Other Patients: Carrie the Cutter
February 1969
I’m worried
about Carrie*, a 15-year-old girl I have befriended. She shuffles between Ward
2 (wacko unit) and Ward 4, depending on her behavior. She’s on 4 now, but I’m
afraid she’s headed back to 2 very soon.
She babbles about wanting to stick a dead rat up her vagina, and when I
ask why, she says, “Just for something to do.”
Should I say something to the staff? I dunno. I wouldn’t want anyone
narking me out about some dumb comment I made during a bull session. We all say
crazy stuff just to be bull shitting, but, somehow, I suspect Carrie really
means to harm herself. I’ll wait and see and hope her doctor is keeping close
tabs on her.
Carrie goes to Heelan but is out of school because of being here.
Besides, she’s too fucked up for school, which fucks kids up anyway. She landed
in here because she carved “Father Falon*” all up and down her arms; she showed
me the scars, and, sure enough, his name is still faintly visible.
“I love him,” she says when I ask why she did it. Father Falon teaches at
Heelan, and, I must admit, when I was there, I had a crush on him, too. But it
wouldn’t have occurred to me to carve his name on my arms. I have never heard
of such strange stuff.
Behind her back, I call her Carrie the Cutter.
Mean, I know, but she pissed me off when she suggested, as we were
bathing, that we have a Lesbian relationship. I politely declined, and she let
it go at that.
In the bath area, three tubs, no curtains, so everyone can see each other
naked. Makes me uneasy ꟷ I like my privacy too much. But Carrie seems to like
company when she bathes. Never again; from now on, I’ll take my baths late at
night, when I’m alone and away from all prying eyes.
Carrie appears slightly retarded; her mouth droops open a little, she
hunches slightly, and she has yellow teeth, pointy buck teeth with a wide space
between them, but I don’t think she is actually mentally lacking. She’s too
wily and dreams up all these complicated plots for escaping this joint,
complete with accomplices and getaway cars. All talk, I’m sure. Still, it takes
brains to think up these schemes.
She loves shocking and burning herself on the coils of those huge
electric cigarette lighters stuck on the walls. The shocks are just static
electricity, but they hurt, and most of us try to avoid them, but Carrie loves
hearing the zaps snap against her index fingertip. She goes from lighter to
lighter, finding the one offering the biggest thrill.
These lighters are ominous oblong bronze boxes that hum like those
strange electrical contraptions in old horror movies. Rube Goldberg
apparatuses, some inventor taking a simple object and complicating it. It’s
funny to watch someone light a cigarette; it looks like they’re kissing the
box. The state is afraid we’ll burn the place down if we’re allowed matches or
lighters, but I’ve figured out a way to create a flame by sticking a piece of
loosely rolled paper to the coil ꟷ not that I’d ever show Carrie how to do it.
This is my secret.
I have no desire to set a fire, but it’s always good, in a pinch, to know
these things.
With due respect to Carrie, this place needs a humidifier like bad; every
time you touch metal ꟷ the box lighters, water taps, TV, stove in the communal
room ꟷ ZAP! Crackle! Pop! When I comb my hair, it crackles and sticks out.
Feels funny, like I’m going to take wing, via my hair, which takes longer to
get dirty, and my skin is so dry it cracks. Lip balm is my best friend. You’d
think the state could pop for some humidifiers, instead of sticking innocent
teenagers in here to fry themselves.
*
I’m worried
about Carrie; for the past three or four days, she’s been complaining of
horrible chest pains. She told the attendant she wanted to see a nurse, but the
nurse refused ꟷ said she was faking. So Carrie asked to see the night doctor;
he refused. Although Carrie’s a bit batty, I still like her, and I don’t think
she’s faking this. It’s just been going on too long. I kept after the
attendants and nurses, and still they refused. Two nights ago, Carrie’s pain
was so bad I was scared to go to bed ꟷ that if I left her alone, she’d be dead
by morning. So, I blew up at the R.N. and told her to get the damn doctor in
here. They took her to the infirmary.
I don’t know what’s wrong with Carrie ꟷ she looked better when I visited
her today ꟷ but even if her illness is in her head, it’s better to err on the
side of being wrong than being sorry. It’s scary being at the mercy of the
system ꟷ they can decide life and death matters, and there’s not a damn thing
you can do about it, other than make lots of noise.
*
After two
weeks of ailing, Carrie’s back on 4 from the infirmary.
When I ask her what had been wrong with her, she just shrugs. “They don’t
know, but it’s not my heart. Probably panic attacks.” She laughs like a
fiendish little elf. “So you didn’t save my life, Florence Nightingale.”
Like I would hope for something serious so I could play the big heroine?
“Well, it could have been serious.”
“But it wasn’t!”
“Okay, I get it.”
“You screwed up and landed my ass in the tank for over two weeks!”
That’s what I like about Carrie: her utmost gratefulness to a friend who
was trying to help her when no one else gave a shit. “Yeah, I guess I screwed
up.”
Yeah, I screwed up, all right ꟷ the next time she has
palpitations, I’ll just look the other way.
Actually, I’d like to distance myself from Carrie anyway; she has become
obsessed not only with the idea of sticking a rat up her vagina, but now she’s
talking about larger animals, such as cats and dogs. Where does she come up
with all this stuff, anyway? Sooner or later, she’s going to end up on locked
ward, or, worse, in isolation, which, I hear, is a padded cell.
I’ll just hang out with Penny from now on.
Memoir Madness
Excerpts: Return to Table of Contents
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“Other Patients: Carrie the Cutter,” © copyright 2013 -
present, by Jennifer Semple Siegel, may not be reprinted or reposted without
the express permission of the author. Published in Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment
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*Names and
identifying characteristics of Cherokee inmates have been changed to protect
their privacy.
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