Peer Support Specialist

A frequent flyer can't rid the travel bug on a locked psych ward.

It’s Monday and I get to be Dr. Howard, my favorite former psychologist. Don’t worry, it’s just for today, but would die to be him until his sabbatical ends.

You’ll see, I’m not super crazy anymore.

I knock on the frosted window of Lois Lane’s office at the head of the locked corridor at the mouth of the Ganges river, where Dr. Birdy-Num-Num, the chief psychiatrist and his lab rats look at the effects of bath salts on schizophrenic brains funded by Joe Rogan.

At the end of the corridor is the Devil in Miss Jones, the head case manager. They are a rule follower who never leaves their office. Knock-knock. Who’s there? I dare not knock on that door.

While I wait for Lois Lane to open for business, the iPad I clutch gets juicy with palm sweat. Just like that my iPhone rings. It’s Marc Maron. I forgot to turn my LA phone off. I answer on the first ring.

Marc Maron says, “hey man, the weekly line up just came out, I didn’t get enough time spots this week.”

I say in Dr. Howard’s voice, a falsetto, “I don’t get involved with booking talent at the club—you know that.”

“Come on man,” Marc Maron says. “My HBO special tapes in a month, I need to get my reps in.”

“I’m about to enter the clinic,” I say as Dr. Howard. “I’ll tell the booker to give you more spots.”

He hangs up. WTF?!

Lois Lane buzzes me in. I push a baby out. First door on left. It’s what I heard her say via email on Friday. Nurse Retched is standing, arms crossed, ready-aim-fire as my group co-facilitator and former second-least favorite nurse. Post-menopausal grimace (or constipated), shabby chic cut, wire rimmed glasses, navy blue scrubs squeezing thunder thighs (she’s a cyclist!), and hazmat orange Patagonia fleece vest, all nicely vacuum packing her cadaver. Is that a smile I see in the reflection of her left eye? I want nothing more than to make Dr. Howard proud of me. He’s already proud, you know with me being out in society as a barista-in-training. I want Lois Lane to text him what a great job I did my first Monday as him. I’d let her do a selfie with me. I hope my audition goes well. I’m here to fight for truth and justice. If deprived of being Dr. Howard while he’s MIA, I won’t be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and will fall to my death like Humpty Dumpty.

Lois Lane’s office is square like her. I sit unlike her. Her back is to the dual monitor computer. She glows. I already told you she’s important. Her and Dr. Howard ran therapy groups on the psych unit for years, but he’s MIA like a Veteran even though he’s only been at war with the enemy within. Jocelyn, the unit’s gossip girl, believes it’s a sabbatical. I wasn’t in the splash zone when the bomb dropped, but Jocelyn’s eyelash extensions texted me when it landed last week. At the moment of impact, I was being yelled at by the master barista at the drive-thru window at Starbucks. Isn’t a vente drip just a large coffee? Thought so.

A dentist, not the unit dentist even though we didn’t have a unit dentist, but a patient is the one who outed Dr. Howard during the creative writing group titled What’s Your Story? If the real Dr. Howard could please stand up and show us your life in Los Angeles as the owner of a famous comedy club and television producer. I know it sounds crazy since he lives here in Albuquerqie as a daddy, husband to a hottie, closet crime novelist, and forensic psychologist who sings to us looney tunes at the VA.

“I’m still fuming he lied to us all, but I miss doing groups with the prick.”

“I’m here to save the day.”

“No rescue fantasy needed. I’m fine solo.”

“He hand-picked me.”

“You fell off the tree like over ripe fruit.”

“I’m the Peer Support Specialist with the best reputation in the hospital,” I say.

“I’m the Peer Support Specialist with the best reputation in the hospital,” she says exactly like me.

“I know you are but what am I?” I pause. Lois Lane didn’t get the playground taunt. “I can be a model to patients of what’s possible in recovery.”

“Let’s see how it plays out. We need a prompt for today’s writing group, but first a plot twist. I’m retiring June twenty-ninth,” she says and before I could shout ATTICA! ATTICA! in reference to Dog Day Afternoon, Dr. Howard’s favorite Robert DeNiro movie, Lois Lane had pointed to five Mondays on the monthly paper wall calendar.

I don’t let the frog in my throat stop me from saying, “I can keep the group going with a new co-facilitator until Dr. Howard comes back.”

“Not a chance. You’re sort of a retard since you have no sense of humor.”

“Are you really allowed to say retard?”

“No sense of humor. It was a joke and so are you.”

“I’m not a retard.”

“Now that you’re out in the real world, you can’t take a joke. Damn shame, you were such a great frequent flyer on the unit.” She reaches for the most awesome box ever invented from under her desk. She offers me a Ritz Bits Cheese Sandwich Cracker to make nice. “Your favorite snack as a treat.” I turn her down. Play hard to get.  That’s what Dr. Howard taught me to get leverage out in the real world. “Won’t be same without Dr. H. Me and him were like Abbott and Costello running those groups, remember?”

“More like Sonny and Cher.”

“Me and Dr. H took loved picking on each other with self-deprecating sarcasm. You know what that means?” I do, but don’t. Her sentence is confusing, even to you. Admit it. “When Dr. H’s real dentist was a patient on the unit, he gave us a mouth full… finding out who the real Dr. H that day was like getting a root canal. Dr. H used me and our performances in group therapy as a distraction to make sure no one suspected he had another identity.”

“He’s the same Dr. Howard but has two lives,” I say. “Be happy he’s just a comedy club owner and TV producer and not some investigative reporter bugging you about all those suicides.”

“Be grateful he’s not that detective who keeps calling me.”

“What detective?”

“The detective.”

Then I fail to persuade Lois Lane to stay longer to give me more practice which I won’t let you hear since it’s embarrassing. One day I will run a group all by myself. She says helping the unwanteds at the VA has been rewarding, but with the big Dr. H reveal, the hospital bureaucracy, nonsensical workflows, sociopathic leadership, entitled medical students, foreign psychiatrists, and a pending EEO complaint from the Devil in Miss Jones, Lois Lane was well-done and crispy. After she tells me what her retirement looks like, I say, “How could you walk away from someone spitting or throwing shit at you?”

It’s Monday and I get to be Dr. Howard, my favorite former psychologist. I don’t want it to be my last Monday. I’m worried it is. If I can’t keep being Dr. Howard then I must be myself who I don’t like.

Lois Lane and me discuss which prompt to deploy but we’re both in a mood. She pivots her torso to the day’s patients. She has a good beat on who’s going to show. She briefs me on two newly admitteds needing a closer eye. It’s all psychobabble but I’m getting sweet over Caramel who Lois Lane sugar coats as a high functioning chiropractor in her late thirties not fit to stand trial for arson, allegedly burned her father’s barn down. Obviously, some hot daddy issues.

“She’s extremely bright,” Lois Lane says. “Helps patients straighten up. A real back breaker for the staff. She could hijack the group. Bit of a narcissist. Don’t let her adjust you.”  The other patient, Lois Lane goes on about, is a young guy, floridly psychotic, not responding to anti-psychotics, even the good ones and he’s agitated.  “You’ll love him,” she says. “He’s your people. We’ve got five minutes. I have some ideas for prompts for the group, do you?”

Then I swallow and come up as Dr. Howard and say in his voice, a soprano, “Let’s have everyone write a scene in a movie that shows gratitude.”

“Not a bad imitation of Dr. H for a semi-retard,” Lois Lane oinks then pokes my pork belly.

“You’re going to get cancelled if you keep saying retard,” I say as me, the unnamed narrator in this chapter of my life story.

“Semi-retard doesn’t count,” she says.

“If you keep saying the R word, this story will never become a limited series on Netflix.”

“I’m female, a protected species. You’re a middle-aged white guy, an unprotected endangered species. I can say whatever the fuck I want. Besides, the light at the end of the VA tunnel is shining bright. Do us all a favor. Move to Hollywood and become a famous screenwriter. Dr. H, the psychologist/comedy club owner/producer will produce one of your brilliant screenplays.” She laughs like the Joker which isn’t funny since the joke didn’t land. Then she puts on a sourpuss face. “I wish Dr. H was here to cross the finish line with me, but I’m angry at him. I appreciate you subbing today, don’t be a pain in the ass like you were as a patient here.”

“I’m fully recovered,” I say.

“Mental illness is the lifelong twin headed dragon that robs you of the present,” Lois Lane says.

“I thought regret over yesterday and fear of tomorrow were the twin thieves who rob us of today.”

 “It’s how you manage your symptoms and how you use resiliency and your strengths to live a meaningful life.”

“Wow, you are a human. You should be a spokesperson for NAMI.”

“Very funny, freaktard. I do enough.”

“After you retire, I can find a staff member to do the group with me until Dr. Howard returns.”

“If he ever does. If you don’t tank today, I’ll let you co-facilitate with me next Monday then we’ll take one Monday at a time, get it Bill W? I’m going to gather nuts for the group.”

I hope she chills as she leaves her frosted windowed office. I’m queasy so I steal a Ritz Bits Cheese Sandwich Cracker from its box stashed in her cubby and eat a fistful but won’t tell Lois Lane.  She’d punch me.

My LA phone chirps. It’s a text from my favorite bird, Whitney Cummings.

Whitney: I want to shoot my next special at The Store!!!

Me: absolutely! When? U want whole building closed???

Whitney: Doing super low budget for this one so may not be able to… But if we could get people making sure nobody enters that’s helpful.

Me: For me it’s more about your vision. Did you want to access other parts of the Store. Even B roll.

Whitney: We can do that other nights too easily w steady cam.

Me: k, lmk dates!

Jimbo Fishery, a man with the mouth of a river, who us frequent flyers call stinky finger, but in reality, he’s the Semper Fi Vietnam era psych ward’s toilet bowlologist. He recognizes me as the guy. His cheek crevices, paradoxically deep enough to white water raft, poetically whispers once a patient, always a patient. His PIV badge swipes once against the security detector glued to the wall outside the ward and sounds off an electric shock treatment.  It gives us both the Willy’s. We two step into Sally Port, the in-between which the ladies call the womb. Me and the Fishery settle into a holding pattern without holding our breath. In my rear view are the first set of locked steel doors. In my future, the twenty-two-bed adult psychiatric unit at the VA where I have flown through twenty-two times. Twenty-two beds. Twenty-two stays. Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith wore the #22 on his hall of fame jersey, but it’s me who ran the gauntlet as the only patient to have slept at least two nights in all twenty-two rooms. 

Stinky fingers, holding up the plunger like he’s shaking a stick at me, says “you doing good out in the real-real tripping the light fantastic?”

“I ain’t got two left feet,” I tell him wishing he’d pull out his dick humor.

“Yeah, so then why haven’t you gotten your bunions shaved?” He says looking down on me—well, not me, but my feet, inside corner pocket protruding like lumps. I confess. Thems bunions need a good clean shave. But I walk the plank like any stable pirate. “You born again?” he says.

“Why aren’t they buzzing us in?” I say masking the adrenalin drip… drip… drip.

“Guess Jocelyn can’t believe you ain’t flying through all suicidal, psychotic, all cracked up. Been what nine months?”

“Yeah, a full-term pregnancy.”

“Coming back reborn as a volunteer Peer Specialist.”

“I’m getting paid, bitch.”

“GS-6 isn’t getting paid,” he says tapping the broom’s butt on the glass to get Jocelyn’s attention.   She’s in air traffic control, the nurse’s station ten feet due north by northwest, behind the computer, distracted by her eyelash extensions. She’s intentionally messing with us. I blame social media. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gotten eyelash extensions.

A patient in the milieu throws shit against the window. Jack In The Box is at it again. A cat burglar with a little help from friends and family, on advice of counsel during visiting hours at the zoo, embezzled a Classic Buttery Jack or Jumbo Jack with Curly Fries. Said psychotic recipient flooded my beloved ward with a brown tsunami. Happens to the worst us when at our best.

Looks like Lois Lane has her hands on the shitter’s shoulders in a de-escalation tactic—oh, how I yearn for the days of hand-to-hand combat with Dr. Howard’s beeeeeaattttcccchhh. She waves her free paw for me to enter the unit.

While stinky fingers white knuckles the glass to get Jocelyn’s eyelashes to flutter, the iPad I clutch gets juicier with palm sweat as Lois Lane gets a grip on the situation.  The nuts she gathered await me in the milieu on the other side of the looking glass.

Bill Burr texts my LA phone, can I call u in a bit?

I text back, no problem, Bill Burr! then I lick my PIV badge and stick it to the window and add a forced smile to exhibit the non-verbal behavior of a proud card-carrying member of the federal government. Stinky fingers on the other hand are mopping up his anger with a broom handle sticking right out of the mustard yellow rolling soap bucket.

Jocelyn sees me and lifts her index in one of those just a second motions. Clearly, she’s on Candy Crush. She’ll buzz us in, and we’ll make a grand-mal seizure entrance, but I freeze. I want to time travel back ten minutes to the frozen tundra in Lois Lane’s frosted window office and erase her retirement speech. I need more time to evolve as a paraprofessional therapist.

I’m afraid to facilitate solo. I need to find a new co-. Today. Staff won’t take me seriously since I hold the record for being the only patient to have stayed in each room on the unit. 22 out of 22. I’m stuck in Sally Port’s womb, a rock and a hardon place. Jocelyn’s eyelash extensions won’t flirt with the button to buzz me in. Jimbo Fish, who does the Lord’s work in keeping the unit spink and span. Can I say spink? It sounds like spick, sorry to my Latino bros. Jocelyn goes loud on the intercom. Says my PIV badge hasn’t been activated. She’s lying. I blame social media. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gotten eyelash extensions.

LOIS LANE to the rescue. She opens the door from the outside in and says, “how many imbeciles does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“What’s a lightbulb?” Jimbo says.

Me and Fishbreath enter. I am the free one. I am not a patient. He’s the imprisoned janitor doing time for having a potty mouth. The creative writing group starts in five minutes and I have writer’s block. I’m out of time. This might be my first and last day as Dr. Howard unless I can land a perfect nosedive into a staff member’s pool of confidence. Yes, I am the frequent flyer record holder and soon to be Lois Lane’s co-facilitator, but I need to cement myself before she rocks quarries to her still life with woodpecker otherwise what you normals call retirement.

There’s no time to make a social call inside air traffic control. I so bad want to show off how well I’m doing out in the real. To be honest, I’ve never been in there. I’d love to see the psycho secrets they keep from us. I’d promise not to tell. I want to be the best Dr. Howard I can be. I’m former Army, so now you know why I said what I said. If Dr. Howard were here, he’d make the rounds inside air traffic control, butter up a new female staffer, pretend to be interested in the personal life, fish for vulnerability, make restaurant recommendations, appear curious about her education. He’s the wise persuader. 

Clutching my slithery iPad, which I can’t afford to let slip up, I glide into the milieu from the main hall and lean against the wall on the lookout for my brethren’s and sisterthren’s. The unit has a three-week max stay. Do the math. Done? Yeah, 462 overnights. I know. It’s a lot. I’m the world record holder for this unit. Current runner up is John Doe. He’s dead to me.  Others called him Doe-Doe Bird. He flew the coop last week. He’s at stay #21. I life coached him during my stay #19. I cured him because I didn’t want him to break my record. I hope Guinness show’s up today to give me my certificate.

Clear. Not clear. My eyes water. Crouching tiger, homesick hidden. On the left is a rectangular area with two long tables with four chairs drilled into the floor where I logged two-thousand and one sittings, a space odyssey. It’s a vacant lot right now. On the table are two puzzles’ BUGS and HOMETOWN. Easy, peasy, Japanesey. Finished each in two weeks. The make a wish I blew into the wind before discharge #22 was don’t touch my puzzles! Life is complicated enough. The wish has come true. Wishful thinking to keep puzzling. I can’t come back as a patient. Which room would I stay in for #23? Don’t make me choose. It wouldn’t be fair to the others.

 A dirty tray from lunch, again disrespecting the order of the magistrate—thou shalt clean up after yourself! What is the table, a garbage can? Fa shizzle, my nizzle it’s classic Kirk the Jerk. His signature four-bite eaten PB&J on wonder bread, untouched small (whole) milk carton, nibbled tip carrot sticks and an emptied fetal position small chocolate flavored Ensure Plus. I take a pic with the iPad then eat the remainder of his unhappy meal. At the far end of the rectangular room is a window with bars thinning an eastern view towards a landscape of hospital rooftops. Not a room with a view, but I like the squint and take a pic with the iPad and there’s Chicken, the never watered, healthy rubber plant near the window. Rubber Chicken, I miss you! You always were such a good listener. I take a pic with the iPad.

There is a white board on the wall with the words GIVE SOME HOPE (write a card) and a blank field below. On the right side of the white board are the words MAKE SOME HOPE (a card that speaks to you). Someone erased my wisdom. I go to the board and write, Regret over yesterday and fear of tomorrow are the twin thieves who rob us of today – Robert J. Hastings. Next to the white board is a five-story bookshelf filled with the board game Catan, which I refuse to play. Who likes playing games with people? I like to be transparent. Next to the bookshelf is art taped to the wall, the kind you see in a high school art class with a range of talent and subjects, animals, portraits, landscape. Mine are on the top row, of course, Monet-like pieces of the New Mexico desert, the mountains, and yes—cactus.  The closet door to the left has ACTIVITIES CLOSET a sign above. I was never allowed to open the door, but Dr. Mary, the former psychologist who specialized in sex offenders, liked to go into the closet with a patient of her same gender and Mary wasn’t quite contrary and didn’t care how their garden grew.  I work for the feds and I could go into the closet but won’t. Besides, too many atrocities of pleasure happened in that closet. Dr. Mary called herself a Pleasure Priestess Coach. Literally that was her side hustle. She specialized in orgasm aliveness for women. Seduce yourself into bliss! Help with healing your womb! Learn how to have cervical orgasms! Be guided, you’re their pussy! She showed me the flyer once, and I winced.

There is a sit-down stationary bike that I rode to Phoenix and back three times singing A Horse with No Nameover and over. It felt good to be out of the rain, but I wouldn’t dare smell that saddle.  The foosball table, the only prop on our movie set I crave, is gone because Boris the Barbarian tore the players off the spinners then made them fight with the opposite team then have sex. Boris the Barbarian was homophobic. The little soccer players screamed at him to come out of the closet. The foosball table was removed in honor of my winning streak of twenty-two games. Beat that.

A window separates the two rooms. Now you see? To the right is the large day room, twice the size of the left.  There are six love chairs designed for overweight bariatric patients that no one has ever cuddled on. The seven single chairs are too heavy to lift and throw. It’s lonely being single.  There are five plastic house plants. Don’t let anyone fool you, they’re not rubber. There are pencil drawings taped to the wall; mostly graphic images—warlocks, heads on fire, screaming babies, mine are the ones with the Stan Marsh character from South Park, obviously.

On the large wall are two painted murals of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range. I had no hand in those. Way before my time. The mountain has been around a long time. The six-foot bookshelf is filled with donated spy thrillers from former patients who are Vietnam veterans and Jimbo Fishery, who call stinky fingers, steals those books. I only read Elmore Leonard, James Elroy, but have a sweet tooth for Patricia Highsmith. The seventy-inch television used for Wii’s is off and should stay off since most of us don’t need help with delusions. Wi bother exasperating them? To the far right is a small glass encased room called The Fishbowl, no relation to Jimbo. When you’re in there, the patients holler at you, here fishy, fishy, fishy, fishy! but need to be saying, here poody cat, here poody cat. It’s the phone room you pussy, I’d yell. See the dial pad embedded into the wall? It’s where I called Dr. Howard collect when he wasn’t MIA, AWOL, or on sabbatical. It’s where he and I bonded over Elmore Leonard and where he taught me how to apply for a job as a barista. Even Dr. Howard thinks a large coffee is a large coffee.

The group takes place in the open area between the two rooms. There are two tables lined with permanent chairs. Today, six patients, five males, one female. Five against one. I don’t know any of them. They don’t know me. Probably know of me which is better.

One of the men is in his seventies; frail, despondent with tardive dyskinesia—a curse caused by antipsychotics. Your disfigured face will make sudden twitches, jerky mouth movements, protruding tongue, and my all-time favorite: rapid blinking. When I approach the table, he knows I’m judging him. Mr. Twitch tells me I’m blessed I never got the TD. A man in his early thirties dressed in surgeon scrubs wears paper sunglasses. Mr. Scrubs mumbles about his wife in Sicily who’s coming to rescue his Pit from the shelter on account he’s been hospitalized. A fit guy in his fifties with thinning long curly hair who’s wearing, get this, aqua Dolphin shorts and an American flag t-shirt with cut off arms and collar. Richard Simmons stares at me with laser eyes, joyous and affable but void of flamboyance. He’s not the Richard Simmons you’re thinking about. Can’t believe you think he’d be on a locked psych ward in the VA. An unkept lad in his forties donning hospital issue pajamas is at the other end of the table screaming at Lois Lane asserting she’s the real Lois Lane. Mr. Pajama announces for Clark Kent to come out of the phone booth as he points at the Fishbowl. Lois Lane puts her hands on his shoulders to calm, but things go sideways. He throws a punch. She ducks and quacks. Mr. Pajama tries to push her. She steps out of the way. Lois Lane plays defense like Lawrence Taylor. Troy, my former dark chocolate CNA, comes to the rescue. He jabs Mr. Pajama with T-juice (Thorazine). Lucky him.

Mr. Scrubs eyes me through his paper sunglasses. I see through him.  He’s judging me for wearing jeans, a buttoned-up Patagonia flannel and Blundstone boots—all bought at Goodwill. He says, “Portland, Oregon or Portland, Maine?”

Mr. Pajama, droolingly calm, looks at my hair and says, “your wife must be out of town.”

Mr. Scrubs says, “you’re not Dr. Howard—we want Dr. Howard.”

Lois Lane says, “He’s a Peer Support Specialist who’s helping me run the group while Dr. Howard is away.”

“I was a patient here once,” I say. “In a galaxy far-far away.”

Mr. Scrubs says, “Once a mental patient, always a mental patient, and especially those who hold the record for most stays here. So, why would we have a super crazy run the group with us?”

In the real world there’s a cornucopia of filters that influence enticement and the ineptitude that comes with the perpetual distraction flavored by voracious consumption of bite-size stimuli. On psych wards across the world, you hear unfiltered truth with clean sound and looks, albeit paranoid eyes and delusional voices. In the psych ward, the real world can’t co-exist harmoniously without glib. Makes sense to me, sorry to alienate you.

Robbie Praw, Head of Comedy at Netflix, is calling my LA phone. I won’t answer since he’s probably going to ask me to host next year’s Netflix is a Joke closing party at the club and want a full-on Jew discount.

I look back through the looking glass out to the hall into air traffic control, Jocelyn’s eyelash extensions are speaking to me. I ignore. ANTI-PSYCHOTICS LET ME LIVE MY BEST LIFE! Leaning against the coping of the wall, where the looking glass begins, are five hand painted pinwheels on the windowsill. I tell the group the first pin wheel was estimated to have been made between 1695 and 1705. I wait a few minutes to see if they figure out these are my trophies as a testament to the contributions I made while living on the unit.

Mr. Scrubs says, “those pinwheels are made of eucalyptus trees that someone chopped so they could make some stupid kid happy.”

I take my favorite pinwheel off the ledge, the one with lightning bolts, and place it in my back pocket. Everyone has something in their back pocket out in the real world.

Lois Lane sits at the table and says, “welcome to the group everyone. We call it What’s Your Story?” She looks at me, the one who’s still standing.

“I’m supposed to say something,” I say and sit like a good little boy. I wake up the iPad and look at the notes section. I scan the group members as I say in the baritone of Dr. Howard, “Every Monday I co-facilitate a prompt driven creative writing group designed to tap the patient’s subconscious need to tell their untold story. We call it, What’s Your Story?”

“That’s word for word what Dr. Howard says,” Lois Lane says at me with froth forthcoming from her mouth. “And you’re imitating him.” She looks at various group members then says, “Does anyone want to share their writing experiences? It can be journaling, songwriting, poetry, or any type as long as it’s writing.”

“I wrote a rap song,” Mr. Scrubs says. “Suck my Boom-Bam-Bang.”

It’s genius worthy of a repressed laugh, but it’s otherwise quiet except for the trickle of tears in my ears. If someone could give me a tip on how to get a Q-tip. 

“I wrote English papers in pencil when I was high school,” Mr. Twitch says. “It was pre-internet, pre-computer, pre-cell phone…”

“… Pre-historic,” Richard Simmons says then farts. Only I laugh, inside.

“I wrote an extortion letter to my dad,” the lady chiropractor, Dr. Backbreaker says. She’s early thirties, shaved eyebrows, black bangs straight across her glossy forehead, ice green eyes. Her arms are painted with a series of small tattoos—no rhyme or reason if you ask me. “Does writing a death threat count?” she says to Lois Lane.

“It all counts,” I say.

Then Lois Lane says, “let’s use discretion, this is a creative writing group and rarely do we find real writers here.”

“Boo Lois Lane,” Mr. Twitch says.

“Let’s get Clark Kent to do the introduction of the group,” Lois Lane says to me.

“I’m not Clark Kent,” I say, shocked she made the reference to me being Superman.

“It’s Dr. Howard’s nickname,” she says. “And you do a wicked imitation of him.”

I won’t bore you with the canned, yet passionate opening speech I memorized about writing other than to say in Dr. Howard’s voice, a soprano, “you should write as a form of expression, whether you need to unlock lost treasures, or to be in conversation with yourself or you have an idea for the next great American novel. Writing cures.”

“That’s exactly what Dr. Howard says at the beginning of each group,” Lois Lane says. “You’re not being helpful by imitating him. You won’t grow as a therapist and certainly don’t need you to be his stand-in—there’s only one Dr. Howard.”

Marc Maron texts me. She only gave me one more spot. Tell her to give me 3.

And before anyone can chime in, I say, in yes Dr. Howard’s soprano, “Today’s prompt is write a scene in a movie that expresses gratitude. And write what you want the audience to see as if they’re in a movie theater. Don’t write what the characters are thinking. Write the setting and main character. You don’t need to have a plot but try to tackle dialogue. See the scene on a movie screen in your mind.”

The six patients stare me down like they’re in a jury box on a murder trial. I didn’t do it! I tell myself these are my peers suffering from mental illness like me. Maybe I should have said see the scene on a movie screen in your mind but didn’t since it might trigger delusions.

“Do you like the prompt, Lois?” I say.

She says, “You’re a screenwriter, move to Hollywood, make millions.”

“Elmore Leonard wrote nine screenplays,” I say. “All based on his novels.”

“We’ll give the group about fifteen minutes,” Lois Lane says. “Any questions?”

“What does gratitude look like?” Mr. Scrubs says.

“If you took your sunglasses off,” Dr. Backbreaker says. “Then you’d know, bitch.”

“You’ve got balls to call me bitch,” Mr. Scrubs says.

“People,” I say. “Let’s not let pilfer time—time, our greatest commodity, let’s not these digressions become incongruences.” Again, the look as if I killed an innocent giraffe. “Depends on what gratitude means to you,” I say in the hopes of warding off the flys. “A handshake of thanks, a hug, telling someone your grateful.”

“Thank you, Dr. Peer Support Specialist,” Mr. Scrubs says.

Me and Lois Lane wait a few to see if there are any more questions. She hands out rubber pens and says, “I need all of them back when you’re done. It’s fine if you don’t want to write, most of the time patients scribble in their journal, stare at me, or look down on an empty page. Some write and until the time is up. When we’re done, you can read what you’ve written or not. I like to get right at it. Let’s begin.”

The group fidgets with their rubber pens, bending them and laughing.  Once I see the group settle into still life with woodpecker, I open my iPad and look at a blank page. I begin writing which you can’t see.

My LA phone’s slowly chill ring tone alerts me the phone is ringing. I answer it.

“Hey, it’s Sina,” he says. Oh, yeah. Right, that Sina. Dave Chappelle’s road manager.

“Hey Sina, you guys coming in tonight?” I say.

“Yeah, can you close off the VIP bar? Dave wants to bring in a full crew. He hasn’t been in town for a while.”

“I’ll let Richi know.”

“Yeah, already texted him thanks—just wanted to give you heads up. Thanks again for being such a great host.” Chappelle’s road manager hangs up on me and I want a Marlboro red and Yamazaki 12-Year-Old Whisky—Dave’s go to.

The fifteen minutes is up and I’m still not famous. A few patients had put their rubber on paper. I imagine they’re grateful to be done with physically describing gratitude. Mr. Scrubs had put his head on the paper and his tears soaked the pages. That’s a sad dog story.

Lois Lane asks the group if anyone would like to share their writing or what they thought about the exercise.

“I’m stuck on my divorce and I can’t see gratitude anywhere,” Richard Simmons says.

“You’re married?” Mr. Pajamas says.

“Do you have children?” I say.

“Six,” Richard Simmons says.

“Remember a time they did something that made you feel good,” I say.

“They’re all in foster homes,” Richard Simmons says.

Dr. Backbreaker claps and says to him, “now you know how Mr. Scrubs’ dog feels.”

Lois Lane asks the group if anyone would like to share their movie scene. No takers. She looks at me. I volunteer. I read from my iPad.

“A tennis ball bounces over a fence. It lands in the street. At a cul-de-sac. The postman walks over the ball and delivers the mail into a box. He keeps going. The tennis player, who’s in a wheelchair on the tennis court across the street yells at the post man to fetch his ball. The postman keeps going. The tennis player yells at the woman in the house next door to fetch his ball. She ignores him and goes back into his house. The tennis player sees a young boy riding his bike. The young boy turns his head toward the tennis player and runs over the tennis ball causing him to crash.  The tennis player wheels out of the tennis court, down the street and stops at the young boy who’s bleeding from his elbow. The tennis player picks up the tennis ball and tends to the young boy. The tennis player wipes off the blood on the young elbows elbow using the tennis ball. The young boy says, ‘I guess I have tennis elbow now.’ The tennis player laughs. And keeps laughing. The tennis player says, ‘Thank you so much for having a sense of humor. I was really worried you were hurt and it upset me.’ The Tennis Player helps the young boy up to his feet. The young boy says, ‘why didn’t your tennis partner come get the ball?’ The tennis player says, ‘I was playing by myself. No one like to play a guy in a wheelchair.’ The young boys say, ‘I’d play you any day.’ The tennis player says, ‘how about now?’ The young boy says, ‘you going to handicap me since I have a tennis elbow?’ The tennis player laughs. He can’t stop laughing. A few minutes go by. The tennis player keeps laughing.  The young boy says, ‘game, set and match!’ The tennis player stops laughing and hugs the boy and says, ‘take good care young man.’”

Weak applause. Lois Lane is pale and says, “did you really write that?” I nod.  “You should be a writer.”

Mr. Twitch reads his word salad, something about him and his wife driving a car without a destination. Mr. Scrubs wants to share his scene and lifts the wet page. It’s limp. He starts crying.  His four dogs are in the humane society and his wife is coming back from Sicily to fetch them. Lois Lane asks how his scene exhibits gratitude. He says, “the story makes the man and you all listened.”

The group ends. The patients disperse without thanking me even though I killed it. Lois Lane tells me we need meet me in her office for the debrief, but the Devil in Miss Jones has her eyes breathing down my throat. She shows me her GOV iPhone.  

“Nice phone, if you can get one,” I say.

“I am charged with auditing Dr. Howard’s work emails, and while I didn’t find anything unsavory, I am grateful I something bizarre. He sent you an email last week providing you with today’s prompt.”

“Seriously?” Lois Lane says. 

Then the Devil in Miss Jones reads from her GOV iPhone, “A tennis ball bounces over a fence. It lands in the street. At a cul-de-sac. The postman walks over the ball and delivers the mail into a box. He keeps going.” She tucks her GOV in her back pocket as I pull my pinwheel out of mine. I spin it, hoping the wind turbine blows her to Beijing.

“Seriously,” Lois Lane says. “Seriously, you didn’t write that?”

Then the Devil says, “Dr. Howard gave him implicit instructions on what to do with the group.”

“I am Dr. Howard,” I say as Dr. Howard, this time in a full-blown Darth Vader baritone. “No, I am your father!”

“He’s delusional,” Lois Lane says to the Devil in Miss Jones.

Who then says, “He’s trying to make Dr. Hollywood proud.”

“You’re delusional,” Lois Lane says to her.

“There’s an administrative investigative board proceeding under way with Dr. Howard and his role in those poor-poor Veterans suicides.”

“The Pleasure Priestess did it,” I say.

“My concern is our Peer Specialist has been receiving emails from Dr. Howard while he’s under review.”

“His sabbatical isn’t related to us finding out he has a double life, here and LA?” Lois Lane says.

“It depends on who you ask,” the Devil in Miss Jones says.

“It’s like Rashomon, the Japanese movie,” I say. “Four people tell different versions of a man’s murder and his wife’s rape.”

“Our Peer Support Specialist’s PIV badge did not give him clearance to access this unit. He’s here under false pretense.”

“Dr. Howard wanted him to cover for him, it’s fine,” Lois Lane says then looks at her Samsung Galaxy, a Republican communication device, which is blowing up. She flashes her screen. It’s a bunch of text messages from Dr. Howard. Lois Lane says to me, “what’s going on?”

“He’s an imposter,” the Devil in Miss Jones says.

I tell them both to meet me at the Fishbowl. They’re cold as a fish.

“Dr. Howard asked me how you did with his prompts,” Lois Lane says. “The scene you read was his?”

Then get this, the Devil in Miss Jones says, “He emailed it, which is illegal since you’re a former patient.”

“You took credit for it,” Lois Lane says. “You lied to the group. You plagiarized Dr. Howard. That’s your story.”

“You don’t understand my story,” I say.

My LA phone rings. I let it hit ring twice before I answer. “Hey, Burr what’s up?”

“Hey man,” Bill Burr says. “Would love to have Jessica Kirson do an industry night in the Main Room at the Store. I’ll open. But she’s killer.”

“When did you want to do this Bill Burr?”

“Right after I get off the road in a month.”

“I’ll coordinate with Richi,” I say.

“Already called him, just clearing with you. Cool, thanks. Later.”

Bill Burr hangs up on me. The Devil in Miss Jones takes my phone. She looks at it. Scrolls. Says, “Bill Burr didn’t just call you. It’s a Blocked Number.”

“All famous comedians have blocked numbers,” I tell her. “Clearly, you don’t know how this works.”

“Your phone didn’t ring,” the Devil in Miss Jones says, then holds up a stack of printed emails. “I have all the evidence you and he were in communication.”

“What’s your point?” I say.  

Then Lois Lane chimes in, “What would happen if the patients knew you were lying to them?”

I shrug and say, “Dr. Howard wanted me to express gratitude on his behalf.”

“You’re an imposter,” Lois Lane says.

“We all are—none of us live the life we truly want—none of us are who we want to be. You aren’t a nurse. You’re a drill sergeant. I’m not a Peer Specialist. I’m a mental patient. I don’t want to live in the outside world. This is my home. It’s why I agreed to volunteer at the hospital. I’m sorry, but I just followed Dr. Howard’s orders. He wanted me back here. I wanted him to be proud of me. What’s your story? How do you want people reading this to see you?”

“They can’t see me,” Lois Lane says.

“They can imagine,” I say spinning my pinwheel.

Sina, Dave Chappelle’s road manager, texts me on my LA phone, we’re here, let us in. It’s true Sina and Dave are at the front door, tapping on the window of the first door—the one before the in-between—the one in the hall outside Lois Lane’s frosted windowed office. Dave should put out his cigarette. A crowd of staff and patients gather at the door on the unit and stare at Dave. It’s really him, of course it is.  

“Now you know my story,” I tell Lois Lane and the Devil in Miss Jones. “What’s your true story?”

Lois Lane walks off into the sunset towards the window on the unit that opens to the mountains. It is dusk. The phone rings from the Fishbowl. Here poody cat, here poody cat. I slip into the Fishbowl and put my cape on, and answer, “Clark Kent’s office, how can I help you?”

“You keep thinking I’m these famous comedians,” the voice on the other end says. “This is Detective Ronzio. We need to complete our interview. Now a good time to get this done?” I sit on the electric chair and cross my legs cutting off an explosion. I reach down to the box of Ritz Bits and make a fist and release. I scoop simple and delightful.  

“I need you to be yourself,” the dick says. “Not Dr. Howard, not Superman, or Clark Kent—you. Do you believe Dr. Howard had any role in the suicides of the eight Veterans who were patients on that unit?”

“Do no harm,” is what I say.

“Please, as you, his former patient and world record holder for most stays on that unit, did he push them to kill themselves the day after they were discharged?”

“It was Dr. Mary, the Pleasure Priestess Coach.”

“Please, I’ll ask again,” the dick says. “Be yourself.”

Troy taps on the window.

“It was her,” I say looking away from Troy. “Dr. Mary, The Suicidologist. I’m telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Dr. Howard. She now works in the Honolulu VA emergency room on the lookout for Hawaiian wounded seagulls. She helps Veterans complete their suicide. Puts them out their misery. She is the Pleasure Priestess. She did it. She provided a public service. It was her duty. Now I’ve got to get back to mine. Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow.”

I hang up. Troy’s tapping on the window brings joy in the form of a T-juice filled syringe. Lucky me. I get to keep my record alive. John Doe, you’re dead to me. You’ll never catch me since the end is the beginning is the end.

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