Not Dead Yet

I always feared that the delicate constitution of life could be threatened by the unfortunate findings of a blood test and jinxed by the prognosis. One wrong result can ruin the whole thing. Which means I have eschewed the doctor if only to save myself. That was all over now. Life is tenuous in that way; one minute you're walking across the tricky tightrope—attempting to stave off death—the next an infernal bird flies by, shits on your head, and throws the whole beautiful dance into oblivion. We’re all born on the tightrope, but most of us fall off and die in forty-hour work weeks and carefully manicured lawns. There are a few of us that manage to stay on, in our own ways; a handful of rebellious circus performers, carefully balancing the shit on our heads, too afraid to look down, and yet somehow managing to stay up with uncertain grace.

I’ve done alright at it so far, which means I’m not dead yet, and have been living on the fringes of a lifeless culture. But it was all catching up to me right here and now, and this concrete bench was the end of the line. They caught me living in the moment red-handed—spotted me a mile away and took me in for questioning orderly conduct; because I carry the weight of a backpack and not the burdens of a house career; because I don’t shower enough and spend too much time roaming the streets; because I am the grimy underbelly that can’t be ignored; because I’m not dead yet.  

Well they took my bag and my fingerprints and sat me down on this concrete bench to await my medical sentencing. The sun was slamming into the cement and the heat made everything ripple up from the ground uncomfortably. It was better than the police station though, and after looking into the brightness for a while, I was called inside. My first stop was to the administrative section located at the back of the main building. I was led through a rather large rec room used for dinning and apparently, counting the square ceiling tiles; both of which seemed to be happening in surplus at any given time. When I arrived at my destination, I entered into a gray room that was disturbingly sterile and void of energy. Filing cabinets lined the walls and off to the side there was a metal desk, with two chairs, neither of which was I invited to occupy. Numerous people worked on various tasks; paper filing, computer typing, letter reading, yet there was an overwhelming feeling that nothing was happening. It was limbo, a purgatory. Lethargic staffers shuffled through their routine, like every inch of space required an arduous exertion to pass through. It was as if the whole room was filled with cold water, making it colorless, quiet and hard to see. A woman sitting behind a small counter built into the wall floated a clipboard toward me with paperwork to sign and as she spoke, I watched air bubbles leave her lips and pass through the pallid fluid of the room.

“Right here, sir… bloop…we just need two signatures… here…blip… and here… bloop…and your initials bloop bloop blip…” 

When I opened the door to leave, water rushed over my ankles.

The rest of my inauguration was white pajamas and a series of fingerprints. Then I was taken into a cramped examination room and handed a small cup containing three pills and scrupulously instructed to take them all before the doctor would see me. I asked what they were and was answered with a paper cup of water and a stern look. I ate them dry, and smiled with the bitter crumbs of the pills breaking through my teeth.

Shortly after the doctor entered. He moved quickly but with a spasmodic hesitation, like someone trying to move fast enough to escape gravity. His lab coat hung loosely over gray slacks and eddied in the flutter of his movements. He was young, projected an enthusiastic presence and a well shaved face, excited no doubt to diagnose the amalgam of precocious conditions responsible for my arrival. He was very concerned with the paperwork in his hands, but when he spoke he leaned in and looked me directly in the eyes, as if he was unsure I possessed the coherence or ability to participate in a conversation.

“Hello, sir…my name is Doctor Bernal.” He spoke slowly, with a frustrating and prescribed tone.

“How are you feeling? Are you feeling well?”

“Dr. Bernhall… okay…yea I guess so… this is all a misunderstanding really…”

“Yes, yes… of course… That’s all very good… very good!” He was thrilled. At what, I was uncertain. “So I take it that means you know why you are here?”

“Sure. And as I was telling the…”

He interrupted me so quickly I wasn’t sure if I had actually spoken the words out loud, or just had time to think them in my head. “Excellent… well, let me remind you… for administrative purposes of course… after you were booked at the police station… you remember that… well due to the nature of the situation… I’m sure you understand… it was decided… for your safety... of course for your safety… that you should spend a few days here… with us… how does that sound? Think of it like a vacation…anyway, all of this was explained in the documents you signed when you first arrived.” He showed me the documents, still soaking wet with gray water, and continued. “So… before we go any further, I have a few questions for you… they are very straightforward but due to the… your condition upon arrival… I just want to cover the basics… you understand. Well then, let’s get started… do you know today’s date?”

Clearly he wasn’t giving anything away. “Today’s date? Well, no… I don’t really care for all that… I’m a conscientious objector in that sense… dates are irrelevant in my line of life.”

“Interesting… and tell me… in the last four weeks… have you experienced any… headaches, dizziness, trouble sleeping, excessive sweatiness, the urge to swallow, the urge not to swallow, or any numbness, tingling, or sensations in general in your hands, feet or soul?”

“Hmm… starting on a Sunday or Monday?”

“How about crowds?”

“How about them?”

“Do you feel out place in crowds… feel anxious or unexplainably fearful?”

“Is this still part of the first question?”

“What about any voices…do you ever hear voices in your head?”

“Where else would you hear voices?”

“Describe your last bowel movement… in detail please…”

“With the dawn.”

He wrote with a stream of sweeping wrist movements that left long swooping curls and dots on the page that resembled sheet music. After a moment he continued.

“And irrational fear… or anger… how about either of those? Irrational anger is just as pernicious in terms of a diagnosis!”

“I don’t think I…”

“Well that’s it!” He threw his pen down. “We are out of time… but it’s just as I expected… and we’ll stay on top of the thing and have you sorted out in no time.”

“On top of what thing?”

He looked at me reassuringly. “It’s understandable to feel upset… but not to worry, not to worry… the medicine you just took should take care of everything… it is a special cocktail…prescribed specifically for you… should do wonders… absolute wonders… we won’t know for about three days though… but I have a very good feeling about it… a very good feeling!”

“I’m leaving in three days.”

“Well yes… all the more reason to get you back on your feet, eh? Now I must be going… lots of patients to meet with… if you need anything just have an attendant page Doctor Burnwall… goodbye!”

On hearing this I was ostensibly relieved; having survived without a visit to a physician for longer than I could remember without even an apple a day, I was half excepting to be found full of dry snot and a rotten disposition for early death.

From there I was taken back to the rec room where it seemed most of the action of this wild place unfolded. The whole area was actually just one enormous room that had been sectioned off for distinctive purposes, like summer camp in the school gym. In the center, large concrete pillars rose from the floor and pressed into the sagging ceiling like the poles of a mad circus tent. Between them, an eating area was set up with cafeteria-style tables arranged end to end, where groups of deranged diners sat mechanically moving mush between their plates and mouths.

Along the walls, an assortment of activities were taking place to pass time. One group played cards while another watched a news channel flicker through the static of a poorly working TV set; the atrocities of the nation relayed intermittently between pops of white and gray snow in a furious all-American blizzard. There was a group of people reading, a group painting, and the rest seemed to be intently doing nothing at all, completely captivated in some universe inside themselves, mumbling, looking, pacing and drooling the day away. Things I could understand.

The room was in perpetual motion, a seemingly organized chaos with different groups moving in and out for their scheduled recreation. At least it must have been organized to someone, to me, it seemed like chaos in the old-fashioned and regular way. Once your time in the rec rooms began, you are welcome to participate in any of the activities taking place. It was a threadbare sense of freedom for the potentially criminally and more-than-likely insane.

Two chapels off the rec room were reserved for the spiritually inclined. In the watery melting pot of America, everyone is entitled to practice their faith, and that includes the disturbed and shunned. If you signed up in advance, you could spend your time in the arms of whatever God you hoped would get you out of here. It was a popular enough area that both of the rooms were almost always occupied, the space changing numerous times daily to suit the particular ornaments of the forthcoming believers. Apparently, all faiths and denominations once shared a room, but the second was added to mitigate the violent outbreaks that always erupt when varying Gods jockey for floor space. Now, a wall divides their differences down the middle, and depending on what you believe and which side of the wall you are on, in one afternoon you can either end up in heaven or hell.

I sat down on a bench somewhere in the middle, which means I figured I’d keep my options open. I watched the room whirl with the people who had rattled the cages of humanity so hard, they found themselves inside of one. After a moment a woman sat down next me. I didn’t turn completely but I could see that her bleached yellow hair was pulled back across her head and a thin strip of graying blonde hugged her temples. She didn’t say anything at first and neither did I, we just sat looking straight ahead. Then, without moving anything but her mouth she said, “They say life is drawing between the lines… but what about those of us that don’t have any markers anymore? Not everything is picturesque watercolors and racially categorized crayons… sometimes the only way to paint the real picture is to set the canvas on fire… and eat the ashes… you know what I mean?”

I can admit the words themselves seemed irrational, but I could get behind the sentiment. There was a certain anarchistic charm to the way she spoke. I could tell she had spent some time out there on the middle of the rope. It was audible in the dry gravel of her voice. Anyway, I didn’t want to start an argument, so I agreed. “They should make that into a sign and hang it above the doorway as you walk in here.”

That was all she needed. After that, she told me her whole story. How she used to be an art teacher, but retired early when she couldn’t bring herself to teach beauty in a world she felt no longer possessed any. That was when she moved to San Diego, where she did alright for a while—but picked up the habit of starting her night at a local bar, and waking up in Mexico needing a ride from her son. After that she moved in with him, but her thirst was not related to her location, and after a procession of similar behavior, she was signed in here.

I told her about my habit of walking all through the night and sleeping on benches; how I can fit everything I need into a backpack; how I call my shoes home. She gravitated towards me because of my lifestyle—or at least that is what she said—and revered my commitment to the fraying fringe. After a while our stories ended and we again sat in the chaotic quite of the room. Which means neither us of were dead yet. When the restlessness of boredom settled into delving introspection, she found something to say. “You know… you really get it… a true artist… and with no audience… the realest expression of life is the art of the street… the art of survival… the art of existence… the rest is all just plaster and boxes… boxes to live in…boxes to paint in… boxes, boxes, boxes… this whole world is boxes and our art is the same…a mirror of a box… real art is being homeless. Pure survival and unadulterated soul. I’m telling you… no boxes that don’t fold up into a backpack. Cities full of latent artists just wasting away on the curb.” There she stopped abruptly, an inner emergency break had gone off in her throat. Hazard lights flashed through her eyes. “Sorry… I didn’t mean… I was just trying to…”

People are always embarrassed to stare my homelessness in the face; especially when I say things like, “It’s alright… the curb demands a mediation of its own.”

“Genius!” she said, “That’s exactly what I’m talking about… I would say you’re the only artist left… and you don’t even have to try… that… that is art! Just think about it.”

Then she stood up, and after telling me she had to make a phone call, walked off. I watched as she headed to another bench at the far and of the room, and sat down next to someone else.

I thought about what she had said and tried to imagine her in a classroom; to picture what her homeless art class curriculum would entail. For the first mid-term you must spend a semester on the streets, inhabiting the worn-out-shoes of a starving artist. Those who return get a gold star and the chance to infiltrate the art-world with new works of undiscovered genius. Those who don’t are left to the fate of the sidewalk sharks, where they will quickly learn to distinguish who in a crowd will part with the price of a vanilla latte or place a fiver into a Styrofoam cup; an art of its own accord.

Like all good savants, I was ahead of my time, and now I was paying the price for it, quarantined from the world, under observation, mixed into the madmen and the strange—an assortment of beautifully guilty culprits and latent prodigies, tucked away for some crime against normality.

That was when the fire alarms went off. Loud flashing strobes filtered into the room and everyone stood up, unsure whether to panic or not—too many false alarms in life has made everyone into a sceptic. But sure enough, a parade of scrub-adorned attendants ran through the double doors and shouted pandemonium into place. If it was fair to call this place crazy before, it would be a requirement now. People moved in every direction and instantly had nowhere to go. A few of the doctors got up onto the tables to try and gain some perspective, but it only served as an invitation for everyone to climb on the furniture. Soon, heads bobbed through the room at varying heights. Spasmodic laughter would occasionally break out and get absorbed into the mass of bodies. I was being pushed from behind and pulled from the front, but everyone was packed so tightly together, our feet stayed in place as our torsos swayed into the maddening momentum. If I didn’t burn, I would surely be crushed.

The anxiety must have been producing heat, because all the sudden I was sweating into the patients next to me, and they into me. The air became stagnant with humans. I tilted my head back to swallow the less tepid air above my head but it didn’t help. Everything had turned to hot fear. The pressure became unbearable. One moment everything would be packed into place, the next a wave would ripple through crowd, pressing with such an incredible force, I began to get motion sick. My brain started swimming in my head and someone yelled smoke. At first I couldn’t smell it, but all the sudden it was there. First just the odor of toast, then of a campfire, and then the sharp smell of melting plastic.

When I finally made it out into the fresh air, I was expecting to see the entire building up in flames. But it was actually quite the opposite. In fact, other than a large group of panicking patients, nothing was happening out of the ordinary at all. There was no smoke, no firetrucks, nothing. Complete insanity wasted in the calm afternoon. Eventually, everyone just sat down and resumed whatever they had been doing before; the clouds just as easy to count as the ceiling tiles. I found an empty bucket and turned it over, making it into a stool. The back of the rec room lets out on a bit of an incline, and from here, I actually had a pretty good view of the facility, and I watched the whole little psychiatric city recover. I hadn’t notice it before, but the building had a brick façade and looked like something between a hospital and a city hall. As everything began to slow again, I looked around and thought that if it wasn’t for the chain-link fences, and the lines of people sitting with doctors, the place was just a little slice of the outside, which means, maybe none of us are dead yet after all.