On the way to the parking lot, I check my cell phone, silenced for the past two hours for the sake of movie-goers around me. Two calls—one from The Guiding Star at Porto Sicuro, one from Dale, who is the Guiding Star backup when they can’t reach me. In the car I switch to a Bluetooth connection and call Guiding Star. I’m immediately transferred to Stanley.
“We’ve had a hard time with Mike today,”
“The usual?”
“More than usual. Chuck [one of the caregivers] asked Mike if he wanted orange juice and Mike pushed him to the ground,” Stanley said, talking so fast that if the gist of the story were not so familiar it would have been hard to follow. “He yelled, ‘Fuck you’ at Mrs. Samson—poor, sweet Mrs. Samson who broke into tears and got onto a crying jag that lasted for more than an hour. When I tried to lead Mike back toward his room, he kicked me so hard it drew blood through my jeans. He shoved Mr. Percy. We can’t have that.”
While I picture the chaos, Stanley pauses for a breath. “We had to call the sheriff,” Stanley says. “Mike’s been arrested. They took him to Marshall Emergency.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago. We had to. We couldn’t reach you.”
The exit for home dissolves behind me in the rearview mirror as I set my sights on Marshall Hospital.
“You’re going to have to find another place for Mike,” Stanley says. “We just can’t do it any longer. It’s not fair to the other residents.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry. We’ve tried everything.”
“I know.”
Silently thanking the goddess for Bluetooth, I call Dale.
“You talked to The Guiding Star?”
“Yes. I’m on my way to Marshall.”
“We’re in Tahoe,” he reminds me.
“I know. There’s nothing anyone else can do anyway.”
“Well, but it would be best if you could have company.”
“I’m okay.”
“Yes, well, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the movie?”
A sheriff is seated at the door, outside the room where Mike is being held.
“Mrs. Reynolds?” he asks.
I nod and walk into the room. Mike’s wrists and ankles are shackled to the bed with hefty iron cuffs. He is heavily sedated but awake. I stroke his bruised cheek, his bruised arm.
“You’re in a mess,” I say.
Mike smiles, gives a slight nod of his head and closes his eyes. The wreckage left from who he once was haunts me more sometimes than others, but what a sight this is, this remnant of Mr. Fun, charades genius, golden throat, silver tongue, gentle listener, pie baker, and so much more, arms and legs spread, shackled to the corners of the iron bed.
The sheriff peeks in the door and gestures for me to come out.
“It took three of us,” he says. “He’s strong. There was no reasoning with him.”
“He’s beyond reason,” I say.
The sheriff nods.
“We can 5150 him, put a 72-hour hold on him while he’s evaluated, then get him transferred to a more appropriate setting.”
I mull it over. If we did this, Medicare would, for a while, pick up the bill. Medi-Cal would take over after that. What a huge financial relief that would be. I glance in at my groggy, shackled, shell of a husband. I can’t do it. I can’t go the 5150 route. I’ve seen those “more appropriate” settings. Overworked staff, zombies in hallways, unending cries of distress—“Help!” “Help!” or “Mommy! Mommy!” emanating from six-bed rooms, wafts of odors that insult the olfactory nerves.
“I don’t want to 5150 him,” I tell the sheriff.
“He’s dangerous.”
The nurse comes down the hall to say Social Services returned her call. The answer to what resources they might offer was that since Mike’s condition was “organic” and not “psychotic,” his case is beyond their concern.
I call Stanley and ask if I can bring Mike back for just a few days, until we can find a better placement.
“Four days max,” Stanley says.
“Okay.”
“We’ll have him arrested again if he lashes out.”
“I understand.”
“You know Mrs. Fitzgerald?”
“The one with the poodle?”
“Yes, the poodle that Mike kicked. In the middle of all of the chaos her heartbeat shot up. She was having palpitations. She has a weak heart as it is. We had to call the ambulance. She’s now under observation in the hospital.”
Poor Mrs. Fitzgerald, poor poodle, poor Mr. Percy, poor Mrs. Samson, poor Stanley, poor me, poor Mike. Poor gentle Mike. How he would hate who he’s become.
I arrange to have someone waiting at The Guiding Star door so they can help me get drugged-up Mike out of the car and into his room.
The sheriff reminds me of how violent Mike’s been, how it took three strong men to get him into the squad car just hours ago. He encourages me to reconsider the 5150 alternative.
“I can’t bring myself to do that,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. I assure him that I’ll be okay, that someone will be waiting to meet us at The Guiding Star. Unconvinced, he says he’ll follow close behind me on the way back. If I need help, if Mike starts acting up, I’m to blink my lights twice and pull to the side of the road.
I sign the release papers. The sheriff unshackles Mike, and he and an aide get him into a waiting wheelchair. Because Mike is so heavily sedated, it’s a struggle to get him into the car and buckled up. True to his word, the sheriff follows close behind me from Placerville to Cameron Park. Seconds after I pull up in front, two aides, one pushing a wheelchair, are out the door. The sheriff, too, comes over to the passenger side of the car to help get Mike out and into the wheelchair. Mike’s not uncooperative, just unwieldy.
With Mike safely in the wheelchair, I thank the sheriff and turn to follow the aides as they wheel Mike back to his room.
“Good luck to you,” the sheriff says.
“Thank you.”
I know I’m going to need more than luck, but I appreciate his kindness.