going to be featured in the real estate section of the paper featuring choice residential areas anytime soon. An adult video arcade, a liquor store, and an auto parts store make perfect neighbors for a former motel whose occupants now consist entirely of persons with all manner of disabilities, ranging from retardation to mental illness.
“You’re such a baby,” my old girlfriend says, shrugging
“Nothing will happen,” she adds, indicating a parking space in front of the sign that announces this dump as a retirement center.
Rainey seems overdressed for the occasion in a straw berry tunic and skirt set that matches her hair. When I picked her up at the hospital it seemed like old times.
Loosening up a bit, she has teased me ever since she got in the Blazer. Rainey has always been able to puncture any illusions I have about my importance and make me laugh at the same time.
“This place gives me the creeps,” I confess, “and I haven’t been here two seconds. What happened to the zoning laws?”
Rainey gives me a familiar smirk as if to say that some smart lawyer thought he knew what he was doing. I have been around persons with mental illness at the state hospital, but it has always been in such a clean, safe environment that I never felt the slightest uneasiness. As we pass one buff-colored brick unit after another, I look around for security but don’t see any. Instead, we encounter several men and women some of whom are angrily muttering to themselves. One black guy, who looks as if he might weight three hundred pounds, yells something in comprehensible at me. I smile brightly and nod as if he is welcoming me as the newest resident.
“They make sure they take their medication,” Rainey whispers, “but other wise the residents can leave during the day. Of course, they don’t have any money to spend. Confederate Gardens is allowed to get all of their disability checks except fifty dollars a month.”
After years of representing patients at involuntary civil commitment hearings at the Blackwell County public de fender’s office, I had convinced myself that I had been doing something noble. Institutionalization by the state was bad, I thought. Confederate Gardens looks like more of the same thing, but definitely more seedy. Rainey stops at number 114 and knocks at the door. I feel relieved to be going inside.
After thirty seconds, the door opens a crack, and Rainey says gently across the chain, “Delores, it’s Rainey. Are you dressed?”
The door opens, and a pleasant-looking woman in her mid-thirties emerges into the warm sunlight.
“I was taking a nap,” she says, looking at me.
She is wearing baggy gray shorts, no shoes, and a rum pled T-shirt that advertises Michael Bolton’s Love and Tenderness Tour. Her shiny black hair could stand to be combed, but with a little work she could be attractive.
Rainey explains, “This is Gideon Page, the lawyer I was telling you about. Can we come in for a moment?”
Delores seems a little overwhelmed, but says, “Sure.”
As I follow Rainey into the room, I realize Delores has a roommate. A black woman I would estimate to be at least seventy lies on top of the bed, fully clothed, watching us. She works her lips but no sound emerges. Rainey says in her most cheery social worker voice, “How are you?”
“Don’t mind Betty,” Delores says, giving me a good once-over.
“I’d send her out for a little bit, but sometimes she gets lost and it’s too hot today.”
“We can go to that Wendy’s on the corner,” I say quickly, feeling claustrophobic. It is only a standard sized motel room with two twin beds. There is a wooden chair at a desk, where Delores motions me to sit.
“This is all right,” Delores says.
“It’s close to lunch. I don’t mind if she hears.”
The woman, who has long white hair, mutters under her breath and turns on her side facing away from us. I say, “Rainey says you’d like to leave here and try to get a job” Delores nods eagerly.
“I’d like to have a place by myself.”
I can’t imagine why. Before judges are allowed to order someone to stay in conditions like this, they ought to have to live here themselves. The room is picked up, even neat, but it must be fifty years old and smells of bug spray.
“How long have you lived here?” Rainey asks, apparently testing her for me.
“Almost a year,” Delores answers promptly.
“I came here last November.” She sits down on her bed beside Rainey.
Thanksgiving, I think, wondering if Delores sees the irony. How can she have managed to stay here for an entire year without shooting herself? If I don’t get out of here in a minute, I am going to start screaming.
“Have you got your conditional release papers signed by the judge?”
Delores hops off the bed and opens a drawer on the table in front of me. She points at a piece of paper.
“That’s it.”
I unfold the creased paper and read the boilerplate language. She is ordered to take her medication as directed.
She can’t leave Blackwell County. She has to attend a day treatment program. She is required to live at Confederate Gardens. The order is good for five years.
“Do you mind if we all go sit in my car?” I almost beg. I feel suddenly depressed. If this is the best the law can do, why bother with it?
“Okay,” Delores says.
“But I have to go for a med check in ten minutes.”
Before leaving, I glance around the room. The sole possessions consist of a black-and-white TV that must be at least twenty years old, a clock radio, and a picture of Bill Clinton. As I stand up to leave, I ask, “How much does President Clinton owe you?”
Delores stares at his picture.
“Five hundred seventeen dollars and eighty-five cents.”
The recitation of this precise amount is unnerving. I wish she had picked anyone but Clinton, but I am not surprised. Delusions of grandeur can come with the territory of schizophrenia. I once represented a man at an involuntary civil commitment hearing who was convinced that he had written the words to “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and was owed half a million dollars. I walk out the door ahead of Rainey and Delores and look across the street at another row of identical motel rooms. How can anyone call this place a residential care facility? It even looks like a warehouse. As we walk toward my car, I ask, “Delores, how do you figure Clinton owes you money?”
She is wearing a cheap pair of sandals that she has trouble keeping on her feet and she reaches down to ad just a strap. Rainey and I stop to wait for her. She looks up at me.
“One day he came jogging into McDonald’s downtown and needed a loan. He didn’t say why. I figured he was just hungry.”
It is hard to resist smiling. With that skimpy little pair of shorts he wears, he couldn’t have been carrying a lot of money. But even he couldn’t eat five hundred bucks’ worth of Big Macs. I ask, “When you tried to collect, did you threaten him or have a gun or anything like that?”
“No!” she says emphatically.
“I hate guns. I just wanted my money. I kept going to the Governor’s Mansion and finally they arrested me.”
“You don’t have any plans to go to Washington to try to collect, do you?” I ask. I have learned from experience it does no good to argue with people who suffer from this form of mental illness.
She looks at me as though I am one who is sick.
“It’s not worth all the hassle.”
“Good idea,” I tell her. Her attitude will be important.
If the judge is satisfied that she is no threat, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting her order amended. We sit in my car for ten minutes talking, until she tells us she has to leave. I am reasonably satisfied that she has no more delusions, and I drive Rainey back to the state hospital, optimistic I can help her. Rainey has declined my offer for lunch, pleading work. She had always been too conscientious for her own good.
