My Funny Farm - Chapter 6 – They’re Coming To Take Me Away – Part 1 of 2

 

My Funny Farm

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 6 – They’re Coming To Take Me Away – Part 1 of 2

 

Emily and Jared had gone out, and Mrs. Lowrey was back.  I remembered from my meeting with Doctor Clive the day before that she had demanded that everyone in the family, except me, go to a meeting at her office tonight.  Had Emily and Jared gone there?  I had no way of knowing for sure since nobody told me anything.  All I knew was that Emily and Jared had come home from work, and then suddenly they were gone, and Mrs. Lowrey was back.  To be honest, I much preferred her being around than Emily or Jared…or both!

All I seemed to do anymore was watch cartoons.  I was beginning to have some favorites.  I wondered if that was bad or good.  When one of them ended around eight o’clock, Mrs. Lowrey announced it was time for bed.  She took me into the bedroom, attached one of my bound-up hands to the rope that linked me to the bedframe, and changed my diaper…thankfully!  She pulled the covers up over me and told me she’d be right back.  Five minutes later, she was back with the bottle of baby formula I had expected.  The bottle was nicely warmed up.  She was so good to me.

She was just about to turn off the light when a sudden noise out in the living room caught our attention.

“Sounds like they’re back already,” she said.

But the noise grew louder, and I soon noticed it was quickly heading directly towards my bedroom.  A moment later, I was surprised to see James enter my room.  “Hi Dad,” he said immediately.

Before I could say anything, Ashley was there right behind him.  “Dad!” she said almost breathlessly.  As she sat down on the side of my bed with me, I now noticed another woman in the room.  A stranger.  I immediately felt not just extra embarrassed, but frightened.

“For heaven’s sake,” the new woman said.  “He’s tied to the bed!”

Ashley took the baby bottle from between my hands and set it on the nightstand.  She immediately began unfastening that rope that tethered me to the bed.  My eyes could only remain on the mystery woman who was now hovering over me.

“And his hands have been bound up like that since…when?” the strange woman asked.

“I’m guessing, since Saturday when all this started,” James told  her.

“Get him loose!” she ordered.

“I’m working on it!” Ashley told her.

“Who are you?” I asked, glad that for once I was talking without a pacifier in my mouth.

She pulled part of her jacket aside exposing a badge.  I was shocked.  “Police!  Detective Kinsley,” she said.  “And we’re getting you out of here.  Immediately!  The way they’ve treated you is…criminal!”

Hooray!  But then something else set in.  “Out of here?” I asked.  “To where?”

“Don’t worry about it.  Someplace better than this.  For sure!”

“Better than…” I started.  “What’s that mean?”

“Dad,” James said.  “Things should have never gone the way they did.  I’m sorry.”

Ashley managed to get the mitt removed from my left hand.  I immediately began flexing my fingers, and now noticed Doctor Clive in the room as well.  As Ashley reached for my other hand, I looked back up at James.  “What’s going on?”

“Um…Dad,” he began.  “I’m sorry to say this, but because of the way you’ve been treated, we’re all about to be arrested for abuse.  Although I’m pretty sure they have some other charges to throw at us as well that are just as bad.”

I stared at him in disbelief.  I turned my head toward Ashley as she pulled that final mitt off my hand.

“Yeah Dad,” she confirmed.  “It looks like we’re all in a lot of trouble for the way we treated you.  I’m…really sorry.”

“And I’m sorry this took so long,” Doctor Clive told me.  “After hearing what you told me yesterday, I simply should have called the police and had them look in on you, but I wanted to talk to the family first and make sure I wasn’t making a mistake.  Don’t worry.  This is all over now and we’re going to make sure you get taken care of properly.”

“Taken care of.  I don’t want to be taken care of.  I want to be left alone!”

“Being left alone isn’t the best thing for you right now,” Doctor Clive replied.  “There’s too much chance you might try to end your life again.”

“So what?  It’s my life!  And if this is the way everyone is going to treat me, then I’ve got more reason than ever to do it.  Just leave me alone!”

“I’m sorry.  We can’t.  We don’t dare,” that detective told me.  “Now is he ready to go?” she asked James and Ashley.  “We’ve got to get him out of here, then I’ve got your entire family to process down at the police station.”

“What?” I exclaimed, surprised to hear that.

“Your entire family was implicit in what’s been done to you, so they’re all guilty.  They’re all going to be booked and will have to face a judge.”

“You said all of them?”

“Since they were all here, they all shared in your treatment.”

“So you’re pressing charges, not me?” I asked.

“Naturally I’m assuming you’re going to want to press charges.  Wrongful imprisonment, assault, grifting…”

“Grifting?”

“So it seems,” she told me.

I looked at Ashley in disbelief.  “It’s possible,” she confirmed.

I wasn’t even sure I knew what grifting meant, except possibly being conned.  They hadn’t conned me into diapers and baby behavior, they had ambushed me.  Taken me by force.  I was all for every one of those charges, perhaps not the grifting, and I was ready to press charges for all of it against them.  There was just one little problem.

“Wait a minute!” I said loudly, trying to get everyone’s attention.  I looked up and saw several faces of family members now peeking in my bedroom door.  “As much as I want to press charges, against all of you, I can’t!”

“Mr. Bryson,” the detective said, “I’m afraid this needs to be done.”

“Maybe.  Perhaps,” I agreed.  “But I’m not going to do it.  As much as I hate everything they’ve done to me, as angry as I am at all of them, I still can’t do it.  I’m not pressing charges, no matter what.”

“Why not?” the detective asked.

“Because…no matter what, they’re family.  As much as I hate them all right now, they’re still family.  My family.  No matter what they’ve done to me, I can’t do that to my family.  So forget it.  Do what you want with me, but I’m not pressing charges.”

I heard some murmuring of appreciation coming from the people who were all trying to look through the doorway.

“Now,” I said.  “What else is supposed to be happening?”

“We’re getting you out of here to someplace more suited to taking care of you,” Doctor Clive told me.

That sounded ominous to me, and I had a vague suspicion of what she was talking about.  “Where?” I asked.

“The city behavioral center,” she told me.

Yup!  Confirmed.  The nut house!

“No!” I told her.  “I’m not interested, and I’m not going.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bryson,” the doctor said quickly, “but you no longer have a say in the matter.”

I quickly looked around at James and Ashley.  “You were about to arrest them, and now you’re telling me that you’re putting me in a nut house because they said so?”

“No!” the doctor said.  “We’re taking you there because I said so.  Mr. Bryson, I’m the one committing you there.  You’re a threat to your own life and health.  Until we can get you over that, you need to be someplace where they can not only look out for you, but they can give you the psychological help that you so desperately need.”

“And what if I don’t want to go?”

“I’m sorry,” the detective told me.  “You’re going, like it or not.”

I groaned.  “From one nut house to another.  One bad situation to another.”

“It won’t be bad.  I promise,” Clive told me.

I didn’t believe her.

“Can I at least take a shower first?” I asked.  “I haven’t had one since they gave me a bath Sunday night.  I haven’t brushed my teeth either.”

“Dad!” Ashley gasped.  “Nobody’s cleaned you or even let you take a bath since then?”

“Nope!” I told her.  I looked up at the doctor.  “So can I take a shower now?  Please?”

Doctor Clive looked frustrated.  “Sure,” she told me.

The detective walked over to the doorway.  “You can all go home…for now,” she announced.  “Since he’s not pressing charges…yet…we’ll leave you alone, for now.  But we may be back to find you later!”

Ashley let me into my bathroom, a place I hadn’t been into since Emily and Caitlin had given me a bath and shaved my body that first night.  “Let me see your diaper rash Dad,” Ashley said once we were both in there.

“Ash,” I replied.  “I’m a big boy.  I’ve been around a long time.  I can handle it.”

“And I’m a nurse!” she countered.  “And Emily is my daughter.  This should never have happened.”

I turned the water on in the shower to start it heating up.  Then I turned around towards Ashley.  She pulled the tapes on my diaper, exposing the second diaper underneath.  She pulled the tapes on that one too and let it all fall to the floor.  She examined me closely, front and back, which was all very embarrassing for me.  “Take your shower,” she told me.  “I’ll help you when you get out.”

“Don’t bother,” I told her.  “I can deal with it.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

It’s funny how your mind runs when you get older.  And I guess, according to everyone else, I wasn’t even that old yet.  But there were days when I couldn’t remember what I had for breakfast, while at the same time, things from way back in my past were clear as day.  As I stood soaking in that hot shower, the words to a weird old song kept romping through my head.  They’re coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time, and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats.  And they're coming to take me away, ha-ha.  It’s hard to believe a novelty song like that could actually climb the music charts to the top positions.  But that was the nineteen sixties, and things were more than a bit different then.  I was so young back when that song came out, but the weird lyrics had caught my attention like they did almost everyone else, and somehow, they stayed with me.  Of course, the lyrics were about a man whose wife had left him, and it was driving him insane.  How appropriate.

 

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