, and he'd long ago lost all concept of manners. Those two frequently battled it out verbally. It was a small miracle that I had brought them together. I stopped playing for a while and treasured watching them throw the ball, laugh, and enjoy each other's company.

A Single Ray of Sunshine

She was unquestionably pretty with wavy, shoulder-length brunette hair, a slender athletic build, and piercing blue eyes, but her most attractive
feature was something people in the sane world wouldn't notice: she was able to interact with patients. The unspoken rule at Gracewood was that staff did not interact with patients. What it really boiled down to, I noticed, was that the female staff in particular did not interact with patients. This would seem to make perfect sense. Women are more apt to be injured by patients, especially dangerous ones like us. In reality, however, it had nothing to do with that; it was all about control. With the exception of a very few, the female employees at Gracewood were strict and controlling. They were big on rules and quick with discipline. They were the top of the food chain. They didn't mingle because they were superior and they were in charge, regardless of what staff level they occupied.

Emma was the one exception. She calmly and compassionately crossed back and forth over that invisible line separating patient from staff. I found it a wonderful quality. I did much the same thing, frequently interacting with both patients and staff, so when I saw that behavior in her, I recognized it instantly.

When I first saw Emma, she had just strolled into our unit with a box in her arms. It was hard to miss someone pretty in my unit, mainly because, unless someone pretty happened to walk in, there was no one pretty. Many female patients were missing a goodly number of their teeth, and more often than not the teeth left were some shade of black. All of them wore scrubs, and most hadn't showered or brushed their hair in—well, a long time. Emma on the other hand had all of her teeth, aligned perfectly and highlighted by a beautiful smile. She wore a colorful print blouse and white slacks, clothes that might be commonplace on the outside but were something you just didn't see in Gracewood. Her hair was clean and shiny and fell loosely against her shoulders.

I had no idea why she was there or what she was going to do with that box, but I was intrigued, to say the least, and turned in my armchair by the television to watch her. She put the box down on the floor by the wall with the clock and proceeded to take colorful "splashes" of artwork from it. She took each splash of color and applied it to the wall, smoothing any air bubbles out by running her elegant fingers across it. They must have clung electrostatically or had some sort of adhesive.

The edges of the splashes were uneven, as if they'd been ripped instead of cut, and each contained a colored silhouette. The silhouettes were all of a sporting motif: a football player sprinting with a football in one hand and fending off unseen tacklers with his other outstretched arm; a basketball player leaping through the air to make a dunk; a golfer smacking a ball down a fairway with his driver. There was also a number on each splash. As she continued, I realized it was a calendar.
Wonderful,
I thought.
Now I'll be able to count down the days until I get out of here.
Being able to know the day and date seemed like a miracle. Even though I could probably figure out those things from the TV or even by asking someone, my reconfigured mind could better relate to the new calendar. It was the first time I realized how important that was to me; it connected me to my wife and children. It was as if she had secretly brought a piece of the real world inside Gracewood.

Each day from that point on, a splash would be removed from the wall—banished from life and forgotten. I never actually saw it happen; the next day it was simply gone as if by magic. The calendar was a constant reminder of the days that really mattered: the days still ahead. Today stood like a boulder perched precariously on a cliff's edge, ready to roll off at any time into the abyss. I couldn't miss today—everything preceding it was gone. Each morning from then on, I'd come out to her
calendar and rest my hand on today. That act started each day with special meaning, and I felt that it recharged my soul.

The next time I saw Emma was at the 5:30 p.m. recreation time. That evening I quickly rushed to get a good basketball from the ball bin as I usually did. Unless I was the first to get one, I was lucky if it bounced at all. There is nothing worse than trying to bounce a basketball and having it stick to the ground like a wet rag. I figured out early on that there were only two halfway decent balls in the whole bunch, so if I was in the mood for basketball, I didn't waste any time getting to the ball bin. I always beamed with accomplishment if I nabbed one of the better ones.

Even the best balls were underinflated, so I'd devised a scheme to fool my mind. I'd start by dribbling the ball in the grass. It was so dead in the moist grass that once I progressed to the concrete, it transformed into the finest ball imaginable. When I'd finally cross that threshold between damp green grass and hard concrete, I always marveled at how the ball came alive.

Once when I was dribbling on the court, I looked to see if there was anyone who might want to play a game with me. Instead my eyes came to rest on Emma at the other side of the court. She was playing beanbag with one of the patients—a short, heavyset man wearing small oval-frame glasses with thick lenses that made his dark brown eyes look beady. He had a thick head of black hair. I'd noticed him before, and he always seemed in a foul mood. I was surprised that she had gotten through to him. I had thrown Nerf footballs his way and rolled basketballs at his feet and even asked him point blank if he'd like to play, and he'd always just scowled at me. I was anxious to meet her, so I left my ball on the court for someone else and walked over to her.

"Hi, I'm Ken. Could I play with you guys?" I asked.

"Hi, Ken. I'm Emma and this is Robert. Sure, you can play with us."

"Hi, Robert," I said. He ignored me and instead focused for what seemed an eternity on a chalk-outlined target, then slowly tossed his beanbag, and undershot it by several feet.

"Frickin' dangit!" he yelled, scuffing his right foot across the concrete. He seemed really upset, but his creative language nearly caused me to laugh. His bad attitude did give me an idea though. I waited for Emma and him to finish their game; then she explained the rules to me and we began to play together. During the first game, I kept my mouth shut and played by the "normal" rules. Each time Robert's turn came up it was always a disaster. "Gosh dang frickin' ash game!" he'd exclaim. I sometimes couldn't keep from laughing when he did that, but whenever I did, he looked as if he was going to kill me and I'd quickly stop.

When that game ended, I said, "I have an idea for a new game. Each round, one person gets to decide how we are going to toss the beanbags, and then everyone has to do it that way. We keep score just like before."

"OK," Emma agreed. Robert grumbled.

I started the game by throwing all three of my beanbags at once. I actually got two of them in the target. As we played, we tossed the beanbags backward over our heads, between our legs, you name it. The idea was that it was so impossible to do some of the things that Robert couldn't worry about being a perfectionist or failing—we all were failing. Soon everyone was in good spirits. I had the most fun, though, watching Emma contort her body various ways and laugh as she missed with every one of her beanbags. Most importantly, I got to know her as kind, calm, and considerate. It was relaxing to be around her. I learned that she was a recreational therapist. Her job was to plan and direct games, arts and crafts, or other activities with the patients.

We had three recreation times at Gracewood: 9:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 5:30 p.m. Hardly anyone went outside at one thirty because of the miserable heat and the sun blasting straight down. The morning was most popular because it was still relatively cool outside. The next morning at recreation time, I noticed that Emma was unreeling a hose. She dragged the hose over to one of the gardens under the big mesquite trees and began watering the flowers. I had been playing basketball and stopped when I saw her. I dropped the ball and walked over to the tree.