Freak Me Out

I yawn loudly, my head against the passenger seat window, as mom pulls into the front parking lot and stops beside the curb. Natchaug mental health facility. This was where all the crazies lived. It’s a huge, institutional-looking building. A small garden in the center interrupts the flow of metal and concrete.

“This is so fucking stupid,” I grumble, knocking my head against the window. “Do I really have to do this?”

“Don’t swear, Gerard. We’ve been over this a thousand times. You did the crime, you do the time. You’re lucky that all he sentenced you to was community service.” She was right, there. If this had happened just one month later, I would have been tried as an adult and probably gotten jail time.

I sigh. “Fine. See you in four hours.” Mom had driven me here all the way from Belleview, and she wasn’t in the best mood. As soon as I shut the car door, she speeds off.

And this would be my life for the next six weeks. Every week day from 3 to 7. I walk towards the automatic doors, cool air blowing like wind when they open. I notice a smell I’d learn to get very used to during my time at Natchaug: a lovely mixture of Lysol and piss. I’d been assigned to the adolescent ward, and had no idea why it should remind me of an old-folks home.

I walk up to the front desk, looking at the older lady sitting with a Cosmopolitan magazine in her hand. She peers at it through her bifocals, looking bored.

“Um… excuse me,” I say quietly, clearing my throat. I felt out of place in the pristine, brightly-lit room. She looks up, annoyance only slightly masked by her polite guest-receiving expression.

“Hello, welcome to Natchaug. How may I help you?” she says. Like this was a fucking hotel or something.

“I’m Gerard Way, I’m here for community service,” I explain. Sure enough, the politeness slides right off her face when she hears I’m the hooligan here to serve time.

“Right,” she says, her voice curt. “I have your schedule right here.” She hands me an orange piece of paper and I quickly scan through it. Monday, café duty. Tuesday, meds. Wednesday, day care. Thursday, janitorial duties. Friday, groups.

I look back up at her, no idea what any of this means. I can see her struggle with the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ll have Janet come and explain this all to you,” she says, and pages Janet.

Janet turns out to be a janitor. I follow her around as she gives me a tour of the place. It was obvious they didn’t often get community service here; you’d think they’d find someone a little better than a janitor to explain things.

Café duty, apparently, is today. All I have to do is stand behind the counter and hand out sandwiches to the crazies. There were three different lunch waves during my shift, the last one ending at six thirty. After that, I was supposed to clean the café until it was time for me to leave.

Tuesday, tomorrow, I would walk around the residential area with a cart of meds, handing them out to the proper patients. Wednesday, I took care of the younger kids—four to twelve year olds. Thursday… well… the nasty stuff. Cleaning toilets and things of that nature. And Friday, I’d sit in group with the patients and discuss my feelings and problems.

Joy.

Café duty isn’t too bad. There are about a hundred kids in the building, ranging from four to seventeen. There’s about thirty kids in each lunch wave. I notice that some have cliques, while others stay as far away as possible from the other kids. Just like my high school.

It’s especially awkward serving lunch to the girls with the eating disorders. One brunette begs me to cut the crust off her grilled cheese sandwich—because that’s where all the calories were, you see—because they checked her plate at clean-up time and wouldn’t let her leave until she’d eaten everything. She weighs about ninety pounds, I’m guessing, and looked to be about thirteen. I apologize to her, not knowing what to do, and give her the entire sandwich. I was sure they’d yell at me for encouraging anorexic tendencies. She walks off in a huff, glaring at me.

After a while, I notice something strange. None of these people have shoelaces. They’d put duct tape around their shoes so they wouldn’t fall off. I ask one of the kitchen employees about it, and they said the facility took things like shoelaces and belts so no one could hang themselves with them.

One boy catches my eye. He comes in during the third lunch wave—for 15 to 17 year olds—wearing a Misfits shirt. He drags his feet, his black lace-less Vans sneakers looking dirty and battered. He shuffles up to the lunch line, giving every other person there a wide berth. This means he’s the last one in line. I hand him a sandwich wordlessly, and he takes it wordlessly. Once he’d gotten juice from the fridge he moves to the very back table in the corner.

He’s the only one sitting completely alone.

Eventually the bell rings and they all head out, looking a little like cattle. I hop over the counter and grab a broom, sweeping the floor. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

On Tuesday, I learn how very bad indeed it will be. Handing out meds is like trying to give kindergarteners broccoli. The little kids complain about the taste, spitting it out multiple times until I learn to hold their mouths closed until they promised it was gone. The older kids were a different story.

“Fuck you!” a boy with shadows under his eyes and scratches on his arms yells at me as I come into his room to give him his Prozac. “You’re trying to kill me! Where’s Marie, I want Marie!”

I hesitate by the door. “I don’t know who Marie is,” I state quietly, “but I’m not here to hurt you. I promise. I just want to give you your meds.” I inch closer to him with a small plastic cup of pills in my hand. He takes it, looking at me with an untrusting expression on his face.

And then he throws it across the room.

By the time I only have a few more rooms left, I’m exhausted mentally and physically. No wonder they wanted me here for four hours every day. I couldn’t do this in any less time. I knock on the doorframe of room 417 (they weren’t allowed to have doors, but I wanted to be polite), and a small voice answers.

It was the boy I’d noticed yesterday, the one with the Misfits shirt. He’s sitting in the very corner of the room, a sketchbook in hand. As soon as I come near him, he slams it shut.

“I’m here to give you your meds,” I say quietly, holding out the cup marked 417. It was bigger than the others; there were at least five different kinds of pills in it. He takes it calmly, and I’m relieved. Finally, a kid who doesn’t want to give me trouble.

“Do you want any water?” I ask, feeling nice. He just shakes his head and swallows the pills, grimacing.

“I’m used to taking them dry,” he responds, and dutifully opens his mouth wide. After a second I realize he’s letting me check to see if he took them all. I look, and nod my head.

“I’m Gerard,” I say on my way out. “If you ever need anything, I’ll be here for six weeks.” He just smiles wanly, his cinnamon skin glowing from the sunlight coming through the barred window.

“Sure,” is his only response. He opens his sketchbook and I leave the room.

Wednesday and Thursday are horrible. I get into the car Thursday night, smelling like shit and wishing for a long, hot shower. My mom speaks to me, really starts a conversation with me for the first time in weeks. “How are you liking Natchaug?” she asks, clearing dishes from the dinner table when we get home. They’d eaten without me.

I shrug. “Mondays are alright, I guess. The rest is an insane amount of work. I kind of like some of the kids there, though.” That was true. I’d had some fun on Wednesday with the little kids. A lot of them, I couldn’t figure out why they were in a place like Natchaug. They seemed like normal kids. It was only some of the older ones that looked like they had issues.

“I’m glad you’re having fun as your punishment for breaking the law,” mom replies, her voice hard. I roll my eyes.

“Mom, if you were going to say that, why did you ask?” I say, getting a little angry. “I’ve told you a thousand times how sorry I am. And you still want me to be miserable.”

She gives me a death stare. “Sometimes ‘sorry’ doesn’t make everything all better,” she responds, and leaves me with the dishes.

Friday afternoon, I’m almost glad to be going to Natchaug. My mother had been getting almost unbearable lately. It was altogether too much.

I was a bit nervous, today, though. After all, today was ‘group’ day. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. All I knew was that I was supposed to sit in a circle with the kids and share my feelings. I’d much rather rip my own eyes out of my head.

As it turns out, I don’t have to do a lot of talking. I’m with the 15-17 group, and some of them talk enough for three people. I just sit and listen, watching while the counselors and doctors write stuff down on their clipboards. After the brunette anorexic had finished with her ten-minute long speech about how hard it was being her, one of the adults turns to Misfits boy.

“Frank, would you like to speak?” she asks, looking at him intently.

Frank’s tan cheeks turn bright red, and he pulls his knees to his chest, shaking his head. He bites his lip, where I notice a hole—had he gotten it pierced? His big brown eyes flicker around the room desperately, looking for someone to save him. His eyes meet mine.

“Could I say something?” I speak up, immediately wishing I hadn’t. Counselor-lady turns to give me a dirty look, but agrees to let me share. It’s obvious that they never got Frank to speak.

Everyone looks at me expectantly. “Well,” I say, not knowing what the fuck I was supposed to say. “I… I’m here for community service, as I think you guys know. I’m Gerard.”

“Hi, Gerard,” everyone mumbles, and I’m suddenly reminded of an AA meeting. A giggle almost escapes my lips but I choke it back at the last second. I’m silent for a second, wondering what I could possibly say.

“Gerard, I’m afraid if you don’t have something important to say, we’ll have to move on,” counselor-lady says, giving me none of the warmth she treated her patients with. A redhead raises her hand, and counselor-lady turns to her. “Yes, Jamie.”

The session continues on like that, and no one calls on either Frank or myself again. When the bell rings, signaling seven o clock, everyone gets up to leave. I almost go over to him, but he slips away silently before I’d even had the chance to stand up.