Baker Act

The patrol car pulled up to a doorway. I was escorted to the front desk, and then the cop left. I hardly resisted, resigned to my fate whatever that was.

“Where am I?” I asked to this Spanish woman wearing tight designer jeans, who busily filled out forms.

She continued to fill out her forms. There were two phones in the middle of the floor. I frantically picked up the headset, and tried to dial. I could not get through.

“How do you dial out?”

“9” a tall black man who paced by me answered.

I dialed my friend Ginnie in Davie. “Ginnie, you have to come get me outta here.”

“Where the fuck are you?” she said frantically.

“Where am I?” I screamed to the woman at the front desk. She continued to fill out her paperwork.

“Hold on, Ginnie. Let me find out where I am,” I said, and left the phone dangling. A rail thin gray haired woman in a soiled gown started to hang up the phone. I ran back to the phone, and screamed rhetorically, “Where am I?”

No one answered. “I’m in the hospital, Gin, but I don’t know which one or where it is. Come get me.”

“What the fuck are you doing in a hospital?” she said.

“I had a nervous breakdown,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

“You know I can’t find my way out of a paper bag, hon. I can’t find you in Palm Beach. I’ll call your mother.”

“Yeah, call my mother,” I said urgently.

“Miss, you have to get off the phone,” a black woman in uniform said in a high authoritative but prissy tone, and she grabbed my arm. “Other people want to use the phone.”

“Ginnie, call my mother...” I wailed, and the nurse took the phone out of my hand and hung it up.

“Now, come with me, hon,” she said.

She led me to the front desk. The same Spanish woman that was filling out the forms before, finally looked up at me, and pushed a paper towards me.

“Before you can sign for treatment, you have to take these pills,” she said.

“But where am I?” I asked.

“At 45th Street, formerly known as Oakwood,” she replied sternly.

“But I don’t want treatment. I just want to go home and get some rest.”