preview
-treatment stage one-
WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Proceed with caution
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1988
...Breakfast arrives, trays slotted into the wheeled cart,
pushed into the lounge by Nurse Ratched.
She scowls when her gaze collides with Jennifer’s.
Patients groan, complain,
crush out their cigarettes,
and assemble slowly around the tables.
Jennifer sits next to Monica.
Bronwyn sits across from them.
The four-seater table is rounded out by the young, frizzy-haired, skinny Amanda.
The trays smell of food,
but they don’t smell good.
It smells like cafeteria food: mushy, indistinct.
Each tray has a yellow post-it note indicating the last name of the patient it is for.
Heather enters the lounge.
“Nice of you to join us,” Ratched says.
Heather grunts in response.
Nurse Ratched sets Jennifer’s uncovered tray in front of her.
Jennifer looks at it.
A red delicious apple that is red, but doesn’t look delicious.
A carton of skim milk.
In the middle of her tray is a yellow washcloth:
a scrambled egg.
She’s never eaten plain, cooked eggs before.
Nurse Trendy and Nurse Ratched continue placing trays in front of patients.
“No rituals, girls,” Trendy announces.
“No tiny pieces, no eating things in a certain order.
“Mix it up! Eat like normal people.”
Normal people.
Normal people means everyone except for the patients on this unit.
Normal people means the three nurses on breakfast duty--
Trendy, Bosom, and Ratched.
Three normal people watching the abnormal people eat.
“You’re so lucky, Jennifer,” Amanda says in a quiet voice
as she opens her carton of chocolate milk.
“I’d give anything to [start over] on twelve hundreds again.
“Three thousands are impossible.”
She says this with a hint of pride.
“Is three thousand the highest?” Jennifer asks.
She can’t remember from the rulebook,
and she wants to talk instead of eat.
Bronwyn shakes her head.
“Thirty-five hundred is the most.”
“Thirty-five hundred is three thousand trays,” Monica says,
“plus two cans of Ensure between meals.
“I had to do it. It was awful.”
“What are you on now?” Jennifer asks.
Monica’s tray has eggs and fruit, like Jennifer’s,
but two-percent milk instead of skim,
plus a sausage link,
and one of those individual serving-size boxes of Shredded Wheat.
“Eighteen hundreds,” Monica says.
“That’s what most of us get, for maintenance.”
She skewers her sausage with a fork.
The white plastic tines sink into the meat.
She slices it with her plastic knife.
“Heather’s on twelve hundreds. They’re trying to reduce her.”
“Shut up!” snaps Heather from the other the table.
“Sorry,” Monica calls in Heather’s direction.
“Just giving Jennifer some factual information.”
“None of her business,” grumbles Heather.
Monica raises her eyebrows at Jennifer,
like maybe she sympathizes with anyone
who has to share a room with Heather.
It gets quiet. Everyone is concentrating
on their food.
Jennifer looks at her tray.
The yellow washcloth.
Her throat is thick.
She can’t eat this.
Not because she wants to break the rules,
but because it’s disgusting.
What if it makes her gag,
and she accidentally throws up?
That has happened to her before,
when she had to eat something gross.
Like the time Kelly’s mom served
Cream of Wheat for breakfast.
Jennifer barfed it up all over the table.
Doing that here wouldn’t just be mortifying,
like it was at Kelly’s.
Here, it would open a huge can of worms.
Ugh, worms. Don’t think about that.
She pokes at the egg with her fork,
not ready to tackle it yet.
What does she know about the other patients so far?
Bronwyn is 19. Bulimic. Gaining weight.
Monica is 21. Anorexic, maintenance weight.
She’s been here more than four months. Four months.
Amanda looks very young, maybe 13 or 14.
Anorexic, obviously still gaining.
Heather looks like she might be Jennifer’s age, or slightly older.
She’s an overweight bulimic or compulsive overeater.
Not sure which. But they have her on a diet.
Thriller looks old, but that might just be because she’s a skeleton.
She’s anorexic, not medically cleared.
The other patients, Jennifer doesn’t know a thing about,
except whether they were in line to be weighed this morning.
Okay. If she doesn’t get started eating,
Nurse Ratched will probably write it down in her file.
If she hasn’t already.
Jennifer puts a bite of egg in her mouth.
She gags.
It’s revolting.
She opens her milk carton quickly,
trying to suppress her gagging,
takes a swig of milk to wash the egg down.
With trepidation, she takes another bite of egg,
gags,
drinks some milk,
starts to cry.
“You have to get it down, sweets,” Monica says.
“Otherwise it follows you to your room,
“and staff will give you grief,
“and you have to sit there until you eat it.”
“I know, I’m trying,” Jennifer sniffs.
“Eggs are better with ketchup,” Bronwyn suggests.
“Can’t I put eggs on my dislike list?” Jennifer asks.
Tears drip onto her tray.
Amanda looks like she feels sorry for Jennifer.
“You can, but it’s not a good idea.”
“Definitely don’t put eggs as a dislike,” Bronwyn says.
“It’s not specific enough. You’d have to say ‘scrambled eggs,’
“and then they’d give you powdered eggs every day,
“which are even worse.”
Tears. Tight throat.
“What if I say scrambled and powdered eggs?” Jennifer asks.
Monica shakes her head.
“Then they’ll give you hard-boiled or fried.
“You know, the kind with runny yolks.”
The words “runny yolks” make Jennifer gag again.
She takes a packet of ketchup from the condiment basket.
Her hands are shaking; it’s hard to rip the foil.
She squirts ketchup onto her tray.
The tines of her plastic fork bend as she cuts a triangle of washcloth.
She stabs it with her fork, slides it through ketchup, puts it in her mouth.
Oh, God.
It’s worse with the ketchup.
And now does she have to eat the pile of ketchup on her tray?
There isn’t enough milk for her to swallow the egg like big pills.
How can she get it down?
“Is it the texture?” Bronwyn asks.
Jennifer nods, wiping her nose with her napkin.
“What if you tried sugar?” Bronwyn asks.
Monica and Amanda look at Bronwyn
like she just asked, “What if you were a trapeze artist,
“and your mother lived in an igloo?”
Bronwyn shrugs at them.
The shrug says, “She’s bulimic, not anorexic.”
Meaning: the calories in a packet of sugar
don’t mean the same to bulimic Jennifer as
they do to Monica and Amanda, the anorexics at the table.
Anorexics are pure: they never overeat, and never purge,
and are therefore the highest,
most accomplished,
most emulated,
most envied people in the eating disorder hierarchy.
Jennifer may be a stranger in this foreign land,
but she does speak the language.
Even when the language is unspoken.
Monica says, “Well… I suppose…
“If you care more about getting it down
“than you do about the extra calories…”
Which Jennifer does.
She doesn’t care about the calories right now.
Normally, that would sink her to the bottom of the ranks.
But she’s underweight.
Underweight gives her higher status than “normal” weight bulimics,
who outrank overweight bulimics,
who outrank compulsive overeaters.
Anything to get through this.
The entire universe has shrunk down to one yellow washcloth.
This is the most important thing Jennifer has ever done,
eating this egg, greasy and limp in its plastic tray.
Jennifer selects two packets of sugar from the condiment basket
and pours them on the other side of the terrycloth,
the side away from the ketchup.
Slowly, the eggs go down.
She will eat eggs with sugar every day from now on.
And only much, much later will it occur to Jennifer to wonder
whether Bronwyn was being kind,
or whether she was delineating Jennifer’s place
on the EDU hierarchy.
Or both.
...Breakfast arrives, trays slotted into the wheeled cart,
pushed into the lounge by Nurse Ratched.
She scowls when her gaze collides with Jennifer’s.
Patients groan, complain,
crush out their cigarettes,
and assemble slowly around the tables.
Jennifer sits next to Monica.
Bronwyn sits across from them.
The four-seater table is rounded out by the young, frizzy-haired, skinny Amanda.
The trays smell of food,
but they don’t smell good.
It smells like cafeteria food: mushy, indistinct.
Each tray has a yellow post-it note indicating the last name of the patient it is for.
Heather enters the lounge.
“Nice of you to join us,” Ratched says.
Heather grunts in response.
Nurse Ratched sets Jennifer’s uncovered tray in front of her.
Jennifer looks at it.
A red delicious apple that is red, but doesn’t look delicious.
A carton of skim milk.
In the middle of her tray is a yellow washcloth:
a scrambled egg.
She’s never eaten plain, cooked eggs before.
Nurse Trendy and Nurse Ratched continue placing trays in front of patients.
“No rituals, girls,” Trendy announces.
“No tiny pieces, no eating things in a certain order.
“Mix it up! Eat like normal people.”
Normal people.
Normal people means everyone except for the patients on this unit.
Normal people means the three nurses on breakfast duty--
Trendy, Bosom, and Ratched.
Three normal people watching the abnormal people eat.
“You’re so lucky, Jennifer,” Amanda says in a quiet voice
as she opens her carton of chocolate milk.
“I’d give anything to [start over] on twelve hundreds again.
“Three thousands are impossible.”
She says this with a hint of pride.
“Is three thousand the highest?” Jennifer asks.
She can’t remember from the rulebook,
and she wants to talk instead of eat.
Bronwyn shakes her head.
“Thirty-five hundred is the most.”
“Thirty-five hundred is three thousand trays,” Monica says,
“plus two cans of Ensure between meals.
“I had to do it. It was awful.”
“What are you on now?” Jennifer asks.
Monica’s tray has eggs and fruit, like Jennifer’s,
but two-percent milk instead of skim,
plus a sausage link,
and one of those individual serving-size boxes of Shredded Wheat.
“Eighteen hundreds,” Monica says.
“That’s what most of us get, for maintenance.”
She skewers her sausage with a fork.
The white plastic tines sink into the meat.
She slices it with her plastic knife.
“Heather’s on twelve hundreds. They’re trying to reduce her.”
“Shut up!” snaps Heather from the other the table.
“Sorry,” Monica calls in Heather’s direction.
“Just giving Jennifer some factual information.”
“None of her business,” grumbles Heather.
Monica raises her eyebrows at Jennifer,
like maybe she sympathizes with anyone
who has to share a room with Heather.
It gets quiet. Everyone is concentrating
on their food.
Jennifer looks at her tray.
The yellow washcloth.
Her throat is thick.
She can’t eat this.
Not because she wants to break the rules,
but because it’s disgusting.
What if it makes her gag,
and she accidentally throws up?
That has happened to her before,
when she had to eat something gross.
Like the time Kelly’s mom served
Cream of Wheat for breakfast.
Jennifer barfed it up all over the table.
Doing that here wouldn’t just be mortifying,
like it was at Kelly’s.
Here, it would open a huge can of worms.
Ugh, worms. Don’t think about that.
She pokes at the egg with her fork,
not ready to tackle it yet.
What does she know about the other patients so far?
Bronwyn is 19. Bulimic. Gaining weight.
Monica is 21. Anorexic, maintenance weight.
She’s been here more than four months. Four months.
Amanda looks very young, maybe 13 or 14.
Anorexic, obviously still gaining.
Heather looks like she might be Jennifer’s age, or slightly older.
She’s an overweight bulimic or compulsive overeater.
Not sure which. But they have her on a diet.
Thriller looks old, but that might just be because she’s a skeleton.
She’s anorexic, not medically cleared.
The other patients, Jennifer doesn’t know a thing about,
except whether they were in line to be weighed this morning.
Okay. If she doesn’t get started eating,
Nurse Ratched will probably write it down in her file.
If she hasn’t already.
Jennifer puts a bite of egg in her mouth.
She gags.
It’s revolting.
She opens her milk carton quickly,
trying to suppress her gagging,
takes a swig of milk to wash the egg down.
With trepidation, she takes another bite of egg,
gags,
drinks some milk,
starts to cry.
“You have to get it down, sweets,” Monica says.
“Otherwise it follows you to your room,
“and staff will give you grief,
“and you have to sit there until you eat it.”
“I know, I’m trying,” Jennifer sniffs.
“Eggs are better with ketchup,” Bronwyn suggests.
“Can’t I put eggs on my dislike list?” Jennifer asks.
Tears drip onto her tray.
Amanda looks like she feels sorry for Jennifer.
“You can, but it’s not a good idea.”
“Definitely don’t put eggs as a dislike,” Bronwyn says.
“It’s not specific enough. You’d have to say ‘scrambled eggs,’
“and then they’d give you powdered eggs every day,
“which are even worse.”
Tears. Tight throat.
“What if I say scrambled and powdered eggs?” Jennifer asks.
Monica shakes her head.
“Then they’ll give you hard-boiled or fried.
“You know, the kind with runny yolks.”
The words “runny yolks” make Jennifer gag again.
She takes a packet of ketchup from the condiment basket.
Her hands are shaking; it’s hard to rip the foil.
She squirts ketchup onto her tray.
The tines of her plastic fork bend as she cuts a triangle of washcloth.
She stabs it with her fork, slides it through ketchup, puts it in her mouth.
Oh, God.
It’s worse with the ketchup.
And now does she have to eat the pile of ketchup on her tray?
There isn’t enough milk for her to swallow the egg like big pills.
How can she get it down?
“Is it the texture?” Bronwyn asks.
Jennifer nods, wiping her nose with her napkin.
“What if you tried sugar?” Bronwyn asks.
Monica and Amanda look at Bronwyn
like she just asked, “What if you were a trapeze artist,
“and your mother lived in an igloo?”
Bronwyn shrugs at them.
The shrug says, “She’s bulimic, not anorexic.”
Meaning: the calories in a packet of sugar
don’t mean the same to bulimic Jennifer as
they do to Monica and Amanda, the anorexics at the table.
Anorexics are pure: they never overeat, and never purge,
and are therefore the highest,
most accomplished,
most emulated,
most envied people in the eating disorder hierarchy.
Jennifer may be a stranger in this foreign land,
but she does speak the language.
Even when the language is unspoken.
Monica says, “Well… I suppose…
“If you care more about getting it down
“than you do about the extra calories…”
Which Jennifer does.
She doesn’t care about the calories right now.
Normally, that would sink her to the bottom of the ranks.
But she’s underweight.
Underweight gives her higher status than “normal” weight bulimics,
who outrank overweight bulimics,
who outrank compulsive overeaters.
Anything to get through this.
The entire universe has shrunk down to one yellow washcloth.
This is the most important thing Jennifer has ever done,
eating this egg, greasy and limp in its plastic tray.
Jennifer selects two packets of sugar from the condiment basket
and pours them on the other side of the terrycloth,
the side away from the ketchup.
Slowly, the eggs go down.
She will eat eggs with sugar every day from now on.
And only much, much later will it occur to Jennifer to wonder
whether Bronwyn was being kind,
or whether she was delineating Jennifer’s place
on the EDU hierarchy.
Or both.