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At exactly 6:30am, as always, the women’s dormitory matron woke everyone up. She was as gentle as possible, which wasn’t very, since some of the ladies slept like granite. Dorothy turned a bleary eye as the matron walked past. The matron saw her, paused, and asked, “Dorothy Anderson?”
Dorothy nodded.
“There’s a hyperactive pituitary gland that vaguely resembles a human waiting for you in the reception area. He says he’s here to take you home. Here’s some clean clothes he brought for you.” She plopped a grocery bag on Dorothy’s bed.
“Huh? What? Oh!” said Dorothy, and started to get out of bed.
“Don’t hurry,” said the matron. “Everyone who stays here has chores before they can leave. And chores don’t happen until after breakfast. So you might as well get washed up and join us for breakfast at 7:00. Chores run from 7:30 to 8:00. Since you’re new here you get to help one of our regulars clean the bathrooms. You can leave at 8:00. Mr. Pituitary already knows this, and seems content to wait for you.”
“Oh ... uh ... thank you,” said Dorothy.
“If you don’t have anything, there’s free toiletry packs in the bathroom cabinet. We get them surplus from airlines.”
The shelter served breakfast in a central meeting room. The staff set up a dozen folding tables in a wide rectangle. All the residents, including Dorothy, seated themselves at random in folding chairs around the table’s periphery. Servers passed plates and utensils around the table, then serving bowls of hard boiled eggs, buttered toast, oatmeal, and bananas. Enough for everybody, but not much more than enough. After bringing in the food, the servers sat down at the table. They, too, were residents of the shelter.
On Dorothy’s left sat a thirty-ish woman who looked like a typical soccer mom. Except she stared blankly at her plate, poking the food with her fork. Dorothy introduced herself and the woman replied, “I’m Alice,” in an emotionless monotone.
Depression, thought Dorothy.
On Dorothy’s right sat a well-groomed, fifty-ish man, dressed in a spotless two-piece business suit and tie. Except he wore no shirt. He had tied his tie neatly around his bare neck.
Eccentric? Impoverished? Nuts? thought Dorothy.
A middle-aged Vietnamese man entered. Everybody looked at him. He was dressed in a sport shirt and slacks, but they were lightly starched and crisp, so he looked formal.
Military, thought Dorothy.
He sat down and said, “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Steve Tran, director of this shelter.” He looked around the table, looking individuals in the eye, inspecting each and every one. He said, “Good morning.” He meant it.
“As usual, it’s time for each of us to triage our day.” He looked to his immediate left, “Phil, what’s your plan for your day, and how can I help?”
Phil outlined his day, which included taking the bus to his morning part-time job, then to physical therapy, then to visit his wife in one nursing home, and his mother in another. While he talked, the man to Dorothy’s right, the one wearing a suit but no shirt, whispered to her, “Tran’s a former Army medic. Two tours in Afghanistan. Sharp guy. Knows the homeless business inside and out. If you need anything, ask him. He can probably get it for you.”
Dorothy nodded and whispered thanks.
When it was his turn, the man to Dorothy’s right was addressed by Director Tran as Professor Baird. Baird outlined his plan to take the bus to his therapy appointment, and from there to the Governor’s Mansion, where he’d been called for urgent consultation. Tran smiled, “This time I know you’re shitting me, Professor. I’ll find you a shirt for your therapy appointment.” They both grinned.
Next it was Dorothy’s turn. She said, “I have friends here who will take me home to New York City.” The others nodded approvingly, like she had just achieved a breakthrough that they could only dream of.
Professor Baird asked, “Do you have a job in New York? Or family?”
Dorothy looked at him and said simply, “A job.”
He looked at her, expecting more.
She said, “I teach math there.”
“You’re a teacher?”
“No, I’m a mathematician. Teaching is just the hoop I jump through to do math.”
“I know exactly what you mean. I’m an econometrician. But I ran out of hoops to jump through.”
The director said to Dorothy, “Professor Anderson, I understand you’re involved with this new antigravity invention?” He raised his eyebrows. He clearly knew more about her, but he was wondering what she would say.
“Sort of,” said Dorothy. “If antigravity were a bus, it just ran me over.”
“It’ll run us all over,” said Alice softly, eyes downcast. “That’s the way things work.”
Professor Baird said, “It’s starting out that way. The government’s protecting the airlines and the car makers because they’re owned by rich people. They say it’s to protect jobs. But it isn’t. It’s to protect stock prices for the rich. I used to work for the rich. I’ve seen how they do it. I used to work for the rich. And Director Tran will get me a shirt.”
An unemployed farm worker across the table asked, “Will they use antigravity for buses?”
Dorothy looked at him and shrugged.
Alice asked, “Will it make buses any cheaper and faster? I have to run all over the city to fill out forms and get prescriptions for my mom and dad. And then go visit my kids if I have time.”
The farm worker said, “And the social service departments are only open during working hours. They want us to hold jobs and, at the same time, stand in their lines for hours. Someone really didn’t think this through.”
The director said, “I’ve tried to get them to create one central place for filling out forms. Or online. But it’s like pissing into the wind. Alice, one of the volunteers from Seniors Helping Seniors has said they can drive you around this afternoon. That should help a bit. We’ll try to get you to your sister’s house as soon as your kids get home from school.”
Alice whispered, “Thank you,” and rested her head on her hands on the table.
As they were finishing breakfast and the triage, Professor Baird turned to Dorothy, “The governor could really use my help. I could help him. I could reduce his interest payments by 22%. I really could. And Director Tran will get me a shirt.”
“Oh,” said Dorothy. She was at a loss for what to say next, so she said, “What brings you here?” Then she cringed inwardly. I hate making small talk.
“Intermittent schizophrenia,” the economist said. “Schizophrenia is not what you expect. It’s never what you expect. It’s always something different. If it were what you expected, it wouldn’t be schizophrenia. Problems are solutions and solutions are problems. Expect the unexpected. Except you can’t. But I can. Because I have schizophrenia. I’m the unexpected. Hunker down. Turn out the lights and you’ll see. Or, at least, you’ll see that I see, but not what I see. So who’s crazy? I am, of course. By definition. I’m not a theorem. I’m a postulate.”
Dorothy thought, I want him to go away. Or me. What should I say? I don’t know how to do conversation.
He continued, “For example, I postulate that the world has completely misjudged the economic impact of antigravity. The cost of most things equals the cost of the labor plus the energy to make and transport them. Force fields can do programmable labor. That’s a lot of labor. So a lot of labor will soon cost nothing. And energy will be a lot cheaper with solar power satellites lifted by antigravity. And transportation will be nearly free. So a lot of things will be cheaper. Maybe even free. But the vast majority of people will have no jobs. So I don’t know if things’ll be cheap enough for people with no jobs and no money.
“You think you’ve turned the world upside down. But it’s actually inside out. And they call ... and they call ... and they call me crazy. You think the world is crazy. But I see it right side up. Because I’m ... because I’m ... because I’m inside out. And I ... and I ... and I ... what was I saying?”
Dorothy was no longer annoyed. She looked at him with wide eyes and thought, No wonder I’m annoyed. I’m ninety-nine percent him. What kept me from falling that last one percent?
She said, “People will have no jobs?”
“Nope. None. Nope. One. Job. For all of us. If there are enough torches and pitchforks to go around.”
Director Tran came by from behind Baird to give him a clean shirt. Baird turned to Tran and, in his mind, Dorothy no longer existed.
Dorothy went with Alice to clean the bathroom.
While she scrubbed a sink, Dorothy asked Alice, “I hadn’t expected people in a homeless shelter to be so sharp. I guess I don’t know what I expected. I didn’t expect to be here.”
Alice harrumphed, “We’re not here from a shortage of brains. We’re mostly normal people. We’re here from a surplus of bad luck.”
Dorothy said, “I don’t get it. From what I’ve seen, everyone here either has a job or is trying hard to get a job. That doesn’t make sense. Where are all the career homeless people I hear about?” She thought, Where are the career homeless people I once hid behind?
Alice slapped her mop on the floor a little harder than necessary, “Dunno. I’ve never met any. Drunks and druggies go elsewhere, to mental hospitals ... or prisons. No one wants to be here. We’ve all been clobbered by bad luck after bad luck after bad luck, and we fell into a pit. Guess it has to happen to someone. Law of averages.” She slapped the mop down again. “Husband died. Father died. Mother sick, needs lots of care. I’m an actor with clinical depression, practically unemployable. Trying to help Mom.” She turned to Dorothy, “Fall in the homeless pit, it’s damn hard to get out.”
“But why the lie?” asked Dorothy. “Why does everyone else believe that people in homeless shelters are lazy?”
“Tran explained it to me. It’s nothing fancy. They do it to protect themselves. Simple denial. Other people, the ‘normal’ ones who live in their homes with their families, just like I used to, need to believe we are different and we deserve to be homeless. Because the truth, that being homeless is mostly the law of averages, and can happen to anyone, even them and their families ... well ... they can’t accept that. It’s too terrifying. So we simply can’t be like them.
“So we get no help from lucky people. We get help only from other unlucky people who know we’re just like them. There’s an old saying: The rich don’t help the poor. Only the poor help the poor.”
Dorothy said, mostly to herself, “I don’t know shit about being homeless.”
As they finished scrubbing the bathroom, Alice asked Dorothy, “So what’s your bad luck story? Why are you here?”
Dorothy said, “It’s complex. Here’s the short version: Last night everything I had on me, my phone, computer, wallet, and ID, were taken from me. So the police dropped me off here to get some sleep. As soon as I finish here, some friends will take me home.
“But right now, I’ve got a splitting headache. Do you know where I can get a couple of aspirin?”
“Yeah. You don’t look too good. You’re real pale.” Alice took her to Tran’s office.
As they stood at Tran’s door Dorothy started trembling. She looked at her shaking hands in puzzlement. Then she started swaying, dizzy. Her eyes dilated and lost focus. She started sweating profusely, and shivering. Then cramps punched her stomach. She doubled over in pain and threw up on the floor. All of breakfast splashed on the floor. She fell in it, shivering uncontrollably, her body already deep in shock. It had been four days since she had quit her antipsychotic drug cold turkey. Any doctor would have known better. But she hadn’t seen a doctor. The drug was powerful and her dosage had been high, after many years of acclimating to increasing doses. It took three days for it to flush out of her system. On day four withdrawal hit like a truck.
Tran was out of his chair before she hit the floor. He kneeled in the vomit at her side. He placed his hand under her head, in the vomit, to cushion her head from the hard floor. “Look at me Professor Anderson,” he said calmly. “Please tell me where it hurts.”
When the drug leaves, the behavior it treated often returns. Dorothy looked up at him, her eyes wide with an uncontrollable panic attack. Tran saw her pupils unnaturally dilated. She shouted, “No! Get away!” She started to gasp, “Can’t breathe!” while she hyperventilated. Her eyes even wider, she started convulsing. Her panic increased. “Get away!” She struggled for breath and flailed at him weakly.
Tran looked up, saw that Alice was frozen in place, so he looked her in the eyes and spoke to her, “Alice. Alice! Look at me. Please call an ambulance. Use the phone on my desk. Dial 911. Tell them the name of this shelter.” Alice stepped over Dorothy and went to the supervisor’s desk, picked up his phone, and called.
The supervisor spoke calmly to Dorothy, “I’m here to protect you, Professor. I think you’re going into withdrawal.” He rolled her onto her side. “Please tell me what drugs you were taking.” He repeated slowly and softly, “I’m here to help. What drugs were you taking?” He said it again and again.
She babbled, “Drugs!? I don’t ... But I ... Drugs? ... Don’t let them ... I won’t ... Stay away ... Not the bed ... Drugs? Transperidone ... Prescription ... Transperidone ... Where are my trash bags? ... Don’t let them strap me ... I want to die ... But I need my trash bags ... ” She moaned in pain. Her breathing was choppy from panic. She closed her eyes, and hugged her knees in a foetal position, trembling all over, covered in her own vomit. She whimpered, and she cried with a trembling voice. And, lying there on her side, she tried in vain to throw up again and again. A little vomit dribbled from the corner of her mouth.
Tran still cushioned her head, and softly repeated, “Help is coming ... you’ll be better soon ... listen to my voice ... help is coming ...”
It wasn’t their fault, but when the ambulance came, the situation rolled downhill.
As the EMTs in orange uniforms approached her she saw them and screamed in redoubled panic. Her bladder let loose. With the mindless ferocity of a panicked, berserk wildcat she lunged up from the floor to run away from them, but slipped on her vomit and urine and hit her forehead on a bench. Barely conscious, in pain, with blood pouring from her forehead down her face and neck, she still tried to crawl away, flat on her stomach. But, with all the blood and vomit and urine, she had trouble getting traction, like a crab trying to run on ice, which made her cry and scream even more.
A little way down the hall one of her bodyguards, who had been in the reception area and had followed the EMTs when they came into the building, spoke on his cell phone.
In the middle of the blood and vomit and urine and tears and screaming the EMTs did their work. They did it well. For Dorothy it was the agonizing end of the world. For the EMTs it was Thursday.
They bandaged her forehead. They took note of the Transperidone, a powerful antipsychotic. They consulted with an ER doctor via phone. They gave Dorothy a sedative and something to ease the withdrawal. They strapped her to their gurney, exactly as they needed to, with a five-point restraint. They strapped down both her arms, both her legs, and her head so she couldn’t hurt herself. Strapped like that, just like the bed in the asylum, she wanted desperately to scream. But filled with sedative, she couldn’t scream out loud. She could scream only inside her head, where the screams echoed and echoed. As they wheeled her to the ambulance, and for the entire trip to the hospital, through her sedative-hazed panic, she repeated, over and over, “Not the bed ... kill me ... please ... not the bed ... kill me ... please ... ”
The Colonel’s two men followed the ambulance. The Colonel was not far behind.
When they arrived at the hospital, the situation fell off a cliff.
The doctor needed to calm her so he could talk with her, to find out who her doctor was, to find out how to treat her. No way could he have known that all he needed to do was loosen her restraints and she would have calmed down enough to talk. And, as agitated as she was, he couldn’t loosen the restraints without risking her injuring herself or others.
So he gave her additional sedative.
For most people it would have been a safe dose. But Dorothy, smelling of puke and pee, mouth open for one brief gasp, eyes frozen wide, staring at the ceiling, went into cardiac arrest.
In another part of the hospital the Colonel said to the admitting clerk, “No, I’m not her husband. I’m her bodyguard. Along with the rest of these gentlemen.” He gestured to the five other freelancers forming a wall of muscle behind him.
The clerk raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“She needs protection,” said the Colonel. “You’ve heard of the recent discovery of antigravity? She’s one of the people who invented it.”
The clerk raised a skeptical face. “Really?”
“Really. Can we get in to see her?”
“Does she have a spouse or any relatives in the area who can provide authorization?” asked the clerk.
“No, as far as I know she doesn’t have any living relatives. We’re all she’s got.” A moment after he said that he furrowed his brow and thought, We’re all she’s got?
“I’ll inform the doctor treating her. Please have a seat in the waiting room.” She gestured in that direction.
A half hour later the doctor came out to talk with him. “Ms. Anderson has had a rough time today. Her heart stopped, but we got it started again quickly. There shouldn’t be any permanent damage. But she’ll probably be unconscious for a day or two. We will soon transfer her to a psychiatric hospital for specialized care. Would you like to accompany her in the ambulance?”
“Yes, I would,” said the Colonel. “I’m all she’s got.” Then he wondered why he said that.
A little later, standing beside the ambulance, the driver asked him if he’d like to ride up front or in the back with Ms. Anderson.
The Colonel said, “I’d prefer to ride in the back with her. She’s all I’ve got.” He didn’t realize that wasn’t what he thought he said.