Authors: Chuck Stepanek
And as his court hearing approached, he lost the most important thing of all – his mind.
T
he first few days without pot, L
oser
struggled
to endure. The physical cravings were tough, but the psychological cravings were unbearable. As time passed and the residual THC in his body was eliminated, the cravings became maddening.
For two years the receptors in his brain had been pacified by daily doses of weed. Their
demand had been insatiable and L
oser had responded with higher and more frequent doses. Now denied, they screamed for more.
The artificial wall that he had created in his brain was crumbling. And the evil blackness that lived within him roared against its rusting cage. Where there had once been mere filaments
threaded through pinpricks, there were now multi-tentacled arms extending through gaping portholes.
The blackness threaded through his mind, ravaging emotional receptors that had been smoked into oblivion. Loser
’
s thoughts became a jumbled mass of unease, paranoia, and in a last ditch effort to deal with the unknown, hate.
“Cocksuckers!” He screamed. For about the hundredth time, he toyed with the idea. He could jump in his car, cash his final check, go to ‘the house,’ roll a doob with newspaper if he had to, and get busted all over again.
No. It was no good. Even if he got away with it, he had heard of the piss tests they could make you take. He would have to tough it out, accept whatever probation or community service bullshit he had to fulfill and then go back to smoking doob.
2
Loser seethed as he entered the courthouse and faced the judge.
Save for the bailiff, the judge and the two attorneys, one county and one public, the courtroom was vacant. This did nothing to ease his paranoia or his madness. His mind cycled uncontrolled. Belligerent, penitent, obstinate, shameful, hateful.
The evil blackness fed greedily on the confused mind. It pulsed and surged. Full sections of the protective cage gave way. The evil shrieked victoriously and redoubled its efforts, slamming itself into the crumbling ruins.
“You know the charges before you, do you have anything to say in your defense.”
Tears were cascad
ing down L
oser
’
s face. “It wasn’t my fault. She parked too close!”
“We’re not
talking
about the car Mr.—“ the judge referred to his notes.
Loser
’
s mind flipped. “She’s a canyon! I’ll come in her mouth!” He laughed hysterically and then amended. “And she’ll swallow it!” He sank to his knees braying manically.
“Counselor, control your client!”
But L
oser wasn’t done, more accurately, the black mass of malevolence wasn’t done, it exploded out of its dungeon. After 15 years of dormancy, it raced through a lab
yrinth of nerves, smashed into L
oser
’
s brain and enveloped it like a squid devouring a puffer fish.
“She has pink underwear you Georgie
Porgie
girl! I’m not touching that Greaser! Demons in my eyes! Demons in my ears! He fucked me in the ass! Look at the stars! You must see heaven! When you see heaven it will stop!”
Writhing on the courtroom floor
, laughing, screaming, crying, L
oser was oblivious to the words uttered by his subconscious.
“Bailiff!” The judge roared. “Get that man out of here!”
The bailiff complied, dragging the out-of-control offender from the chambers.
Jesus, the judge mused. It’s just a crummy possession charge, was the guy bucking for an insanity plea?
“Counselors, approach the bench.” In a practice that is more common than most think, the county attorney and the public defender consulted with the judge (off the record) on what they thought would be best for the freak show they had just observed.
‘Let me talk to his parents first’ the defender offered.
The judge concurred; the visit conducted that afternoon. The ‘evidence’ provided via the talk with his parents made it overwhelming. These people were nuts.
In May of 1977, Psycho was committed to the state mental institution in
Broward County
.
Part
7
Psycho
Chapter 1
1
They juiced him up good and proper. Still, through the fog of the anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, anti-ability to cont
rol open-mouth drooling drugs, P
sycho upheld a modest amount of cognitive ability.
Most of his thoughts began with the word ‘why.’
Why am I here?
Why do they have to keep changing my meds?
Why didn’t I just get probation or community service?
Why can’t we wear belts?
Why, why, why…
The staff at the facility helped with the answers. You’re here because you’re sick, your meds are changed to find the combination that works best for you. This setting is more appropriate for you than probation or community service. And the belts, well, that’s just a precaution.
Psycho heard the responses but processed them on only the most primitive level. He had been in the institution for only two weeks of his 3 month commitment.
Following his outburst in the courtroom, the bailiff had muscled him into one of the ten cells that constituted the county jail. There he collapsed on the dirty cement floor, shouting profanities and gibberish. “Ass fucker! You’re a John
-
John! Shit myself in the bathtub! It’ll rot your teeth out!” The four other prisoners,
all seasoned revolving-door types, tolerated the disruption, knowing that the fresh fish would tire after 10, 15 minutes max before resorting to either sobs or silence. When an hour had passed, they were all pleading for the guard.
From cell two: “For the love of God! Can’t you shut that psycho up!” Cell six: “I want a lawyer, this is cruel and unusual punishment! Lemme out, please! I swear I won’t break the law again!” Cell seven: “Shut the fuck up you psycho!”
Psycho did not shut the fuck up. His brain had detached from reality. “You’re nothing but a psycho freak! You should be in the loony bin! Guard! For the love of God! Make it stop!” It didn’t stop. For twenty-four hours it didn’t stop. The prisoners appealed to the guard, the guard to the bailiff, the bailiff to the judge. The judge expedited the commitment papers.
As he was being restrained and escorted from the county jail the other prisoners took up the chant: “Psycho! Psycho! Psycho!” And peppered the chant with their independent words of farewell. “Eat shit and die you mother fucker!” “I hope you get lost in the nuthouse and never find your way out!”
And now, here he was.
He learned that he and the other patients could spend their time in one of three ways, laying on their beds, walking the halls, or congregating in the smoke room for thirty minutes at the magic hours of ten, one and six.
Also, with a good conduct record (and a staff escort) they could take the security elevator to the lower level and make a purchase from the banks of vending machines in the staff commissary.
Psycho hated it. His emotions may have been muted by the drugs, but intellectually he knew he hated it.
The curiosity of his arrival, of every new arrival for that matter, brought the long-timers drifting by the room, peering in to see if
the new guy was a threat, or, more important, had brought anything of interest. A deck of cards, a carton of smokes, maybe even a magazine with more pictures than words.
They also came by with advice, some of it useful: “Whatever you do, don’t tell the doctor you feel suicidal. You’ll end up sitting in the suicide chair.”
“Don’t leave your toothpaste out in the open. Frank will steal it and eat it.”
The long-timers seemed harmless enough, there were others though that petrified him. One, a silent bald giant who sat in the same chair day after day; grinning a malevolent ‘I killed 100 people and devoured their flesh’ expression. And
others
, not as intimidating by size or expression, but who would unpredictably lash out, screaming threats before being restrained and led off to the ‘quiet room.’
Psycho learned the routine.
The first few days he spent bottled up in his room. But without television, music or pot (the only things that had ever filled his free time) he soon had no choice but to engage in option two. He joined the shuffling zombies who walked the halls.
His pace was slowed by the psychoactive drugs but also by a strange curiosity. The floors of the wing were tiled light blue, yet broken every 10 feet by a single black tile. Psycho discovered a compulsion that on his walks, if his right foot touched a black title, then the next black one had to be,
must
be touched by his left. If the heel of his right shoe happened to scuff while taking a step, then the heel of his left
must
do the same to make things even.
The end of each hall was marked by a heavy wire mesh security window with milky smoked glass. Their views to the outside world were negligible; but their compulsion, was paramount.
Psycho had to
, had to
, touch one of the sills with his right hand, the other with his left. If some zombie was in his way, staring out one of the windows at some world that they could see only in their minds, he would wait. If the wait became too long, he would journey back to the other end, promising himself to touch the sill twice upon his return.
The obsession. The compulsion. The monotony.
It wa
s only in the smoke room where P
sycho found some semblance of community. On the unit, everything revolved around smoke break. Even those few patients who didn’t smoke, gathered in the smoke room at the appointed times for just a little reminder of what it used to be like on the outside.
And while nicotine may be a poor substitute for pot, if even for the briefest moment the pleasure receptors are fooled, then there’s something to it. The conditions of his commitment had stated that tobacco was acceptable in patient rooms. Fortuitously Psycho had invested in a fresh carton of Kool Filter Kings about the time everything went down. And the public service officer who had visited Psycho
’
s home to retrieve clothes and personal affects, had seen the carton and considerately tossed it in with the works.