Piso Siete

(just in case you get nervous while reading this, you should know that i've tried to take precautions in the following entry against violating HIPAA, and have implemented my creative liberties with names and identities, the incidents and dialogue I could never have written myself...)

After a week and a half of working on the psych ward affectionately known as Piso Siete, I had the privilege of co-leading a "community meeting." Community meetings were a place where the patients were given limited freedom of speech to voice there concerns and requests. Anyone could attend, and about half usually do. The meeting was primarily run by Ms. P, one of the social workers, an incredibly attractive Dominican woman who dressed and made herself up so impeccably she had the appearance of having stepped directly off of a movie set. This exaggerated, what I thought, was her remarkable resemblance to Jennifer Lopez. Jessi, our manic 22 year old, also seemed to think so. I caught her screaming down the hall today: "JLo, yo JLo, when am I getting my ultrasound?" For two weeks, Jessi has insisted that she's pregnant (despite medical evidence to the contrary), which makes two things I now have in common with the girl, since my incredible shrinking pants problem has left me wearing skirts for the past 8 days and seriously considering buying a pair of maternity pants this weekend.

Ms. P started the meeting. "Thees ees a co-mu-ni-tee meeee-ting," she said, exaggerating every syllable in an accent that was alarmingly similar to my mother's. I looked around at the fifteen or so people sitting in the circle of chairs with me. Some of them more still than others. Paying specific attention to Mr. F, the patient assigned to me, who sat with perfect posture, hands clasped in his lap, looking totally at ease and equally uninterested in his surroundings -- I imagined he looked the same at church. As if noticing my amazement at his demure stillness, he suddenly started to shake his left leg up and down. I wondered if this was the first sign of opiate withdrawal.

Ms. P explained the rules. No personal issues. No talking out of turn. No interrupting. No cross conversations. And once you leave the Community Meeting, you cannot come back. Three topics were to be brought up for discussion. The first one was by Juana, "I want cookies."
"Juana, next time, I'm going to ask for you to raise your hand," said Ms. P.
Jauna raised her tiny arm, and said "I want cookies."
"Juana, you have to wait to be acknowledged, everyone has to speak in turn."
"I'm sorry." She looked genuinenly contrite.

Juana was in her early 30s. A bout with a severe mood disorder, not otherwise specified, had stopped her progress midway through a series of sex reassigment surgeries. While watching her, I found myself playing the game of trying to imagine her as a man. It was nearly impossible. Everything about her was so... feminine. Her speech patterns, her stance, her posture, the way she moved her body, the way she sat, and least impressively, her somewhat unnatural-looking breasts. She was aggressive, but only vocally. Even now, a few days without a razor, a five o'clock shadow over her chiseled features, and finding her Adam's apple, I just couldn't see a man.

Ms. P was explaining that there were daily snacks, in the afternoon and evening. That other than those, it was impossible to provide more food because of the different dietary restrictions that different patients were on. She spoke slowly and carefully. No one seemed to be listening. Juana was fiddeling with the edge of her gown. Next to her was Mittens, hunched over and inspecting something deep in her imagination that for now created the mirrage of being between her feet on the linolium floor. Mittens was a woman in her fifties with schizoaffective disorder. She was named after the old mittens she wore regardless of the temperature on the ward, which was high enough most days to make me concerned that I was running a fever. I gathered from talking to her, that she knit them and that knitting was her primary pasttime. Here on Piso Siete, knitting needles were weapons and strictly forbidden.

I sat next to Mittens. On my other side was Edwin, a Mexican man a few years older than me, founder of the newest Piso Siete activity called "what's Tamara?" His bet was Hispanic. The Greek kid sitting next to him always guessed Greek. Jessi, who was not at the meeting, but audible from the hall, belting out Toni Braxton in impressive accuracy, insisted that I was Indian. Hilario, who greeted me in the mornings with, "I dreamt last night I was with a girl like you" and was on constant observation for trying to have some form of sexual contact with pretty much every female on Piso Siete, not excluding Juana, said I was Spanish. And Bill, an unassuming young black man who had a history of what he reported was 400 crimes in Germany, thought I was Italian.

Mittens, in an incredible and perhaps lucky moment of lucidity, was the only one who guessed right. Monday she shuffled/hopped up to me in a way that made her seem like she was 5 and not 55, or even 75, the age she appeared now, while sitting in her chair, with her white hair flying frazzled around her tiny head and her sunken in cheeks, weathered in wrinkles, and large bug eyes behind her bottle-bottom glasses. "Are you my daughter?"
"No, Mittens, I'm not your daughter."
"Oh." She stared at me intently. Sometimes when she did this, I felt she saw more of who I was than most people did. "You're Jewish," she said decidedly.
I couldn't help laughing at how ridiculous it was that she was right. "Yes, Mittens."

"Jewish?" Hilario asked.

"But you must know Spanish, you just don't speak it," said Elena perhaps the most functional patient on the floor who could not comprehend the fact that I was not Hispanic.
"My Mom's family is from the Middle East." I said, trying to apologize for my apparently misleading looks.
"Oh, Middle East is a very hard language," Angela clicked her tongue and shook her head. "They don't use letters over there."

So it slowly spread that I was not Dominican, Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Spanish, Greek, Italian, or Indian, but Jewish. For three days the Greek kid -- I honestly forget his name, but I'll dub him Jimmy -- would raise his hands when he saw me as if he was going to announce Goal! and instead would call out Jewish!

A few chairs beyond Jimmy, sat demure Mr. F whose sister spent an hour on the phone with me, frantically describing how he raped her and her younger brother as children. Next to Mr. F was Mary. Mary was a 30 year old who had severe MR (mental retardation). It seemed she had three facial expressions. Usually an elated smile - her eyes lit up like she was looking into a birthday cake full of candles. The second was the quivering lip -- the just about to cry face. And the third -- red faced, mouth wide, tonsil-vision open -- in a bawl that shook the walls. The first time I heard it, I was standing right next to her. It froze me. My stupid tractionless heels which usually had me slipping all over the place, suddenly cemented down. She turned around and pounded her fists against the wall, coming inches from my face, the noise filling my ears as if she was pounding directly on my head. Ten seconds later she was back to her quiet, gentle, elated look.

After Ms. P had explained which snacks were allowed and when they were given out, Juana suddenly became alive again, cocked her head and bellowed out, "this is fucking terrible! No cookies?!"
"Juana, please excuse yourself." Said Ms. P.
"I will excuse myself, let me tell you something. I have diabetes, I never told you, but I have diabetes, and I need my sugar."
"Juana, please leave now."
Juana got up out of her seat and sauntered over to the door, screaming and waving her finger in Ms. P's direction. "I dont need this bullshit. I want my cookies. My medicaid covers it, bitch!" And slammed the door behind her.
In the wake of Juana's departure, the room was quiet. Ms. P sighed, "who wants to bring up the next topic?"
Mary raised her hand.
"Yes, Mary?"

"I hit Mittens."