Tales from the Asylum: Reflections of Tomorrow

It was my third or fourth day on the job on Ward 42 of the County Hospital Center.  That name was the most recent euphemism for the local mental hospital that most people still called by its former pastoral sounding name.  The mental hospital was a sprawling complex of aging hard architecture and large Victorian homes. Every building was still interconnected by underground tunnels that were once used to transport restrained psychotic patients, or so the stories went.  Originally it was built far away from civilization, it had its own abandoned train station undergoing demolition and fire department with a 1935 fire truck undergoing restoration.  Roads and suburbs had surrounded the psychiatric hospital complex by the 1950’s.  The center was still a vast facility that stretched up the mountain to encompass some taller buildings that were once a TB sanatorium and were still used for certain medical treatments and infirm patients.  In its heyday it housed over 6000 permanent patients.  1

Ward 42 was at the end of a long two story building nearest  the bottom of the hill constructed around the turn of the last century.  It was pretty much made of brick and concrete, the floors were tile, the ceilings were at least 15 feet high, the windows gated with chain link and the doors were massive and thick.  Each ward had two floors each floor had a large day room and a long hallway off of which were doors to private rooms that had been cells for more violent patients before the advent of Thorazine.  Each room had a massive door and a single light bulb fixture in the center of the ceiling surrounded by a small steel cage.  There was a bed and a night table.  Patients were made to sleep naked.  Lavatories and bathing areas were situated off the day room.  The second floor had been pretty much been converted into a dormitory.  Some patients slept in the private rooms, but most slept in rows of beds in the large room.  There was a smell to the place, it hit you like a right cross when you came in the back door to the ward.  People who have lived on a farm, might liken it to a pig pen, only it had an inexplicable sort of ancient staleness about it.  2

The first floor was similar in layout to the second.  For the most part the smaller rooms were utility space.  A couple might have still had beds or furniture, but no one slept there others were used for storage, and one had a fridge and some medical equipment.  The day room, had a TV mounted high on one wall and a door that lead to the porch.  There was a large number of chairs in the midst of the floor facing the TV, some more chairs were lined up along the walls.  These chairs were not selected for the sake of comfort, they were selected for their durability or perhapse they only survived because of that quality. Most were still made of steel, some were part hard plastic.  Nothing I can recall from that place was soft.  Even the staff, for the most part, had grown shells, hardened by the nature of institutional life.  3

Ward 42 was considered one of the “back wards” situated at a distance from the more modernized parts of the facility.  It housed very long-term male patients, some there for most of their lives.  Many were in their sixties, or seventies, some were younger, destined to be warehoused there for many decades to come.  Luckier patients had been transferred to the new geriatric center some had been moved to half way houses.  The more aggressive younger patients were kept on Ward 39 as I recall.  Ward 42 was pretty much one of the wards for the forgotten souls, that had no other place to go.  I was 18, a college freshman working my first summer job and I was about to be changed in ways I had never thought possible.  4

It was on this third day of work that I was approached by a jolly fat black patient who looked 40ish but had the facial expressions of a child.  He had a big round face perched atop a big round body. He had an infectious smile, all be it, he had few teeth left to display.  Dentistry at Overbrook was basic and straightforward. Teeth were permitted to remain where they were until they hurt. Then they were simply pulled out for the most part.  The patient held a piece of paper in his hand, perhaps it was part of a torn up cigarette pack, or paper bag, I cant be sure anymore, and he asked me if I could write something for him.  I located a pen and asked him what he wanted me to write.  This seemed to amuse another of my coworkers as he observed from across the day room.  Pen and scrap of paper in hand, I asked the patient, who’s name escapes me now, what he wanted me to write and he responded, “Tomorrow. Write tomorrow, my mom and my family is coming to see me tomorrow.  I can’t wait and I don’t wanna forget.  I can’t forget.”5

I held the wrinkled scrap of paper up against the wall and printed ‘tomorrow’ on it.  It was just a scrap of trash, but the pleasant boyish fellow took it from me his hands shaking as if accepting something precious.  He neatly folded it down to a tiny square, then unfolded it to check if the letters had remained undamaged on the paper.  Then he thanked me, as a matter of fact he thanked me several times, as if I had done him some great favor and then he sheepishly slinked off.6

The next day, I recall clocking in a few minutes late, I hated the strange military clocks the hospital had.  They had 100 minutes per hour, so if you were 10 minutes late the punch card read 17 minutes late.  I had various matters to attend to, get report, do a census, and when I finally had a few minutes to relax, in fact most of what we did between outbreaks of madness, was relax, I asked the pudgy, well by today’s standards, morbidly obese man  with the big round smiling face, how his visit with his family had gone.  His eyes grew wide, and he smiled, then he drew the neatly folded scrap of paper from his pocket, he gently unfolded the precious document and showed it to me. “Their coming tomorrow,” he said, “it says so right here. See?  My mom promised to come tomorrow.  My mom is coming tomorrow.  That’s what it says, right?”7

“Yes, it says tomorrow,” I agreed, reading the word that I had written there the evening before.  Then, as before, he carefully refolded the document and placed it in his pocket and backed away. 8

As the evening went on, I noticed that he would occasionally check his pocket to make sure his folded scrap of paper was secure, he would remove it, sometimes make sure the word was still there and then return it to the safety of his pocket.  With some sixty mental patients to care for, I really don’t remember having much time to spend with any particular one unless they were doing something unusually antisocial that required my attention.  But that evening passed pretty much without further incident and at 11:00 PM I clocked out and went home.9

The next day at work, the plump black fellow greeted me as soon as I arrived with the word “tomorrow” accompanied with a huge excited smile and a few pats on his pocket.  From time to time he would walk past me, pat his pocket, say “tomorrow”, smile and wander on.  In fact this odd behavior continued for a few days.  Well, I suppose, it wasn’t really any odder than most of the other behavior I witnessed from the patients and staff while I worked there, but certainly odd, as defined by those living in the otherwise real world beyond the world of the institution.  10

Finally one day I asked a colleague about the patient and if he had heard when and if his family was going to visit.  He laughed and replied, “I don’t remember ever seeing his mom, don’t think anyone can.  His mom never visits.  Some fool wrote him another note.” 11

For the duration of the summer, until I left the asylum and went back to college, I was reminded daily by a an eternally hopeful, eternally optimistic gentle man that his mom had promised to return tomorrow.  I would reply “Yes, tomorrow.” Then we would exchange smiles.   12