Tales from the Mental Hospital

Fred came into the ward around the same time as me. He wasn't all that big, but you could tell he had some muscle to him. He was also totally off his fucking rocker. It didn't take much to piss Fred off, and he actually seemed to enjoy his violent outbursts as much as we enjoyed watching them. Needless to say, Fred spent a lot of time in the quiet room, second only to Sherry.

One day a guy named Tom, who couldn't have been much over 18, decided he would start some shit with Fred. In Tom's defense, I'll explain Tom a bit. Tom was a schizophrenic, and he had major troubles with voices tell him to do things he really shouldn't do. Like fucking with Fred, for example.

So, anyway. Tom walks up to Fred one day and asks him "Wanna fight bitch?" Sherry looked at me, I looked at Fred, and Fred got up and looked at Tom. "What the fuck did you just say?” he asked. "Did you just call me a fucking bitch dude?" "Yeah" Tom replied. "God told me to fight you" It was easy to see that Tom was about to get obliterated, so I tried to step in and end it. I pulled Fred aside and told him "Look man, he's out of his fucking head. He hears voices and shit. He doesn’t realize what he's doing"

Fred, in a moment of being reasonable, agreed with me and walked away. Sad to say, well, no not really or this story would suck, it wasn't the end. Tom ran up and snuck Fred in the back of the head. Fred turned around and just let loose all over Tom's face and head.

The fight was over in a matter of seconds, after which we told the MHA's Fred was merely acting in self defense. Tom was taken into his room by an MHA who sat with him for awhile.

Fred wasn't the type to let something like that go, and started flipping the fuck out. "I can't believe that fucker TOUCHED me" he screamed.

He began pacing the wing for awhile, when all of a sudden, he flipped. He started kicking walls; he threw the garbage can in the general direction of Tom's door. He even ripped one of the payphones off the cord.

Everyone was sent to their rooms while they tried to get the situation under control. Sherry got snagged trying to slip into my room (fuckin’ Terry, I hate you).

It took a good 10 or 15 minutes for them to even be able to get close enough for Fred to try and grab him and stick him with the needle. Eventually they were able to, but the Ativan didn't do a god damn thing. He just kept running around and fucking up the ward. The MHA's ended up having to call for backup, including my "dear friend" Abdullah the Butcher.

Once Fred was recaptured and drugged with Haldol, he started to calm down a lot. They were able to get him into the quiet room, where he kicked the door for about a half hour before he fell asleep.

After we were allowed out of our rooms, I felt it was my duty to give Abdullah as much shit as possible. He had, after all, used his knee to pin my head to the floor. "Hey Abdullah, did you kneel on his head too, you fucking pussy", which was kind of funny, since I was on the ground and his knee was on my head, not the other way around. That's basically what he told me, too.

Yeah, I felt stupid.