It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Mister Muqtada, you are the next: how come you are always sleeping sleeping sleeping?”

Dr. Mahmoud walks past me. I call Mom to report the news, and then I call Dr. Minerva. She says she’s sorry I took this turn for the worse, but it’s always two-steps-forward, one-step-back.

“If this is my one step back,” I tell her, “what am I going to do next: win the lottery and get my own TV show?”

That’d be a good TV show, actually, I think. A guy winning the lottery in the psych hospital.

Dr. Minerva can’t come in tomorrow, because it’s Sunday, but she says she’ll be in on Monday. I’m momentarily surprised by the distinction. In Six North, there probably won’t be much difference.

twenty-seven

“They say there’s gonna be a pizza party tonight,” Humble tells me at dinner. Dinner is chicken tenders with potatoes and salad and a pear. I eat it all. “But they say that every night.”

“What’s a pizza party?”

“We all chip in the money and get pizza from the neighborhood. It’s tough, because no one ever has any cash. It’s like a big deal if we get pepperoni.”

“I have eight dollars.”

“Shhh. Don’t go announcing it!” He stops chewing. “People in here don’t have any money. I don’t have two cents to rub together.”

I nod. “I never heard that one before.”

“No? You like it?”

“Yeah.”

“What about: I don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.”

“Nope.”

“What about: I got Jack and shit and Jack left town.”

“Heh. No! Where do you get them all?”

“From the old neighborhood. Gimme a ringy-ding. Catch ya on the flipside. It’s the best way to talk.”

“A ringy-ding, what’s that—a call?”

“Don’t ask yuppie questions.”

Humble scans the room for people to talk about. He enjoys talking about other people—he just enjoys talking, I’ve discovered, but he especially enjoys talking about other people—and when he does so, he puts on a peculiar sort of voice that’s not quite a whisper, but is pitched at such a low monotone that no one notices it. He also seems able to throw it so it feels like he’s speaking into my left ear.

“So I suppose you’ve become familiar with our lovely clientele here on the floor. President Armelio is the president.” He nods over at Armelio, who has finished his food first and is getting up to return the tray. “You see how fast he eats? If you could harness a quarter of his energy, you could power the island of Manhattan. I’m not joking. He should really work in a place with people like us. He has such a good heart and he’s never down.”

“So why is he in here?”

“He’s psychotic, of course. You shoulda seen him when they brought him in. He was screaming his head off about his mom. He’s Greek.”

“Huh.”

“Now there’s Ebony, She of the Ass. That is def initely the biggest ass I’ve ever seen. I’m not even into asses, but if you were—man, you could lose yourself in there. It’s like its own municipality. I think that’s why she needs the cane. She’s also the only woman I’ve ever known who wears velvet pants; I think you have to have a butt like that to wear velvet pants. They only make them in extra extra extra large.”

“I didn’t even notice them.”

“Well, give it a while. After a few days you start to notice people’s clothes, seeing as how they all wear the same stuff every day.”

“Things don’t get dirty?”

“They do laundry on Tuesdays and Fridays. Who gave you your tour when you came in?”

“Bobby.”

“He should’ve told you that.” Humble swivels his head, then turns back. “Now Bobby and Johnny”—they’re at a table together, as they were at lunch—“those two were some of the biggest meth-amphetamine addicts in New York City, period, in the nineties. They were called Fiend One and Fiend Two. The party didn’t really start until they showed up.”

That must’ve been such a feeling, even through all the drugs, I think. To come into a house and have people well up and greet you: “All right, man!” “You’re here!” “What’s up?” That was probably as addictive as the amphetamines. People sort of do that to Aaron.

“What happened to them?” I ask.

“What happens to anybody? They got burned out, lost all their money, ended up here. Got no families, got no women—well, I think Bobby has one.”

“He talks on the phone with her.”

“You can’t tell from that. People pretend to be on the phone all the time. Like her”—he pitches his head at the bug-eyed woman who was standing behind me when I was talking with my family—“The Professor. I’ve caught her on the phone talking to Dr. Dial Tone. She’s a university professor. She ended up here because she thinks someone tried to spray her apartment with insecticide. She has newspaper clippings about it and everything.”