Breaking Out

Britt was becoming panicky. He had to know the answers to these questions. He got up and switched on the light. It was ten-forty. He had to see the doctor. In his yellow pajamas dotted with a baseball-and-bat design, which his parents had gotten him for his stay at Woodside, he strode quickly into the hallway. At ten o’clock it had been dimmed, with a single, low-wattage bulb on a ceiling light casting a pale orange glow. No one was in sight. He walked briskly down the hall, past the room patients called “the cage,” which had a heavy iron door, four-foot-high wood paneling and, above that, steel mesh so an imprisoned patient would be visible. It was empty except for a narrow, low-lying bed covered only with a white sheet. Reaching the end of the hall, Britt saw Amos sitting at the desk, catching up on his regular paper work by filling in a day log on each patient. The ceiling light here was brighter. Jim sat on a lounge chair in the corner, reading a book. “Jim, I’ve got to see the doctor,” Britt demanded. Jim looked up quickly, saw the fear in Britt’s eyes and rose. “What’s wrong, what’s happened? said the orderly. “Aren’t you feeling well?” “I’m feeling okay. I just have to see the doctor about something.” “Wait a minute. Just calm down, Britt. Tell us what the problem is.” “I have to ask the doctor about the ECTs.” “What about them? Amos and I can answer anything you want to know. We’ve probably seen several hundred shock treatments.” “Shock treatments?” Britt said, his eyes growing larger. “I mean ECTs,” said Jim. “Why did you call them shock treatments?” Britt demanded. Now he was downright scared. “Do I get shocked? People die of electrical shocks. You read about it all the time in the papers. Sometimes they’re not even high-voltage. Shocks are dangerous.” “Now take it easy, Britt. You don’t get a high-voltage shock. You just … .” “Then why did you call it a shock treatment?” Britt interrupted. “That’s just the common term for it. ECT is the technical term.” “So how many volts do I get hit with?” Britt was too frightened to relent, and probably wouldn’t have, anyway. He’d always been persistent, often driving his father to remark, “You’ve got to learn the hard way, don’t you?” “I don’t know exactly,” said Jim. “It’s not much.” “But it goes through my brain,” Britt insisted. “Look, Britt, there’s nothing to worry about,” Jim said, his tone now hinting of impatience. “Just go back to bed and get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning you’ll have your treatment, and it’ll be over real fast, and then we’ll play some pool.” But Britt wasn’t about to go to bed. His fear had grown, not diminished, and he needed answers to the questions that were darting around in his mind. “I want to see the doctor. Doctor Sanders. He hasn’t seen me since I’ve been here. How come?” “I’m sure he plans to see you after you’ve had a few more shock tr… – I mean, ECTs. He wants you feeling better before he talks with you about your problems.” “I thought he was supposed to help me feel better. He told my parents he was going to help me. But I haven’t even seen him. I need to talk to him now, before I have another shock treatment.” “Let’s not call them shock treatments,” said Amos, who had stopped his paper work and been watching the exchange between Britt and Jim. “That’s what Jim called them,” Britt shot back, and added, “because that’s what they are. I get shocked.” “Britt, we just use that term casually when we’re talking among ourselves,” said Jim. “Yeah, and I’ll bet there’s a lot of things you talk about that you wouldn’t want me to know. That’s why you won’t get the doctor. You don’t want me to find out what happens with these shock treatments. I need to know whether they cause brain damage.” “They don’t cause brain damage, Britt,” said Jim, sounding more impatient now. “And I want to know how many people have been killed with these things.” “Nobody has been killed, Britt. Now you need to go to your room and go to bed.” “I’m not going anywhere until I see the doctor.” “It’s too late. It’s eleven o’clock. Doctor Sanders is probably in bed, like you should be. Now let’s go.” There was urgency in Jim’s voice, and he nodded to Amos, who opened the desk drawer and put something that tinkled in his pocket, then rose from behind the desk. Jim put his left arm around Britt’s shoulders and nudged him gently. “How come Gloria was working on the oxygen tank when I woke up last time?” Britt was shouting now. “She was just dusting it and making sure it would work okay because it hadn’t been used in a long time,” Jim answered. “In a long time? So it was used before. Just what I thought. See? You guys are hiding things from me. These shock treatment are dangerous. I need to see the doctor.” “Britt, you’re going to wake up all the other patients,” said Jim. “Now let’s get to bed.” He nodded again to Amos, who approached. Jim put his hand gently on Britt’s left shoulder and Amos did likewise to the right shoulder. “No!” Britt yelled. “I’m not going to bed. I need to see Doctor Sanders.” “Come on now, Britt, let’s go,” Jim said as he and Amos tightened their grip and pushed forward on his shoulders. “Get your hands off me!” Britt shouted as he shook himself free of the two men’s grip. “Britt, if you won’t go to your room and get in bed, we’re going to have to lock you in the cage,” Jim said ominously. Some of the patients knew about the cage and feared it. In the community room just the day before, Britt had overheard an older patient, who was bruited to have been at the sanitarium the longest at several months, tell a naïve-looking thirty-ish patient of having seen an unruly patient strapped to the bed in the cage and wriggle and scream as Gloria injected him in the arm with a needle. It had happened when everyone except the older patient, who hadn’t felt well that morning, was attending the social session in the women’s building. “Now don’t fight us,” said Amos as he and Jim grabbed Britt’s arms. “Where are you trying to take me?” Britt hollered. “To the cage? Yeah, you’re going to put me in the cage, aren’t you? Like that other guy I heard about.” The two orderlies didn’t answer and tried to pull Britt down the hall. “Get your hands off me!” Britt yelled. He tried to jerk himself free, but the two strong men held him like a vise. It was about twenty-five feet to the cage, and they pushed and shoved and dragged a writhing, jerking, kicking Britt. Finally, they were in front of the cage, and Jim and Amos stopped pulling. Amos kicked open the door, which was held shut by a spring device that snapped against the inside when it was closed. “I’m not going in there!” Britt screamed, his face wild with panic. He was six feet tall, but weighed only one-hundred-sixty pounds, while Jim was about one-hundred-ninety and the muscular Amos two-hundred-ten. They got behind and to the side of him and pushed him up to the doorway. Britt grasped the doorposts and locked his arms. Amos grabbed his right arm and dislodged it, but Britt kicked him hard in the back of the knee, causing Amos to buckle in front of Britt, in the doorway. He put his open right hand on Amos’ face to keep him away. Jim was trying to grab Britt around the neck, and he swung his left arm back as hard as he could, his elbow catching Jim squarely in the abdomen, the ”breadbasket.” Jim doubled up momentarily, gasping for air, then straightened and got behind Britt and began reaching around his neck again. Britt simultaneously thrust his buttocks out and bent forward, at the same time swinging at the shorter Amos to keep him from getting a hold. Now they were on either side of Britt, and all three were flailing and wrestling wildly. The mighty struggle had been going for several minutes, and Britt was gasping for air. His strength was ebbing, and his will was waning. But Jim and Amos were spent, too.