Adventures in the Everett shelter, part 2

The week from hell signaled the end of the line for old Ann. It started off on a Monday night. Reiko, the Japanese woman who had arrived the week previously, was more severely depressed than she had let on. Late that Monday, one of the women ran into the counselor's office yelling that Reiko was on the front porch bleeding form both wrists. Bridget, our favorite counselor from England leapt out of her chair and raced for the front door, telling us all to go to our rooms until further notice. None of us listened to her, instead we clustered in the kitchen and leaned against the door, trying to hear what was going on. Somehow the Everett police were on the front porch, holding a bleeding, screaming Reiko. There was a lot of shouting and doors slamming. An ambulance siren. More shouting. The front door slammed again. We all looked at each other in terror. We gossiped in a half-hearted way. We distractedly ate pop-tarts out of the box and paced the kitchen floor. About thirty minutes later, Bridget bustled through the kitchen door and headed for her office. She looked severe and said quietly,
"Not a word. Not a word from any of you. Go to your rooms. Now."
Meekly we obeyed. Those of us who had rooms in the upper levels of the house crept silently upstairs. We were very shocked. I couldn't sleep but then I remembered that Ann was gone tonight, on a court-ordered visit with her daughter. I had the room to myself and I lay down, feeling scared and depressed.
The next day, all the counselors and the Director of the shelter stayed cloistered in the main office for several hours. We stumbled around the house, bags under our eyes. The counselors would tell us nothing. We were too afraid to ask. The day passed without event but then evening descended and Ann returned from her court-appointed visitation with her daughter. She was in a bad mood, even worse than usual. She was not a woman with a sunny disposition and happy outlook. She went up to our room and began to throw my possessions from my dresser and the bed, onto the floor. I was downstairs watching television when one of the women came and told me. I leapt up the stairs and flew into the room. Ann was trying to rip my drawing pad apart and sort of snarled at me as I lunged for my drawing pad. She let go of it and leaned over her many garbage bags. I turned away, swearing a blue streak and when I looked up she had a large kitchen knife in her hand and she threw it at my head. I yelled with fright and surprise, ducked, and the knife sailed over my head and hit the wall near my bed. It fell down between my bed and the wall. I yelled again and she swung one of her garbage bags at me. I leaned out of the way and she grabbed her coat and took off for the stairs. I stood there in complete shock and couldn't move for a moment. Several women, alerted by my yells had nearly collided with Ann on the stairs as she shoved them out of the way and ran down the stairs. Bridget called out to Ann and told her to stop. I heard Ann's feet thundering down the last of the stairs and running for the front door. I heard her yell,
"Don't tell me what to do! You're a white devil bitch!".
She wrenched open the front door, and ran outside slamming the door behind her with all her might.

I stumbled downstairs saying over and over,
"She threw a knife at me! She threw a knife at me! I can't believe it but she threw a knife right at me!".
I was shaking so badly I thought I might fall down. My friend Julie reached out to steady me. Her face was as white as the proverbial sheet. No one said anything and the silence was absolute. Bridget looked ill with shock as she went to the front door and locked it, sliding the deadbolt closed with a snap. She was very distracted and told me to go upstairs and get Ann's possessions and to meet her in the office. All the other women were milling around, talking excitedly and fearfully amongst themselves. Numbly I went back upstairs. I opened the closet door and saw that Ann had five large plastic garbage bags full of stuff. One of the bags was quite heavy. Mindlessly I felt around under my bed and found the knife. Gingerly, I put it on my bed and just looked at it for a few moments. Then, heaving one of the bags onto a chair, I began to go through it. After a moment, I sat down rather heavily, staring into the bag in complete shock. I felt my jaw drop. The bag was crammed with hundreds and hundreds of prescription bottles. None of the bottles appeared to be Ann's. Men's names, other women, bottle after bottle after bottle of other people's medications and the bottles had many pills still in them. I wasn't a pharmacist but A.P. was a nurse and I knew that many of these pills were of the controlled substance variety. With shaking hands, I set aside that bag and picked up another. This one was filled with numerous pages of court/legal proceedings. Nosy little bugger that I was, I started to skim them. Most of them concerned Ann's various scrapes with the law and her attempts to gain custody of her daughter. I recall one document that sticks in my mind to this day. It said something along the lines of:
"When confronted about her actions, the defendant grew extremely hostile to the judge and attempted to throw a paper bag filled with a moldy sandwich at him. She was removed from the court as she began to scream profanities and it is our opinion that the defendant be denied access to her child..." This was an eye-opener. It also seemed to explain a great deal about Ann and her increasingly erratic behavior.


I must've been taking more time than I thought because my friend Julie came into the room and gawked at the stuff in the garbage bags. My face must have been as white as her's had been only moments ago because she just looked from the garbage bags to me and back again. She pulled another chair over to where I was sitting and raised her eyebrows.
"Spike... what... what is all this stuff?" she managed to ask as I silently handed her the sheaf of court papers so she could read for herself. She took the small stack as I distractedly rummaged through another bag of Ann's stuff. Julie gasped and I looked up at her grimly.
"This explains a whole lot about ol' Ann, doesn't it? She's... I wasn't lying to Bridget about her crazy crap! I wasn't exaggerating, Julie! Bridget will have to believe me now!". The stress of the past half hour was making my voice a bit shrill.
Julie just shook her head and put the papers down. She peered into the bag with all the pill bottles. She whispered,
"Spike, this is... what is this? All these pill bottles... I recognize this one... oh my God, this is a narcotic. What's she doing with these...it's.. this name on the bottle! These aren't even her prescriptions! What the hell?"

Julie's voice trailed off and I knew she was very upset because she normally wouldn't even say "hell", believing it to be a bad influence on her two small boys. She was a fundamentalist Christian and it was amusing that we got along so well as I wasn't too thrilled with most Christians at that time in my life. Also, there was the lesbian thing. Julie had lectured me about the evils of homosexuality and it seemed to be an odd pairing. Julie had even said so. The thing was, I was a cool person and Julie told me she couldn't help but like me, in spite of the Gay thing. It was strange but I liked her, too. She was witty and smart like me and we had an unlikely friendship.

I got up from the bed and Julie got up from her chair and we both began to grab the bags and haul them down the steps. DeeDee appeared in the door and I gave her two bags to carry so I could take the knife. DeeDee's eyes got huge as she spied the knife in my hand.
"Shit! Oh, sorry, Julie! Spike, did Ann really throw that at you? My God, she has completely lost it! You should see Bridget's face! I think she's gonna have a heart attack! She's already called Merrill and a bunch of other counselors, too. I think she said they were going to...". DeeDee continued to talk rapidly and I nodded absently, following her and Julie down the stairs. DeeDee was asking questions a mile a minute but I didn't try to answer her. I was lost in thought wondering what was going to happen if and when Ann returned to the house. In my mind's eye I envisioned police helicopters and a S.W.A.T. team taking up positions around the perimeter of the house. Smiling slightly, I followed DeeDee and Julie across the living room floor where Graciella and her children stood around the couch, goggling at us as though we were part of a television show. We went through the kitchen and paused outside the door of the Intake/Counselors office. Bridget was on the telephone, speaking quickly and crisply in her British accent. She saw the knife in my hand and her eyes got big for a second and then she waved me over to sit in a chair in front of her desk. She made shooing motions to Julie and DeeDee. They put the garbage bags on a chair next to me, shot me concerned, frightened looks and backed out of the room. Bridget, listening intently to someone on the other end of the line, walked around her desk and closed the office door with a snap. I sat down in my chair and leaned back against the wall, trying to stop trembling. Bridget finished her phone call, put the phone on the cradle and regarded me with huge eyes. I stared back at her. She blinked rapidly and then became rather business-like.
"Are you hurt, Spike? Did she hurt you?" she asked me.
I shook my head but showed her the kitchen knife again. Bridget seemed to lose her composure for a moment as she stammered,
"She... you're saying Ann threw this knife at you? She actually threw this at you? This is a serious charge, Spike! I know you two don't get along but to say that she threw a knife at you? That's rather a serious accusation!"
I was becoming annoyed. Bridget knew of many other instances of Ann's erratic behavior and yet she was grilling me as if I was the one who had attacked Ann! I stood up and gestured towards the garbage bags.
"Bridget, you know Ann's a wacko! Yes, she threw this knife at me! I'm not making this up! You should take a look at the pills in these bags! None of them have her name on the bottles! She's got all kinds of narcotics and pain killers and who-the-hell-knows-what-else in here and you think I'm making this up?!"
I realized that my voice was getting louder but I was angry and scared and I hated that look on Bridget's face. She opened her mouth and was about to say something when the telephone rang. She motioned for me to wait outside the office until she was finished. I got up from my chair and stomped over to the door. As I closed it behind me I heard her say,
"Yes, the address here is..."


End of Chapter 2