Jerry Toomey had terrible halitosis. Not everyday bad breath, not dragon breath often caused by garlic, not breath stinking from days of not brushing or flossing—but hard-core, undeniable, unbearable halitosis related to bad tooth problems. Which made it all the more meaningful that people liked to talk with him, braving the smell for the enjoyment of his pleasant qualities—great sense of humor, gentle playfulness, insightful logic, keen judge of character. Jerry was, in short, my favorite patient on Mental Ward 87 at Patton State Hospital.

The first time I met Jerry, when I was sent to Unit 87 and he was fifty-two years old, he approached me right away, as soon as staff escorted me down the main hallway.

“I’m going to Sylmar,” he told me excitedly. “I almost have my COT,” (which I later learned stood for Community Outpatient Treatment, i.e. official discharge from the hospital) “and in six months I’ll be in Sylmar.”

“What’s Sylmar?” I asked, new to the mental health system.

“It’s a step-down, you didn’t know? It’s a step-down, you know, a place where we go after the hospital, so we can be in the community.”

“Does that mean you’ll be free?”

“Sort of, not quite, well, a little, really—it’s locked down, but they take us on outings together around the city. Better than here.”

“It sounds it.”

“I’m Jerry, Jerry Toomey,” he said, offering his hand as the staff escorting me glanced at him with a slight smile, amused by his friendliness towards newcomers. “What’s your name?”

I shook his hand and said, “Jake, but they call me Trouble.”

“Trouble, huh? That’s your nickname? Sounds intimidating.”

“Ha, I’m just kidding, that’s not my nickname. My nickname, if anything, is Bookworm. I read all the time. I haven’t been in trouble once since my instant offense.”

“A joker, are you? Okay, Bookworm. Nice meeting you, see you ’round, don’t be a stranger, okay? Don’t be a stranger. I’m going to be in Sylmar soon, so we’ll have to get our chats in before then. I sure am looking forward to Sylmar.”

“Cool,” I said, unsure of what else to say.

 

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A staff member named Garick led me to what would be my room, for how long I had no idea. I had been found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI), and my length of stay in the hospital was indefinite; it could be a year or two, or ten, or, the rest of my life. It all depended on how well I did mentally, and how well I “programmed,” that is, participated in treatment, recovery, medication compliance, and therapy, both group and individual.

You’re probably wondering what I did to be found NGRI, such a harsh judgment—not as bad as being found guilty, perhaps, but arguably nearly as much of a struggle as prison, if in a different way. Well, I shot my neighbor’s cat with my roommate’s handgun. Not intentionally, mind you, I had schizophrenia and was having delusions at the time that the cat belonged to the Devil. If I wanted to save humanity from Satan, I thought I had to kill the cat. This was a typical grandiose delusion experienced the world over by people with schizophrenia. I might have gotten off with a fine or probation for animal abuse, if the bullet hadn’t entered the cat’s owner’s house and nearly missed hitting my neighbor. He called the cops and they took me to jail, where I was charged with attempted murder. At the time, I was sadly unaware of just what a journey I had embarked on with the pulling of that trigger. If only my roommate had kept that stupid gun locked up and out of my reach, I would never have had to spend years of my life paying the price for my delusional actions. But that was not to be, what happened happened, and now here I was, locked up in Patton.

“This is your room,” Garick said. “And these are your roommates, Cory, Blaine, and Jonathan. Good guys, all of them.”

“Yeah, when we’re not messing with you, Garick,” Jonathan said with a smirk.

“You keep quiet,” Garick said. “Med call is at eight a.m., noon, and eight p.m. Meal times are posted on the bulletin board in the hall. If anyone gives you trouble, let me know. Otherwise, don’t bug me.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Once Garick left, I made my bed with the sheets and pillow he had placed there. I looked in my locker, to which he had given me the combination. It was modest, with two columns of four shelves each. “I’d sanitize that top shelf if I were you,” Blaine said.

“Why?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh come on, now you have to tell me.”

“Why? Cause you’re ‘Trouble?’ I heard you telling Jerry your nickname.”

“That was a joke. But come on, why did you say I should sterilize my shelf? Did the last guy put his boogers on it or something?”
“Worse. Okay, you asked, so, he used to keep his feces in a bowl on that shelf.”

“Ew, sick,” I said.

“Yeah, and he kept doing it for six months. Staff couldn’t stop him. I think they were kind of afraid of him, they’d tell him to stop and he’d get rid of the bowl for a day or two, before coming right back with a different bowl and new feces.”

“Why would he do that? Did he think his poop had magical healing properties?”

“Nothing that reasonable. Notice I say ‘reasonable,’ meaning that that sounds at least a little related to reason, compared to his actual beliefs. No, he thought his poop was a god. He sprinkled salt on it at night and prayed to it, before he locked it away there on the top shelf.”

“Great, sounds like something as bizarre as one of our current politicians would do.”

“Ha, yes maybe he should run for Trump’s vice president.”

“Right, they could call themselves ‘Trump and Dump.’”

“Hey, did I hear someone say ‘Trump and Dump?’” Jerry said loudly, bursting in the door.

“Yes,” Blaine said, “Jake here has a new winning ticket for the Republican Party.”

“Sounds good, Bookworm, sounds good. That’s a real winner you got. I’d vote for them.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “That’s just wrong on so many levels.”

“I’m kidding, don’t take me too seriously, buddy. Don’t take me so seriously. Hey, Blaine, did I tell you I’m about to go to Sylmar?”

“Could you back up a little, Jerry? Your breath is killing me,” Blaine said, even though they were already at least six feet apart.

“Sure, sure, I’m sorry, Blaine, how about here, is here better?” Jerry said, backing up.

“Yes, that’s a little better at least, although better is a relative term. Better with you would be the length of a football field.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, Blaine. But you didn’t answer my question, did you hear I’m about to go to Sylmar?”

“That’s what you say. In fact, that’s what you’ve been saying for the past five years.”

“Well, now it’s about to happen. Six more months, they tell me. If I can stay straight for just six more months, don’t get into trouble, no fights, no arguments, a hundred percent medication compliant, then I’ll be on my way, shipped out to sea, sailing away, that’s right.”

“Sailing to Sylmar, that sounds good, Jerry. Just don’t get your hopes up so much, you know you’ve been expecting this for years.”

“Yes, I know, I know, but it’s different now. It’s going to happen this time, I know it.”

“Okay, Jerry. Let Jake have a little time to himself, why don’t you? He probably wants to put his stuff away and lie down for a bit. Don’t you, Jake?”

“Yes,” I said, “but actually, the first thing I want to do is clean old Trump and Dump’s locker.”

 

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Over the next few weeks, I became acclimated to Unit 87 and its predictable, unchanging schedule. In the morning was breakfast and morning meds. During the day were four psychotherapy groups, two before and two after lunch. In the evening was mail call, dinner, and meds. In between were periods of a couple hours each during which we were free to nap on our beds, watch TV in the dayroom, or go out on grounds. In a funny way, I noticed there was not a time throughout these daily activities when Jerry did not bring up his impending trip to Sylmar.

He brought it up in groups: in a group about healthy relationships, he participated by saying, “I’ll form lots of healthy relationships when I get to Sylmar. I’m almost there, you know?”

“Right, we know,” the group provider said. “I’m sure at Sylmar they will help you a lot with that.”

“You’re sure right, you are. I’m going to make healthy relationships one of my priorities at Sylmar. Here too, not that I don’t have healthy relationships here at Patton. But at Sylmar I’ll feel more likely to disclose myself to other people, since I’ll be practically free there. Patton’s great, but we’re locked down here, there’s nowhere we can go except grounds. At Sylmar, we’ll be taken out into the community. They’ll take us to food courts and parks and shopping malls, where we can make, you guessed it, healthy relationships.”

“That’s right,” said the provider. “Does anybody else have anything to say about healthy relationships?”

Jerry also brought up Sylmar in the cafeteria. We each sat with the same people at every meal, four to a table. Even though we were dining companions for months or years, we were not all friends. Some were friends, of course, but others merely accepted their mutual presence at the table. In this way, everyone was included, no one was ever left out, even if there was not always a high degree of affection for one another.

But Jerry’s obsessiveness tested this inclusiveness at times. “Did you hear I’m going to Sylmar in six months?” he asked his tablemates at dinner most nights.

One night, Roddy, a tough-looking, morose patient, said, “Do you have to tell us that every night? ‘I’m going to Sylmar, I’m going to Sylmar.’ You’ve been saying you’re going to Sylmar for the past five years.”

“But I am going for real now,” Jerry said. “It’s for certain this time. As long as I stay medication compliant and don’t get into fights.”

“You’re going to get into a fight now if you don’t shut up about it.”

“Okay, okay, grumpy Roddy, sure, I’ll be quiet about it now.”

And Jerry brought up Sylmar at all other hours of the day. In the med line to other patients waiting for meds: “Did you hear I’m going to Sylmar?” At clothing call: “I’ll be in Sylmar soon, any day now.” Sitting in the dayhall playing bingo: “I wonder if they have bingo at Sylmar, I bet they do, I bet they have bingo there too, I can’t wait.”

 

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Years passed on Unit 87, and eventually to my great relief, my treatment team gave me a COT, recommending me for outpatient treatment in the community. I had come a long way since my days of psychosis; the meds worked well for me. I went from having acute delusions to only hearing voices occasionally, so that they hardly even disturbed my day. And now, after five years in the hospital, I was obtaining my reward, my freedom, once again.

To no one’s great surprise, Jerry was still on Unit 87 when I left, still saying he was going to Sylmar soon. As I waited in the hall to be escorted to the hospital exit, I told Jerry, “You were saying you were going to be in Sylmar in six months when I got here five years ago,” I said. “Why are you still here?”

“Oh, I won’t be here long,” he said. “Just a few more months, the staff are all telling me, I’m going to be in Sylmar by my next birthday, I’m sure of it.”

“All right, well good luck, Jerry, you’ve been a good friend,” I said, ducking away in disgust at his awful breath. But I forced myself to move close to him as he leaned in to give me a hug and pat on the back. As bad as he smelled, that was one of the most meaningful hugs I ever shared: a peer sending me on my way to freedom, after knowing me for five years. What did his breath matter? That was just part of him, and I accepted that, all of us accepted it, kind of like we accepted his obsessive dreams of Sylmar.

“I hope you make it to Sylmar,” I said. Those were my last words to him.

 

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Several years passed, during which I enjoyed once again having my freedom. I spent a couple years on a probation-like program for people who had been in the state hospitals. They helped me reacclimate to living in society, setting me up with Medicare for my meds and doctor visits, a place to live, and a structured schedule of groups and one-to-ones.

My time at Patton slowly receded into the past. At first, I thought about it a lot—remembering its sterile walls and poop in lockers and aggravated physical fights and barbed wire and armed guards surrounding the grounds. I thought about the people I knew, my fellow patients, my friends, and my treatment team of doctors, a social worker, and a rehabilitation specialist. But I slowly lost touch with most of them, living my new free life, meeting new people, and only vaguely remembering many of them.

However, I still had a special spot in my memory for Jerry. I wondered what became of him, if he ever actually made it to Sylmar. After I had been discharged from my outpatient treatment program, I still stayed in touch with a couple fellow patients who had been in Patton with me. I happened to ask one, Dan, if he knew what happened to Jerry.

“Oh you didn’t hear?” Dan asked me. “Mary Jane told me, he got discharged to Sylmar about two years after you left. He was so happy, he loved it there, just as much as he always said he would. But after several months, staff convinced him to have his teeth pulled in part to cure his halitosis. He didn’t want to, but finally he gave in, and after they were pulled he developed severe complications and died.”

“Are you kidding? He died? And he never got to taste his freedom?”

“Oh, he tasted it, a little at least. He wrote me once and said how they used to take the patients out to the mall and they’d eat in food courts just like free people. They only had to come back to the lockdown facility in the evening. Hey, it sure beats Patton, right? Can you imagine being taken out to a restaurant while you were at Patton?”

“That’s true. Well, at least he got to Sylmar. That’s what he always wanted. At least he made it. Maybe he never needed the next step of complete freedom, or cured halitosis. Maybe reaching Sylmar was enough.”

Nicholas Bridgman holds two bachelor’s degrees from U.C. Berkeley in Rhetoric and Ecology. His fiction has appeared in Pilcrow & Dagger and Indiana Voice Journal, and he is the author of the novel, A Character in Reality. His website is www.nicholasbridgman.com, and his facebook page is www.facebook.com/nicholas.bridgman.3.

Photo by Feifei Peng on Unsplash