I learn way too much about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in my first few hours at the Manor. The “Anaconda Choke” and “Calf Crusher” are Rolex’s signature moves, both of which he insists on demonstrating. He calls it grappling. I call it being hugged until it hurts by a chubby stranger. I don’t enjoy it. He tells me that “strength and size do not matter.” Thank you, Master Yoda, but you’re twice my size. It matters—a lot. Especially to my red and throbbing ear.
I’ve also learned the best time of day to hit the buffet at the Golden Corral, and the top five items on the Wendy’s “Right Price” menu. This guy loves his food and has the Type II Diabetes to prove it. I hear all about his list of physical ailments and upcoming vasectomy. It’s all a little too much information. I mean, this guy doesn’t even know my last name, and I know that he has to ice his balls for two days after they get snipped on Friday.
When he’s not trying to sell me on the merits of mixed martial arts, it’s quiet in Rolex’s windowless medication room. I can hear the steady hum of the staff fridge. Gentle whispers reminding me of just how early I woke up this morning. Drowsiness falls over me like a warm blanket fresh out of the dryer.
POP!
I’m awake. Not one of Marty’s firecrackers. Just the occasional pop of pills being forced from bubble cards. Stacks and stacks of bubble cards, packed with clusters of pills, all waiting to be popped and arranged in clear plastic cups. The cups get organized in a silver tray. Forty holes for forty cups, each labeled with a patient’s name.
Take your pills.
Eat your meal.
Go to your group.
Take your smoke break.
Repeat.
I’m bummed with what little time I’ve spent getting to know the patients. They smoke cigarettes and drink generic diet soda, and the staff writes their notes and discusses what lunch will look like. Around 9:30, a female patient kicked over a garbage can. The staff pounced into action. There was a lot of commotion and clearing of the halls until the patient agreed to take some extra medication and talk to her therapist.
Take your pills.
Eat your meal.
Go to your group.
Take your smoke break.
Repeat.
I can’t help but think, if someone spent time with her, she may not have become so angry to begin with. There would have been no crisis. I keep my mouth shut, though. It’s my first day, and I know less than nothing about the treatment of schizophrenia. This place seems to move at two speeds—turtle and panic. The last hour has been more like a turtle with two missing legs. I wipe away a crust of sleep from the corner of my eye and consider why I’m bored as hell in the middle of what may be the most interesting place in the entire world. How does that make any sense?
Rolex is halfway through a sleeve of Ritz crackers. Golden crumbs speckle his snugly fit t-shirt. “Hey, Salem. We’re gonna get some Thai food for lunch. You in?”
I hate Thai food. Chunks of ginger and tree twigs in coconut sauce. “No thanks. I’ll figure something else out.” I fight the urge to yawn. “Hey, is it okay if I go find Windsor? He wanted to show me his spaceships or space-blimps or something.”
He pops two more crackers into his mouth. “The boss said you’re supposed to stay with me, but if you promise to stay out of trouble, I have no problem with that. He’s in room number nine.” His response is remarkably clear, given the amount of salty snacks he’s chewing.
I’m halfway out the door before I remember it’s my turn to talk. “Great. Thanks!”
I head down the hallway, on the hunt for door number nine. I imagine trouble can take any number of forms in this place, so I try to be super aware of everything going on around me. There’s a younger girl sitting on the floor of the hallway. In one hand, she’s holding what looks like a bird’s nest full of doll heads. Her other is gripped around the handle of a child-sized, robin’s-egg blue umbrella. I’ve heard it’s bad luck to open an umbrella indoors. This girl never got that memo and is currently shading her face from the overhead fluorescent lights. This whole scene is the kind of thing you’d see at the Museum of Modern Art. So curious and borderline creepy that you keep going back to look at it again. To try to make some sense of it all.
She’s in an animated conversation with “Scarlet.” There is no one else around, so my best guess is that Scarlet is one of the heads in the nest? This is bizarre, but I’m captivated. She’s pretty. I don’t know why I’m so surprised by that. Maybe just a couple of years older than me. She seems safe enough to say hello to, so I do.
“Um, hello?” I don’t know why that came out like a question.
At first, I think she can’t hear me. Maybe I’m getting ignored? She finally looks up. Her face is painted with thick glitter. Not makeup, full-on paint. Her cheeks shimmer, like decorations at a school dance. Black lips turn up to a smile. “Hi! Sorry. I was kind of lost in my thoughts.”
Something about her reminds me of Jace. A dazzling façade, so no one looks too hard to see what’s underneath. I’d bet this girl has an interesting story or two to tell. I notice she has a sketchbook, opened and resting next to her. The pages are covered in little cartoons. A tiny nub of a pencil rests in the gutter between the pages. “What are you drawing?”
She looks up at me. “My hands are too full to draw anything at the moment.”
Real smooth, Salem. “Oh, yeah. I mean . . . I saw your journal, but you look busy with your umbrella and your . . . nest thing?”
She sets her basket of heads on her lap and points behind me. “Looks like someone wants your attention.”
“Huh?” I turn to find Cocoa the Shark Girl inches from my face. This close, I can see what I can only imagine is peanut butter remnants on the sides of her mouth. Her bloodshot eyes tremble slightly. I step back and try to remember her name. “Hi. You’re . . . Tammy, right?” I think I’m right.
She points her finger at me. Sort of. Her finger must have been broken at least twice and healed without being straightened. It looks more like a fish hook than a finger. “Excuse m-m-m-me, Dr. Big Bird.”
I look at the girl twirling her umbrella. She’s smiling, leaning in closer to us, like her favorite TV show is about to start. I look back at Tammy. The front of her hospital gown is soaked with drool and ketchup stains from breakfast. “Oh, I’m not a doctor.”
“Yes, you are, Dr. Big Bird. I n-n-n-need your help, sir.”
She’s a big woman. Nose to nose with me. I wonder if she chose her army-style haircut or if it’s so short for a medical reason. “You think my name is Dr. Big Bird?”
“Yes, sir. Your lovely sweater feathers tell me that you c-c-c-can help me.”
Glitter-Face on the bench laughs. This sweater is going right in the trash as soon as I get home. Home feels like a thousand miles away. “My name is Salem. You can just call me that. I’m going to be volunteering my time here for the summer.”
She takes a step back. “You t-tax me for a wizard, t-t-t-t-tax me for a buzzard? I have done no wrong!” I feel like she’s angry enough to punch me in the face, but she only smiles. I think she may be proud? Definitely pleased with herself. “That is a Jacobs quote from my M-M-M-Massachusetts book report in the eighth grade. I served a bowl of Boston Baked Beans c-c-c-candy to the c-c-class. Are you a Salem w-w-w-w-w-witch convicted in 1692, Dr. Big Bird?”
“No. No more than you’re a shark.”
This amuses her. She laughs, big and loud. “You’re funny, Dr. Big Bird. Can you look at my melanoma?”
Her what? Before I have a chance to ask, she lifts her hospital gown, all the way over her head. “Oh! Whoa! Put that down!” I’ve never seen anything like this. The split second it takes to look away isn’t fast enough. The image will forever be burned into my brain. I’m not even sure what I saw. I’ve never seen body parts like that. Not outside of the Star Wars universe. I’m feeling completely freaked out. I want to run out the front door and never even think about this place again. This is way more than my brain can handle. What the hell am I doing here? Why didn’t I just use a flashlight instead of gasoline?
“Tammy! Put your dress down!” It’s Windsor, coming to my rescue. “That’s no way for a lady to act. Now, you apologize to this man and find where you’re supposed to be.”
Tammy adjusts the front half of her “dress” and picks her nose with her fish hook finger. “I’m sorry, Dr. Big Bird. I don’t have melanoma. I wanted you to see my tremendous breasts.”
Is that what they were? All I can do is shake my head. This is the strangest day of my life. Every day can’t be like this here, right? “Apology accepted, Tammy. Just please don’t do that again. And call me Salem, okay?”
She doesn’t answer. Distracted, it seems, by some fleeting thought. She lumbers down the hall in the direction of a cart full of cookies and apple juice. The nest-full-of-baby-heads girl I was talking to follows her without a goodbye. I totally check out her butt, then look up at the ceiling when I remember where I am.
I turn to my rescuer. “Thanks for your help. That was . . . different.”
“Yeah. Around here, you’ll find that different is normal. You okay?”
I’m not sure, but I can’t give up yet. “Yeah, I’m okay. I was just coming to look for you. Do you have some time to show me those plans you were talking about?”
His eyes light up and his boot heels click together. “I surely do!”
His room is a science fiction nerd’s dream. Posters of solar systems, planets, and three different versions of the Starship Enterprise. The ceiling is almost completely covered with little green plastic stars. At least a dozen Kylo Ren action figures stand at attention in orderly rows on a desk built for a person half Windsor’s size. There are twice as many models of various sized space blimps scattered around. I assume that’s what they’re called. You bet, I’ll ask. The largest hangs from the ceiling. The details are incredible. He’s even made a tiny astronaut inside the cockpit.
I have so many questions. The first one has to be about if the blimps can shoot any kind of laser beams or lightning bolts, but then a bookshelf filled with empty baby food jars pulls my curiosity. “Hey, Windsor. These models are awesome. What are all of those little jars for?”
“For my ratillion rat cubs. I will be the one and only human life force to colonize the Martian landscape. Other humans would have greed and outside Slugworth agendas. You may remember that menacing Venetian from the Willy Wonka books? He is not fiction, my friend.” His gaze is full of suspicion now. “I will lead an army of ratillion cubs to help mine for Martian treasure. Before old Slugworth beats me to it.”
I’m all in on this conversation. “Like, rats? Those are jars for rats? What do the rats do with them?”
“Exactly. Astro-ratillion helmets.” Well, I did ask. My eyes don’t know where to focus. So much to look at in every direction. “Would you like to see how the ships look in orbit?”
I’m still thinking about how the helmets would work, but . . . “Sure, I would.”
Windsor slides behind an elaborate keyboard he has set up in the corner. He sets his crown on a styrofoam head, wearing its own pair of golden sunglasses, and picks up two remote controls. He pushes one, and all of the blimp spaceships light up. “Now, this next part has to be our secret, okay?”
Stranger Danger alarms are going off inside my head. I don’t have time to answer before he takes what looks like a peanut out of his shirt pocket. He sets it on top of his keyboard and makes a clicking sound with his tongue. A rat scampers up his leg and jumps onto the keyboard.
My next question sounds painfully obvious as it falls out of my mouth. “Is that one of your rats?”
Windsor cracks the shell of the peanut and the rat starts in on its snack. “Indeed. This is Cassiopeia. First Lieutenant of my Ratillion. Now, focus your attention, Salem.” He makes the clicking sound again and little Cassi runs to the other end of the keyboard, pushing down on a red button. The room lights dim and black lights illuminate the stars on the ceiling.
“Whoa!” The display looks pretty incredible. This room may very well be the most interesting place in Ohio.
He starts to play chords on the keyboard. The rat runs away to wherever it came from. Trippy space sounds swirl all around me. He’s put a lot of time and effort into this setup. The black lights reflect off the enormous smile on his face. He’s having as much fun as I am. The entire spectacle is super cool until he takes it a little too far. He starts to sing into a microphone. A high-pitched falsetto that you would never expect to come out of his mouth.
“Higher up to the source of love!
All humans in their life forms go!
Up to the source of love and gold!
Martian lover! Japanese lover!”
I’m suddenly aware that I’m alone in the darkened bedroom of an oversized, psychotic galactic treasure hunter. His best friend is a secret lieutenant rat. And now, he’s singing to me about his lover, who may be a Japanese Martian. Again, this is starting to feel like the trouble I should be avoiding. What the hell was I thinking, wandering around this place all by myself? Going into this guy’s bedroom? I should have stayed in a choke hold with Rolex. I sidestep closer to the door.
When he finishes singing his next, even louder line, I clap my hands. “What a show! Thanks, man. That was great! I should probably get back to work.”
An alarm on one of his three digital watches goes off. “It’s lunchtime!” The lights flicker back on. “Would you like me to escort you down to the dining room?”
The lights coming back on calms my nerves. I take a deep breath and recognize that Windsor has little to no intention of chopping me up for rat cub food. “Lunch sounds awesome.”
We wander down the hallway, passing several interesting characters. So many people to meet and get to know. My stomach growls. Either out of hunger or nervousness. Maybe both. Either way, I can eat.
Windsor stops at a drinking fountain and takes a sip. “Thanks for listening to my song. Not many people around here appreciate my music.”
It was some Yoko-Ono-sounding, strange shit, but I’ve honestly heard worse. “No problem! I love music. I play guitar and write some of my own songs. My friends and I have a band.” I figure I’ll dazzle him with our brilliant band name. “The Dukes of Hazardous Waste.”
He takes another sip. “A musician! We should jam sometime.”
Hell yeah, we should! “That could be fun. I’ll check with Dr. Palmer. See if that’s okay.”
Windsor shakes his head. His face contorts like he’s in pain. “The Dukes of what? I hope you play guitar better than you name bands.”
Everyone’s a critic.
I think about the shelf full of baby food jars in his room and have to ask. “How many of those pet rats do you have?”
He looks around to check if the staff can hear our conversation. “Cassiopeia is one of the few things I adore on this planet. Discussing her in public fragments her safety.”
Right. There must be rules against owning trained space rats here. “I promise. Your secrets are safe with me.” Or are they? It seems harmless enough, but I don’t know what the rules are, or if secrets are safe for anyone in here. This place is complicated.
We walk into the dining room. There are people in line, waiting to be served. Others are sitting on blue plastic chairs, pulled up to tables, their orange trays filled with paper plates topped with sloppy Joes, French fries, and fresh fruit. It smells pretty awesome. My stomach growls again, demanding to be filled.
Windsor points to the end of the line of hungry people. “I’m gonna go wait. You’re part of the staff, so you can go to the front.”
This seems rude to me. Like something that the civil rights movement would have ended in the 1960s. “That’s cool. I’ll wait with you.”
One person’s tray looks much different than the others. Instead of a sandwich, he has a plate full of leaves. Not a salad. Leaves from a tree. I look around for someone who looks like they work here. They all seem busy, so I’ll ask. “Hi. You aren’t gonna eat those, are you?”
The older gentleman looks up at me with the palest icy-blue eyes. He looks so much like my grandfather. At least the way I remember him. He picks up a small toy dog from his lap and shows it to me. “I’m crazy, not stupid. This is Red Radish’s lunch.”
I feel an instant connection. I want to hear his story. How he got here. If he has a family? “Oh! Well, I hope he enjoys it. My name is Salem.”
“Red Radish is a she. She likes you. Very pleased to meet you. My name is Randall Wellington.” He smiles and extends a slow, trembling hand for me to shake.
His fingernails are long and filthy. Not like my mother would say mine are—a gallon of Purell and a half dozen manicures wouldn’t even begin to disinfect that mess. I’m about to eat, but what am I gonna do? I would want someone to show my grandfather the same courtesy, so I shake it. “Nice to meet you, too. I’m gonna go grab some food, but I hope we can talk sometime soon.”
He waves Red Radish’s paw at me. “We would like that.”
I turn to look for Windsor and my place in the food line. “Oh, no way!” I laugh and blink, because I’m not sure I’m seeing this correctly. I’ve seen my share of bizarre things today, but this rockets to the top of the list. Jace is standing behind the trays of food. He’s wearing an apron, a hairnet and plastic gloves. He looks miserable. Like it’s Christmas morning and all he got under the tree were socks. I feel it’s my duty to make him feel worse. “This is your special assignment?”
He lets his giant spoon drop into a vat of coleslaw. “Not one word. Not one picture. We will never speak of this again.”
I try not to smile. I’m pretty sure if I laugh, I’ll be wearing the mayo-soaked cabbage. “This is where you’ve been all day?”
He scoops slaw onto a paper plate. “No! You know what? This is the fun part of my day. I’ve been mopping and washing disgusting banana yogurt out of bowls all morning. You know how much I hate bananas! I did not sign up for this! No, sir!”
“Well, technically, we didn’t sign up for anything. I guess you’ll be on time tomorrow?”
“I’ll be sleeping in my bed tomorrow.” He leans close to my ear and whispers. “This place freaks me the hell out! I’ve seen some bizarre shit, Salem. You’re on your own!”
I know he won’t give up this fast. “Come on! It’s not all that bad. Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan for us to have some fun around here. You pick me up, and I’ll buy the coffee tomorrow morning.”
He adjusts his hairnet. A hairnet! I so need a picture!
“Fine! And you’re buying me some coffee cake.” He loosens the tie under his apron. “Do you want some lunch, asshole?”
He slops one of everything down onto a tray and hands it to me with an exhausted smile.
I fight the urge, but I can’t resist. “Thanks, lunch lady.”
“I swear to God, if one word of this gets out––”
“Don’t worry! Your netted hair is safe with me. But only if you give me an extra sandwich and a ride home.”
“You’ll drive. I’ll sleep.”
I take a seat next to Windsor and look around the room at all the misfits and oddballs. I’m half-listening to his plan to become the Supreme Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX. Every chair in the dining room is taken, but everyone seems so isolated. Surrounded by people, but completely alone. Hardly anyone says much more than, “Pass the salt.” Like everything else I’ve seen today, I want to understand. I have so many questions. It’s all so overwhelming. Part of me thinks I’ll never fit in here. In this place where “crazy” comes in more colors than a jumbo box of Crayolas.
I look at the old man with the blue eyes. My grandfather would tell me to use the right tool for the job. Maybe the same thing that got me through three years of high school and the same number of my mother’s divorces might also work for me here.
My guitar.