I remember the dusty grounds of the mental hospital where I lived as a child, my parents both on staff. Institutional housing was provided, a row of brick apartments filled with Turkish, Japanese, Filipino, Greek, Sudanese, Israeli, and Nigerian families. I remember a scrum of kids on the same patch of grass after school every day, howling through incomprehensible games ruled by a lack of rules, winner chosen by elder sister fiat, no country’s flag dominant and no fucker’s mother in evidence or even line of sight. By the time I was six I could curse like a Florentine pimp.

I remember the hospital itself, infamous for all the things pre-enlightened mental health is infamous for: lobotomies, debilitating drugs, dank cells, sadist warders. On some level I knew there were nights spent in those buildings verging on the Medieval, power and control, discipline and punish, sex and predation, the rows of bars and broken tile not enough to keep secrets in or out. I remember it also being home to a wave of 70’s optimism, bearded doctors who raced motorcycles and read Kant and listened to Neil Young. Packs of young nurses, tight-bloused and mini-dressed, slouching toward Bethlehem with newly crude senses of humour and dangling Marlboro reds, silk scarves draped over their heads during screenings of I Am Curious Yellow, nurses who had the courage to re-see the world, to do the opposite of hold placards and yell slogans, to insist patients be treated not only humanely, but as human.

I remember playing Barbie and Ken in the upstairs hallway before bed. Every night I slept on Bugs Bunny sheets, Elmer and Daffy chasing an anthropomorphic carrot through my dreams. I remember Ken’s head once came off and rolled down the staircase, disappearing forever. Every night I slept on Bugs Bunny sheets, Ken’s head chasing me through the disembodied torso of my dreams.

I remember the patients as they walked in groups, smoking and staring, high-buttoned work shirts and shapeless tornado dresses, the eyes of Lucien Freud, the teeth of Goya. Nervous little men, large intense women. I remember peddling slowly around them, lazy circles on a Huffy Santa Fe, just out of reach but miles out of touch, a dare and a provocation. Up and down the blacktop, a slick orange bike with coloured spokes and sparkly banana seat, a hallucination, warded away and then returned, legs pumping madly.

I remember the hospital’s bakery chimney, a spire of scorched brick, the backdrop for an album by a band too depressing to exist, a constant rise of black smoke that never ceased, stubbornly refusing to curl back in on itself. Hard white bread was delivered to our apartment twice a week, unsliced, wrapped in wax paper. I remember it was my job to bring it in from the back step, which I did with pride, an important cog in the production of toast. Except on the morning a naked woman got there first, smile wide, four fingers buried deep in our loaf.

Find out more about Fairfield Hills here.

About Sean Beaudoin

Sean Beaudoin is the author of five novels, including the old school noir mystery You Killed Wesley Payne, the rude zombie opus The Infects, and the raw-throated punk band diary Wise Young Fool. His stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Onion, Salon, Glimmer Train, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Spirit-- the inflight magazine of Southwest Airlines. He is also a founding editor of the arts and culture website TheWeeklings.com, which is hands-down the best site on the internet.

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creative non-fiction Editor's Pick I Remember memoir mental health