Sapphic Voices General Fiction

Leah and Chastity

Leah and Chastity

Chastity was the first patient Leah met at the hospital.

She had arrived late in the evening, when everyone was asleep - or supposed to be sleeping. Jess had driven her here. Jess had also driven her to the regular hospital - the non-psychiatric one - the day before.

Leah had been afraid to call Jess because she had a perpetual fear of interrupting her and her girlfriend Meg having sex. Yes, it was an irrational fear, but very little feels irrational after 25 Clonopin and half a liter of vodka.

Leah had had a crush on Jess since they had been in a modern dance class together the semester before and Jess had approached her in the parking lot.

“A bunch of us are going to this gay bar tonight. I don’t know if it’s something you’re into, but you can come.”

Leah blushed; and maybe that’s why she thought Jess blushed too and mistook Jess’ kindness for flirting. There would be no mistaking her blush later on - the one she had around Meg - and thus the truth was revealed.

And all of this swam around her brain alongside the 25 Clonopin and ½ liter of vodka when she picked up the phone and dialed Jess’ extension.

“Are you busy?”

Had she said yes, Leah would have died right there - right there on her extra long bed with Winnie the Pooh comforter, under her Indian print tapestry - but Jess didn’t say no and so Leah didn’t die.

“Oh, ‘cause I just took 25 of something I’m only supposed to take one of.”

“I’ll be right over.”

That day and the next day and everything leading up to her arrival here was a blur, but it involved a pint of liquid charcoal and the incessant beeping of heart monitors and convincing the shrink she was fine and thus being sent back to campus, promising she would see her counselor the next day.

But the next day she walked into walls and cried uncontrollably and so Jess had to come again and take her over to the other hospital, not the one downtown, but the one way out - past the baths and next to the car dealership.

And after the nurses had purged her of her compact mirrors and shampoo and shoelaces and anything else she may be able to harm herself with, she slept.

Chastity was only 17 and was supposed to be in the young adult ward, and Leah could have been there too, but there was no room because apparently ‘twas the season and so they met in the adult building.

Chastity was her tour guide, introducing her to Kim and always using Kim instead of “he” or “she” because no one knew if Kim was a guy or a girl; and to Bob, the 70 year old closet case alcoholic w/ emphysema who liked to throw out quotes for Leah to identify since it was clear Leah was one of the other true thinkers in the building; and to Nan, who claimed to be homicidal and Leah decided it would be smart to avoid Nan, until she found out Nan was homicidal because her husband had beaten her for 20 years and beaten her son for 16 years, but instead of her husband being here Nan was and suddenly homicidality, if that was even a word, made perfect sense.

Chastity explained that chart on the wall, which Leah was sure the Nurses had explained the night before, but nothing from the night before seemed coherent.

Leah was still S.O., special observation status, which meant that she was checked on every fifteen minutes and couldn’t leave the building unaccompanied. Chastity was G.O., general observation status, which meant she was only checked on every half hour and could go for a walk around the grounds or to her sessions or meals alone. Once she learned this, Leah would use the same tactics she had used with the shrink with the charcoal to become the first patient in the history of the hospital to get on General Observation Status in under 24 hours.

Leah thought Chastity‘s name terribly tragic, like forces of the universe had conspired to see to it that her name be like a curse because Chastity had been raped by three men - her father, her stepfather and her boyfriend.

Leah was only 3 years older than Chastity, but that was the difference between junior in high school and sophomore in college and Leah was sure she was never as young as Chastity.

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The Other Side of Both Town and Sanity

Leah wished she knew how to sew. It would pass the time here in the hospital. People with hobbies seem to have an easier time and get less anxious. But then maybe they would take the needles away as sharps.

Chastity didn’t have a hobby either and maybe that’s why they got so close in only one week. Leah made it her hobby to look out for Chastity, but deep down she knew that it was the other way around. And maybe that’s why Leah hurt so much when she got released before Chastity did and when Chastity said that everyone who she’s ever loved leaves her.

Leah loved watching Chastity in the art room. Suddenly neither Leah nor Chastity were as scared as outside the art room walls. They weren’t self-conscious, like they were at dinner. Only Chastity didn’t always eat dinner in the dining hall because she had to be watched along with the other women and girls with eating disorders. Leah didn’t have an eating disorder, at least not one they had yet diagnosed. Leah didn’t think Chastity had one either, but she was very self conscious when she ate, or when she talked or when she had to interact with all the others because all the others were so much older and so Leah loved watching her here in the art room because suddenly Chastity was not scared and so Leah was not scared either.

Later, when Leah was out and Chastity was still there, she would close her eyes and smell paint and feel the wet clay between her fingers and she would see Chastity’s eyes meeting hers -- all the way from the hospital, on the other side of both town and sanity.

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Abandoned Childhood

Leah's childhood ended the day she was admitted to the hospital. The day after she swallowed too many of those pills that worked too well.

When she was checked into the hospital and they took away everything. Including her shampoo. Who the fuck tries to commit suicide with a bottle of shampoo? she thought to herself. And then she realized where she was. And who else must be there. And that she was in the wrong place.

And so she cried hysterically her whole first day. She cried and begged them to let her go back. She would never do it again. It was a stupid mistake. Being here was a stupid mistake.

But she had signed the papers. The papers that relinquished her ability to advocate for herself. The papers that admitted that she was crazier than she appeared. The straight A student, community volunteer, child advocate, Sunday School teacher, mentor, college tour guide verifiable psycho of the sophomore class. Because those pills had just worked too well.

Leah's parents wanted to come. To visit her. But Leah's childhood ended that day and so she begged them not to come. She would be fine.

And then she cried. To anyone who would listen. To the rabbi from the synagogue where she taught Sunday School, who was also the rabbi at the hospital. I'm sorry you're having a tough time, he said. A tough time? Get me out of here she wanted to scream. Tell them I'm not crazy. Tell them how great I am when I am with kids. When I am leading a class of second and third graders in baking a challah or reading Mrs. Moskowitz' Candle Sticks.

Depression. Anxiety. Impulse Control Disorder. OCD tendencies. Tendencies toward eating disorders. Diagnoses of the first day of adulthood.

Leah had always thought adulthood is supposed to greet you with responsibility and esteem. Not doors with no locks. Doors that open every 15 minutes to check that you are not dead. Or rooms with no glass. Or asking for your shampoo and giving it back at the end of your shower. Is that what adults do? Kill themselves with shampoo?

Leah was supposed to be in the adolescent house. But there was no more room. Apparently lots of teenagers and college students had pills that worked too well that month. So she was with the adults. And her childhood ended with her name on a chart on a whiteboard behind a desk and meals where people watch you eat and a place where sharps doesn't just refer to things that cut.

But this isn't a story about Leah. Or her childhood lost.

Because really her childhood wasn't lost until years later. Until the night of sirens and handcuffs. Of knowing why people who are afraid keep the lights off instead of on. Children keep the lights on. Adults know better. Adults know they will know you are home. And they won't leave. They will stand outside their cars in front of your house and yell. Yell things you never thought you would hear. Things children should not hear.

And in that moment when childhood was eroding she was more a child than ever. Cowering. Afraid. Afraid of the dark and afraid of the light and afraid of calling the police on someone so evil. Afraid of hurting someone's feelings. Afraid of acknowledging reality. Unable to see the adult version of this reality. Of this warped X rated - X rated for violent language and content and violent actions and violent manipulations of truth and reality and emotions - this warped X rated movie playing out in real life right outside her front door.

Her childhood ended when her friends didn't recognize her. 20 pounds thinner and begging them not to call the police. And begging with the police not to arrest her. And crying more for the handcuffs than her own compromised safety or her own lost innocence or her own murdered spirit or her own abandoned childhood.

Her childhood ended when the police came inside. And the police had not been inside since her own childhood. And she was afraid of them then too. And they seemed stupid then too. And she wondered then and she wondered now why adults were so stupid.

Telling her to calm down. That it is no big deal. That she should get a restraining order. And she never thought any of these words would apply to her own life. And she thought she had sworn off insanity long ago. After she left the hospital and left behind forever the days of crying and begging for your independence and your life.

And now she was begging in her bare feet. In her bare feet and mini skirt and pigtail buns and glitter running off her eyes. And Leah looked into her eyes and saw that she was still a child. A scared child and that they were handcuffing a child who knew no better. And so she was the adult with the power and she begged them to free her. It wasn't her fault. She was mad. She was defensive. She was enraged. It wasn't her fault.

Repeating back the lines fed to her. To protect her batterer. To free her captor. And they didn't work. On the police. The police who were adults and not scared little girls with pigtail buns and glitter raining from their eyes. The police who had the power. Powerful adults.

But this is not about Leah. Or powerful adults.

It is about the end of childhood. And how and why that comes. And how and why childhood can end more than once in a lifetime.

Leah learned to live among adults in the hospital. And when she stopped crying so much she actually liked it there. There among the kids who were adults and the adults who were kids. A mixed up kind of world. With routines and regimens but few rules. And so she learned to accept this onslaught of adulthood. And to empower herself in a place where she was not even allowed to hold onto her own shampoo.

But years later she would forget that adulthood means keeping power and not surrendering it.

If you have enjoyed Lani Radack's "Leah And Chastity", then please be certain to e-mail her at  radacklani[at]hotmail.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of Lani Radack's  Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.

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