In what seemed like every square inch of the room, women and girls of various ages sat in plastic chairs or lay on the cold, wet floor. Some wore helmets; others were in straitjackets or had leather straps binding their wrists together. Some sat slumped in wheelchairs or lay in the wheeled wooden boxes, feces and urine covering their legs. Many wandered aimlessly or stood stock-still, babbling incoherently. All seemed to have bruises and scabs and bloody marks on their skin, marking their arms or legs or faces. They clawed at one another and hit one another and pushed one another around. They pounded on the walls and floors with their feet and hands and heads. A girl in ripped pajamas sat close to the television and stared blankly at The Dating Game show on the screen, her lips curled back, her tongue thrusting in and out of her mouth. A woman in a hospital gown stood next to her and laughed loudly every few minutes, then paced back and forth wringing her hands. Sage couldn’t help wondering what the residents thought about the images on the TV screen, the contestants in their clean clothes sitting calmly in their chairs, laughing and smiling and having fun. What did they think about other shows—the ones that showed warm homes and normal families, teenagers dancing on American Bandstand, news coverage of the Vietnam War? Did they know there was an outside world? Did they long to be part of it, or remember when they had been? Did it break their hearts?
A trio of girls, perhaps nine or ten years of age, lay sideways and crooked in four plastic chairs like three forgotten rag dolls, their heads shaved, their arms twisted behind them inside filthy straitjackets. A girl of about twelve smeared feces on the wall, while a teenager in a muzzle stood near the door slapping her own face. A group of naked residents huddled around the steam radiator to get warm, burn marks lining their arms and shoulders.
The chaos reminded Sage of a painting she’d seen of hell, the sinners of the world tangled together like fish in a net, some missing arms and legs, some being eaten by demons, all bleeding and crying and screaming. Bulging, vacant eyes in emaciated faces, giant heads and wasted bodies.
How long would they be held in this torture chamber? An hour? Two? The rest of the day?
To add to her growing terror, Wayne closed and locked the doors after everyone was inside, then made his way around the room like a bristled, breathing beast, a bully stick in his fist. No other attendants stayed behind. No nurses or additional staff. Obviously Wayne was strong and intimidating, but how could he control this pandemonium-filled room on his own? And who would protect her if he thought she was Rosemary?
Almost immediately, she had the answer to her first question, watching in horror as Wayne pulled residents away from one another and struck those who fought back or didn’t cooperate. He wrestled some to the ground and forced them into straitjackets or twisted their arms behind their backs until they calmed down. A screaming teenager jumped on his back and he yanked her off, then beat her with the bully stick. After separating two residents who were hitting each other, he dragged one to a chair and roughly pushed the other across the room, then made her stand in the corner with her hands in the air. The other woman got up from her chair, met him on his way back, and hooked an arm through his, looking up at him and puckering her lips. He pushed her away. A brown-haired girl lifted a chair over her head, getting ready to smash it over another girl’s back; he took it away from her, then tied her in it.
When a bald woman got in a fight with a woman in a flowered housecoat over a slip of paper on the floor, he rushed over to break it up, but it was too late. The woman in the housecoat screamed and held a hand to her ear, blood gushing down her neck. Wayne pulled the woman’s hand from her head to see what was wrong and she screamed louder. Her bloody ear dangled from her skull by a jagged thread of skin. Wayne dragged her over to the Plexiglas cubicle and made a phone call. Within minutes, Nurse Vic entered and took the injured woman away. After she was gone, Wayne went around the room, yelling at everyone to sit down, threatening them with the bully stick and a balled-up fist. Most cowered and moved away, but others either didn’t listen or didn’t hear. Once everyone was relatively calm, he went over to the cubicle, sat down hard in the chair, and lit a cigarette, his leg jerking up and down. As he smoked, his eyes skittered around the room, searching for his next victim.
Struggling to control her fear, Sage tried to figure out how to ask him about Rosemary. She could go over there and try to bum a cigarette. It would be a good excuse to approach him and maybe he’d realize she wasn’t Rosemary—unless Rosemary had taken up smoking, which seemed doubtful. But then again, asking for a cigarette might get her in trouble. Maybe he’d tie her up or put her in a straitjacket. Before she had time to decide, another fight broke out. Wayne pounded the cigarette out on the side of the cubicle, launched across the room, and pulled two young women apart.
A minute later, the doors opened and Marla and two other attendants entered, pushing food carts. Wayne locked the doors behind them and began unloading trays filled with bowls from the carts. Marla and one of the other attendants took trays over to the tables and started feeding the residents seated there. The second attendant poured orange juice into plastic cups and passed them out to those who could hold them. Wayne helped by forcing the residents at the tables to gulp down their juice, then taking their empty cups. Sage took the cup she was offered and, realizing for the first time that her throat was sore and parched, took a drink. The juice was thin and watered down, but it helped. Then a strange, metallic tang filled her mouth, like the aftertaste of medicine on her tongue. She wiped her lips on the back of her hand and looked into the cup to figure out how much she’d swallowed. Had she taken a big sip? Two big sips? She couldn’t remember. When Marla started limping toward her with a food tray, she dumped the rest of the juice behind the chair, praying Marla wouldn’t notice.
After taking her empty cup, Marla handed her a bowl of what looked like watery oatmeal. “You know what to do,” she said. “Bring the dish over when you’re done.” Then she moved on to the next girl.
The serving of watery oatmeal barely covered the bottom of the bowl. And there was no spoon. Sage looked around to see if anyone else had a spoon. No one did except for the attendants, who were going around the tables using the same spoon to feed those who couldn’t feed themselves. After shoving a few overflowing spoonfuls into a resident’s mouth, the attendants made sure their juice cups were empty, then moved on to the next person. No one got any more than those first few mouthfuls before Wayne picked up the bowls and returned them to the carts.
Those who could feed themselves ate with their fingers, greedily stuffing oatmeal into their mouths before Wayne and the attendants took it from them. Some dumped the food on the floor and lapped it up like dogs. The wailing and shouting and shrieking continued through it all, and Wayne had his hands full trying to help and keep everyone under control.
“You better eat,” someone said in Sage’s ear, startling her. “You know we don’t get much. You’ll still be hungry when you go to bed.”
It was Tina. She stood next to Sage in her lilac-covered dress, twisting a lock of her thin hair between her finger and thumb, back and forth, and back and forth.
“Where’s yours?” Sage said.
“Already ate it. Time’s almost up, too, so you better hurry.”
“Does it taste as bad as it looks?”