My Decade on Broadway
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On one of my first days at the home, a large African-American staff person told me and six other men how important it was to scrub our crotches with Dial soap each morning. We had been rounded up and brought into a windowless office just above the kitchen and told how to wash properly. “There’ve been numerous complaints about malodorous males from guests and some female clients,” he explained. “We’ve gone ahead and purchased soap and deodorant— please, take your pick and get to scrubbing.” With that, he offered a collection of Dial and Right Guard deodorant products in a Rite-Aid plastic bag and we passed it around sheepishly. So concluded my first group meeting at PFTL; Daily Living Skills. It was dangerous to have the world feel so distant, and all I did when I first arrived was wallow. The staff tried to cheer me up but my cycle was simple: sleep, medication, therapy, eat, World News Tonight, Wheel of Fortune, medication. A damp, well-worn couch in the main room was all I wanted. Not a woman, or a book, or an autumn afternoon with rag sweaters and a football game at the Yale Bowl; just the spongy couch with the miniature pheasants scampering across the fabric. I remember lifting my face off that couch and gazing out the first-floor window into the real world zipping past seven feet away. There were honking city buses, cherry-red trolleys, tricked-out Lexuses blasting hip-hop, and untouchable Yalies with their curves and ripe buttocks. There were homeless men in bug-eyed sunglass- es and dirty dreadlocks, heaving themselves against broken grocery carts with chattering cans and bottles. Everyone moving right by, not even glancing over. Leaving me and the others so far behind. The tricky part about describing my decade at PFTL is that good people—interesting, creative, and talented people—were over- shadowed by the more acute, psychotic bullies dominating the place. Yes, there was camaraderie, warmth, and understanding of one another’s pains during my stay. But there were also folks who’d stomp into the main room and inform us that they’d just defecated on the back stairs or did bong hits across the street. (Granted, one might argue that I was just as disturbing to the environment with my self-harm.) One evening, during our snack time in the main kitchen, a very troubled, six-foot-three Syrian with wraparound sun- glasses tormented a frail fellow from New Jersey. “You little shit!” he screamed at him. “End the occupation! Leave Israel now or we’ll return you to the ovens!” How do I not describe that? How do I not mention it? There were some nights of defiant celebration over illness, some lively moments. But I can’t lie. The ten years were excruciating, scary, and hard. There was a very brave fifty-nine-year-old worker named Daisy, with a heavy Jamaican accent, who screamed right back at the annoyingly disturbed when they encroached during meal times. Bruce, a forty-nine-year-old client who hurt his shoulder attacking a state hospital worker years ago, repeated questions incessantly. One night, he wanted to be assured that his dinner was saved for him. “They’re saving it, right?’ he said, turning back and forth around the doorway. Doing spins on one leg. “Absolutely, Bruce,” Daisy said, “but you can’t ask me any- more—I got mouths to feed here and now.”