really damn shoddy

After a month of mounting despair, the depression had reached its inevitable climax. Outside my window the sky was a bright blue and it was a pleasantly warm afternoon. I sat in the cool shadows of my room, sobbing by such unmentionable loss, a kaleidoscope of bitter memories, a poisoned river of anxiety and sadness. I had finally reached the end.

I grabbed the steak knife from the top of my dresser and sat back down at my desk cluttered with nostalgic memories of my broken past: piles of books, photos of forgotten travels, notebooks scribbled with stories no one was ever to read. I placed the blade to my wrist and I cut. It was cold. Somewhat painless. My mind whirled as a line of blood made its way down to my elbow and formed a crimson puddle onto the tiled floor.

For some cockamamie reason, a flash of rationale exploded in my reeling mind and I snatched my cellphone and called the suicide hotline. Some broad named Donna answers. I gasp and plead for the number to the CRC – the local loony bin. Goofy bitch puts me on hold…four times! I kid you not. If I wasn’t busy using a towel as a tourniquet, I would had just googled the damn number.

Within minutes, two fat dykes are at my door and rushing me into a unmarked white van. At the door I simply mumble, “Once more into the breach.”

On the ride, I am silent; not answering the obligatory words of comfort softly spoken from one of the women. I am admitted into a large clinic on the edge of town, rolled in by gurney and promptly stitched up. Later, I am sitting in the cold sterile lobby of the psychiatric clinic. Alone. Massive doors barred with no way out. A bloated retard keeps peering at me from behind a pylon – fat, bearded, slack-jawed. What the fuck you staring at?!

The pinch faced cunt with an atrocious hairdo behind the desk calls my name and I shuffle over still infuriated about the phone call with Donna and her complete lack of compassion. Seriously? Four times? I recall the old Rodney Dangerfield joke but I’m not laughing. Hairdo lady has me fill out the entry forms not once inquiring if I was in any mental state to write anything down – I purposely mark incomprehensible scratches. I come to the question: What brought you here? My chest caves in and I begin to sob from the sheer thought.

Weighed, poked, and questioned by another nurse, I am then ushered into another room and asked to change into colorless pajamas. I know the drill. The head shrink comes in all smiles and we have witty banter as she chatters off the same questions I have heard countless times before. She asks if I am okay to return home and have no desire to attempt anything “silly” with myself. I state that I am with no desire to be thrown into a dorm room that reeks of vomit surrounded by the screaming insane. She then says I will be detained after all for my own protection and I am promptly escorted into a dorm room that reeks of vomit surrounded by the screaming insane.

Okay.

Do I even receive a cot? Nope. They offer me a weird reclining chair with a blanket and side table. I lay there silently amid the gibbering and howling of the demented attempting to pay attention to whatever mindless program that was on the large screen television mounted on the wall adjacent to me.

After a meal consisting of a stale turkey sandwich and fruit punch, I am taken to a room by some hipster chick and asked more questions. I was quite frank and actually enjoyed the furrowed brow reaction from my inquisitor. I spun tales of my travels, my passions and addictions, my views on life and the utter desire to end this mortal coil strictly from boredom. During my interview, I am issued a plethora of drugs which comically began effect during our talk. I began slurring my words and her voice faded in and out in waves.

Blackness. Nothing.

I have a brief memory of lying akimbo on the cold floor in a dark room and some bitter female voice droning, “Could I have an intern? I have a client here who fell and he keeps yelling why are we keeping him prisoner here?”

More silent blackness. Cold, numb blackness.

My eyes open and I am crouched in a well-lit hallway against a locked door with seven or eight interns standing around me ordering me to stand up. I holler at them, “Could you stop yelling?! I’m not deaf, goddammit!!” I glance up and jut my open palm out toward the ring of faceless interns. A female hand grabs mine and helps me up. “Let’s get the fuck outta here!” I remember slurring to no one in particular.

I wake up the next morning in my foul smelling recliner next to the mop-topped youth babbling bible verses. Nothing concerning last night’s weirdness is mentioned by the staff. Another plump and tired looking doctor comes to my side and asks how I am doing. Lucid and calm, I state I am fine and inquire about my release. She smiles and walks away. I eat a breakfast of cold cereal and tepid coffee. I spend the majority of the morning watching Nick Kids cartoons (Seriously, that was the only channel). Another doctor arrives and asks the same question, I repeat the same answer. He says since I was self-admitted, I will be released later that day.

I wait and wait and wait until finally I am issued my smelly and wrinkled clothes by a brutish intern. I was told that I would be chauffeured home by the clinic. Fine with me.

The first thing I did once outside was light a cigarette and I tell you what bliss. I return home and lay in my bed. The crusted knife still on the desk, the coagulated blood dried on the tile. I lay there, upset still that the damn suicide hotline had put me on hold four times. Shoddy, really damn shoddy.

I slept off the rest of the meds they had me hopped up on. The following morning, I awoke somewhat groggy and cotton mouthed, made some French toast with coffee and went on living…