One afternoon when I arrived for the three-to-eleven shift, I saw that hospital maintenance had put new windows in at the nurses’ station on the maximum-security ward. Maria Ruocco was the charge nurse, and a good friend. “What’s with the windows?” I asked.
Maria rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hold back a wry smile. “Funny you should ask, James. They’re Plexiglas. Hurricane-strength. Won’t break. So says the maintenance guy. We’ll see.”
Case in point—down the hallway was a patient I’ll call “Crash.” A young guy. Really, really crazy. Crash was on double specials. Regular specials meant that patients were considered a serious risk to themselves or others. These patients needed to have an aide within arm’s length at all times. Double specials meant two aides within arm’s length. That’s how dangerous Crash was considered.
As Maria and I stood there at the nurses’ station, Crash took off in our direction. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. His two aides followed a half step behind.
“Shit, shit, shit. They’re not going to catch him. This is bad! This is bad!”
Maria and I sprinted forward to try and intercept Crash before the inevitable happened. But he got to the new Plexiglas windows first.
Crash crashed headfirst. I’d never heard anything like that sound before. Imagine a melon thrown at full speed against a brick wall. Crash had previously broken three glass windows in the nurses’ station. Upon impact with the new Plexiglas window, he dropped to the floor like he’d been shot by a long-distance sniper.
He left us for a moment there, blacked out, maybe gone to heaven for a sneak preview. Then his eyes blinked open. He tried to focus on Maria and I. “Who put those fuckers in? You could hurt somebody.”
Just another day at the crazy house, and the three-to-eleven shift was only beginning. I loved my years working at McLean, though. I grew up a lot. Learned to handle responsibility responsibly. Saw rich and poor, business leaders and failing artists, some high-school-age kids completely losing their minds—and, occasionally, finding them again.
I had also started the journey to become a writer. And I thought they were the crazy ones.
But hey, I’m getting way, way ahead of myself in this story. Sorry, and I mean it, but I have to go back to the beginning.
Who says you can’t go home again?