The Sunny Day Ranch
By Kerri Schmanek
It was the third time in six months that Camryn was hospitalized for drinking anti-freeze. Her doctor told her that if she did it again, he was going to let her die. Camryn was placed in another in-patient home, this time out of state, over in Texas. She lived in Michigan so this was a dramatic change of scenery for her. Upon her arrival at The Sunny Day Ranch in El Paso, she was greeted with vast acres of crops and the smell of horse manure. As she walked though the double-doors of the lobby she was hit with a blast of central air-conditioning which gave her chills and an unsettling, cold feeling. It created a pit in her stomach that surfaced through her skin, creating itchy goose bumps all along the back of her neck. She walked up to the front desk to check herself in.
The lady behind the desk was about sixty years old with black thick-rimmed glasses that made her eyes buggy and wild looking. Camryn said hello and told her that she had just arrived from Michigan and this was her first day here. The lady just sat there with her mouth wide open, staring. She then reached to her left where the post-its were on the desk and started to draw a squiggly line on the top part where the adhesive was. Camryn just stood there puzzled, wondering what was going on. The lady then got up and stuck the post-it right above her lip, giving herself a fake moustache. Camryn just looked at her; she had never been more confused in her life. Then right before Camryn was about to ask her what she was doing, she heard a deep, stern cowboy voice echo down the hall screaming, “Shirley! What did I tell ya about being behind the front desk and wastin’ all the darn post-its! Now, go back to your room and leave this poor soul alone.”
Shirley then ripped off her moustache and stormed down the hallway back into her room. The man then turned to Camryn and said, “Welcome to The Sunny Day Ranch, my name is Dr. DeVaughn.” He, too, had a handle-bar moustache, similar to Shirley’s post-it stache.
Camryn followed Dr. DeVaughn back to his office where they could have an official interview on why she was committed. His office was furnished with a black leather sofa and a mahogany coffee table that was home to bull-riding magazines. He asked her if she would like a “cup a tea” and Camryn declined. He then moved on and started the barrage of questions that she was all too familiar with.
“How old are ya dear and where ya from?
“I’m twenty years old and I’m from a little town in Michigan.”
“How do ya like it there?”
“It’s vacant and depressing. The people there are close-minded and sheltered, and they’re always carrying around guns.”
“Sounds a lot like Texas, dear. Do ya have a fear of guns?”
“No, I have a fear of stupid people handling guns. It would be a fatal affair if I ever got my hands on one. Anti-freeze is always accessible and it’s never loud or messy.”
Dr. DeVaugn was taken aback by that statement, but with that alone he knew exactly what kind of treatment was needed to help Camryn. He told her that for a whole week she was going to be under suicide watch. Meaning, every ten minutes a nurse was to check on her while she was in her room, and she had to take supervised showers. To Camryn that didn’t seem so bad. At the last group home she was in they gave her full cavity searches every night before bed. She was relieved knowing that The Sunny Day Ranch didn’t poke around where the sun doesn’t shine.
After leaving Dr. DeVaughn’s office, a nurse escorted Camryn to her room where she was introduced to her roommate. Her name was Addie and she was nineteen years old. She was from Fort Worth, TX and had an eating disorder. The first thing Camryn noticed about her was her bright blue eye shadow and ruby red lipstick. It made her wonder who she was trying to impress with all of these ill people wandering around. Addie suffered from the mirror complex as well; she didn’t see what others saw. Therefore, every time she passed by something that would cast her reflection she would stop and stare at herself for significant amounts of time until she got upset. This also caused her not to eat because the metal on the back of the payphones made her look chubby and distorted in the face. Camyrn thought it was the tacky make-up that distorted her face. Other than that, she was an average looking girl. Shortly after they introduced themselves, Addie took Camryn on a tour around the community center.
Inside the center there were round tables with chairs about six feet apart, three on the right of the center, and three on the left. On the walls there were dry-erase boards and posters. The posters had cartoon figures in dismal surroundings which were meant to portray guidance for the ill minded on how to cope under still and captured circumstances. There was nothing real or helpful about the displays. In the back room, there was one ping pong table and a chessboard sitting on top of a bookshelf, which only contained coloring books and magazines. There really wasn’t that much to do. No one seemed interested in ping pong or chess. The male patients were all sitting at the tables watching the television. The majority of the female patients were either playing with each other’s hair or jotting down their thoughts with crayons on yellow legal notepads that were given to them by the nursing staff. Addie had to cut the rest of the tour short because a group meeting on self-esteem was about to start.
Camryn followed Addie to the “Safe Room.” The Safe Room was the group therapy room where you could feel safe to say anything. That’s where all of the groups were held. Since it was Camryn’s first day there, the group leader insisted she start off the group and introduce herself.
“Hello everyone, my name is Camryn and I’m here because I attempted to kill myself three times in the last six months by drinking anti-freeze, next time my doctor is going to let me die. I’m looking forward to that.”
After Camryn sat down, the group remained silent. No one said hello back or even wanted to look in her direction. The group leader then started off the discussion.
“Why do you keep attempting to kill yourself with anti-freeze?”
“It tastes sweet and I don’t own a gun.”
That didn’t sit too well with the counselor, but she was used to hearing hopeless thoughts stream from the mouths of the mentally unfortunate. Another patient then agreed with Camryn, “Hey, she has a point.”
“Quiet Dustin! Camryn lacks self-esteem and that is why anti-freeze tastes so sweet to her. It fills Camryn with the sweetness that she believes she lacks.”
The counselor then turned directly towards Camryn and says, “If you really wanted to die you would have done it by now. There is no such thing as attempted suicide. You are crying out for help by doing senseless acts that you knew after the second time didn’t work, but you did it again causing you to fail yet again. Now you’re here, subconsciously you wanted to be here. This is where you get help.”
Camryn just sat there quietly. She didn’t really know right then and there if she wanted the help, or if she just wanted to give up.
After group ended Addie and Camryn went out for their ten minute smoke break.
“Have you ever tried to kill yourself before, Addie?”
“No, but if you consider starving yourself a way of killing yourself, then yeah, every time I don’t eat I feel like less of a person, but that’s the point and I’m content with that. I just want to be skinny and beautiful ya know?”
Camryn remained silent because she felt the complete opposite. She had no problems with the way she looked, she didn’t like who she was on the inside. She felt weak and hopeless at all times; nothing could penetrate and kill that unwanted feeling inside of her, not even anti-freeze.“Do ya like the color of my lipstick Camryn?” Camryn replied in an agitated tone, “Yeah it makes your lips look full and healthy, unlike the rest of you.” Addie didn’t seem to be bothered by that comment. She said thank you and walked away.
The smoke break ended and Camryn was on her way back to the Safe Room for another group meeting. On her way back she heard screaming and yelling again. This time it was a bunch of paramedics and police officers in the lobby area dropping off a new unruly patient. They were trying to give him his insulin and restrain him, but he kept screaming at the paramedics telling them that he wasn’t a diabetic, and if they stick him with that he will die. The man was older and obviously suffering from Alzheimer’s. He was quite strong, too, and managed to break free with one of the officer’s guns.
Camryn was lost in her jaded state of mind. She just kept on walking as she blocked out all of the hype into an unfocused background. All the commotion going on didn’t compare to the train wreck in her head that sat perceptibly unnoticed in the real world. As much as she had faded away from reality, it was always there lingering and taunting her. Even in a place where she was supposed to be guarded and understood it still crept up on her. What she had tuned out, fatally tuned itself back in right before her hand touched the knob of the Safe Room door. She collapsed out of her blurred perception of realism right into a sudden and painless afterlife. Two other patients were shot as well, but lived. Whatever Camyrn was trying to escape from in Michigan followed her to El Paso and finally caught up with her.
——
Kerri Schmanek is from Blackwood, NJ. She writes a blog for an online magazine called PMZ (Paparazzi Philly Magzine) where she goes “out & about” in Philadelphia to write about her experiences.
Photograph used in conjunction with Flickr’s Creative Commons Agreement. It can be found, in its original form, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ggeter/50090944/.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
