Extreme Self-Care (edit 1)

“Do something for yourself. It’s called extreme self-care.” I glanced at the name tag pinned to the nurse’s mauve cardigan. They smile when you remember their names; it creates a bond. “Draw a hot bath, set up some candles and close the lights. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. Oh, and lavender— it’s magical.” I told her I would try. “Really, you’d be surprised,” she said, so as soon as I got in the door, I threw down my gym bag, rushed up the curving stairwell to the ensuite, and locked the door. Mother fucker! As if a hot bath and candles could ease this pain. And then I laugh out loud because I am a mother fucking and the word, mother fucker, is always a full-thrill one to me. I take in my reflection in the mirror with its show lights around the top and sides, remove my clothes bottom to top, lifting my arms to pull off my jersey, and catch myself as I sway backward. Then I spread out Garth’s black bath towel so it lies flat and even on the white tile floor. Contrast pleases me. I squeeze my eyes shut to stop the replaying of frames I’ve just witnessed, tighten my legs, and point my toes which I always do when I want to come.

The elevator bell pings. Doors slide open, giving way to a triple glass wall and at the right side, a single door; I press the metal buzzer.
“May I help you?”
“It’s Janice, Caroline’s mom—here to see my daughter?”
“Oh yes, hello Janice, nice to see you today,” the voice oozing melodic at Whitby Mental Health Center. Whitby Mental Health Center, sure not about mental health, not on this level. "Fuck!" I say out loud, grabbing onto my cool voice like a lifeline.

“They call this the dungeon—this is the end when you land up in here,” the acne-scarred social worker had said, and at night as I rested my head on his belly, Garth said “what an idiot to say that to you” in the disdainful, summarizing way of his that always soothes me.

A tall bean man with oversize black glasses sliding down his nose, jumps wild and giddy, happy-spittle drooling, strait jacket hugging him tight, kicking screaming dancing with his feet. Under his sweat pants which hang around his hips, he’s wearing diapers. I search through my purse, unzipping one compartment and then another.

“Come on down!” Contestant screaming, hands flying to face—spinning the wheel, “Where will it land?” the silver-haired TV host says. The wheel spins round and round. A nurse in her hospital pale blues and white orthopedics pads down the corridor, rooms on the right side and left, doors closed. This is where the wheel lands. A patient with black uncombed hair strolls over and turning to me, her arms taut by her sides, fingers spread like webbed feet, says “So you like this show?” Another contestant cranks the Barker wheel. Without looking at me, the woman lifts her arm toward the TV and slams it sideways, hitting my cheek and knocking off my prescription variable lenses that turn dark grey on a sunny day. Today the glass is clear and uncompromising. Two orderlies in white materialize even as I gasp and step back.

“Are you OK? Any harm done? Your glasses? She sometimes strikes out like that. Best not to stand beside her.” I assure them I’m fine. They advance to each side of the patient whose name is also Janice. “Shall we go to your room for a while?” the clean-cut orderly says. “Will she be alright?” I say. “I’m fine really. I didn’t know not to stand so close; it’s my fault. I can wait outside. She was just excited from watching a suspenseful point in the show. I’ll wait outside.”

The feeling’s gone. On my bathroom floor where I lie and come four, maybe five times, two when I’m rushed. Not gigantic comes. Beeps. But beeps add up. Take away the pause between each and you’ve got a prolonged Appalachian range. I give myself twenty more seconds. Twenty seconds is no problem, done it in ten many times before. Nada. I trace my mouth, my fingers smelling of tuna and pussy. I arch my head back which I always love, the arching, and I think of Garth, how I used to curve upward when I lay under him although he never lay on me full weight, held himself just slightly off with his forearms on the bed, which I never knew in our early days, I thought I was strong enough to withstand his four-hundred-and-some pounds. Oh god, I can’t do this. I lean over the sink, my tits hanging separate and sad. I look into my eyes. Munch’s “Scream” eyes, scooped out. Dead eyes. I step back, my shoulders and arms hanging, head down and slow motion I cave in.

She would not see me. The nurse put her arm on my shoulder, “She doesn’t want to see you. Maybe tomorrow, it’s an adjustment, you know.”
“I heard her screaming.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She said her mother’s dead and I’m an imposter. She said—”
And then I weep, apologize, and weep some more. The nurse tells me there is a washroom down the hallway beside the elevator, to buzz before I leave and she’ll come out for the key. “Go wash your face. Take a moment, breathe.” She unlocks the glass door. I’m on the outside. She points. The hallway is quiet. I work the key which has to stay in the lock while I turn the handle, keeping the key in place. On the other side of the door are numbered instructions on how to disinfect your hands and a plastic bottle with disinfectant written on it. Everything stands out. I’m in a movie, possibly a documentary.

It’s not that I’m deficient in my coming. It’s that I’m always rushed. When Caroline frayed my nerves, I’d seek out the bathroom floor, her voice, soaring and persistent on the other side. Sometimes I sought refuge from Abie. The bathroom floor helped me remember who I was. Masturbating has always been my extreme self-care. I took the hot bath although I didn’t have lavender and I didn’t have any candles. The water turned cold and lost its clearness, but I turned on the hot until the water threatened to spill over, so I let some out before adding more. A gray grime had settled in at the upper water level, but still I remained. I refilled the tub three times. Then I got out.