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Dave Crashed Into the Cuckoo’s Nest, Part I
A Week Fighting to Get Out of the Mad House: An Epic Poem in 7 Installments
[Typed the mornings of September 20-21, 2022 from notes written in crayon the previous week while on an involuntary hold at the psych ward at Pacific Grove Hospital in Riverside, California after a ketamine infusion therapy to treat the PTSD went bad, leaving the Poet more suicidal and self-hating than before it began, prompting the doctor to insist on a “5150” 72-hour hold.]
Tuesday 12:55 PM Sitting in the TV room. Six other people here and a cheap plastic checkerboard in the corner. I write with a broken black crayon and feel like one. My only goal is to be released from here on Thursday.
2:52 PM Just played six chess matches with a friendly guy, Eddie. He had only been playing for a month on his phone. Eventually I started teaching him and warning him when he was making a mistake. “Walking Tall” now playing on the TV and two guys just started laughing and cheering when The Rock was acquitted. Now this crayon broke too. ***** While You Were Out ***** M ____ Sally Shideler OF ____ wife Phone _____ Telephoned ____ Please Call Message: Call back with patient code #20144 AD2 3:23 PM The best place to watch The Rock shooting guns in a lame action movie is in the TV room of the psych ward. The old man who laughs loudest wears a t-shirt with a beer keg on back that says: “I’d Tap That.” I’ve never seen this movie before. It’s an early action effort with The Rock and Johnny Knoxville. Another movie is starting now on TNT. “Cowboys and Aliens,” but the guys are channel surfing now.
3:36 PM I saw “Training Day” on BET and suggested it and they took my recommendation. There are seven of us in here watching TV. I’m going to find some water now. One guy here said he was done with heroin, then the next said crystal meth was his drug of choice that he’d been shooting up.
3:51 PM
It was just the scene with Snoop Dogg in “Training Day.”
They came and brought snacks – animal crackers and apple juice.
Like being back in grade school.
“Living crazy is the only way.”
“Let me tell you a story ‘bout Jack and Diane.”
- Woman wearing scrubs and short hair singing
4:23 PM 9 People in the TV Room 1. Eddie who I played chess with. Nice guy. 2. The former heroin user who proclaimed his intent to stay clean 3. Old black guy who laughs a lot, wearing “I’d Tap That” shirt. Friendly. 4. Old man with white beard and blue scrubs, watching TV gap-mouthed 5. Overweight silent black guy in back 6. 2 younger guys, one with beard, the other a goatee 7. Lying in corner quietly a hipster guy with long hair who arrived after me 8. Your humble narrator Now just 5 left in the room.
6:46 PM
They served dinner.
It was bland ham,
corn,
tater tots,
pudding,
and juice.
I requested reading material,
hoping for a Bible and they only had a New Testament,
so I took that.
Should be enough to get me through.
Matthew 3:10:
“The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
The movie playing on the TV:
“You shot me in the ass!”
6:16 PM “Looper” is now playing here in the TV room on TNT. A very disturbing part is coming after the commercial. Matthew 4:11: “Then the Devil left him and angels came and attended him.” 6:40 PM This is a good movie but not sure I want to watch it again. 7:22 PM “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” “Looper”: Bruce Willis shoots a child
7:38 PM
Just saw commercial for “Amsterdam,” the new David O. Russell movie. Looks good.
8:50 PM
I have the remote now. Not much to choose from. Picked “Chopped” on Food Network.
9:44 PM Most people are asleep. Only me and two others up in the TV room. Decided to do two “Bob’s Burgers” episodes: Ga-Ga Ball and the Ceramics Room Mystery… [That Night the Poet was permitted to sleep in the TV room since his roommate snored so loudly.]
*******
The next day’s Installment will be published tomorrow. Listen to Dave talk about his experience here in yesterday’s podcast:
