Coat Two kept his eyes on the road but nodded vigorously. “Not just in the river. We have Polynesian boats. You know, the canoes with the floats on either side? If you’re good enough in the river, you can paddle around through the ocean.”
This seemed like too much for Wilma. Before she could protest, White Coat One said, “It’s like being in the South Seas.”
“The Marquesas,” White Coat Two said. “Tahiti.”
“Hawaii,” the two white coats said together.
“Yes, ma’am,” White Coat One said. “This may be the best two months of your life.”
Wait. What? Two months? Was Wilma hearing that right? She asked, “Two months?”
“That’s what the paper says,” White Coat One said.
“And did we tell you about the springtime productions of Shakespeare in the park the hospital sponsors?” White Coat Two asked.
“Take me back to the two months,” Wilma said. “What paper says two months?”
White Coat One dug through a briefcase that sat on the seat between him and the driver. He found a file with only a few sheets of paper in it. He extracted a carbon copy from the file and passed it back to Wilma. She read the form.
It was a notice of commitment, a California 5150. According to the paper, Wilma had waived her right for an arraignment. She refused to speak on her behalf in front of the judge. The judge sentenced her to two months rehabilitation at the Camarillo State Hospital. The arraignment and trial were recorded as happening while Wilma and the white coats had been driving up Ventura Highway. “Look at this time,” Wilma said, pointing at a line on the form. “The judge signed this order at noon today. It won’t be noon for another half hour, at least.”
White Coat One took the carbon copy from Wilma. He read the judge’s orders. “Well, I’ll be.” He turned to the driver. “We better drag our feet dropping this one off.”
“You feel like grabbing lunch?”
White Coat One shrugged. “Why not?”
White Coat Two steered the sedan off Ventura Blvd. and into a little roadside café near the St. Mary Magdalen Church in downtown Camarillo. He reached under his seat. White Coat One provided the running commentary. “We’re going to duck in for a sandwich. I hope you understand that you can’t join us.”
Food was the least of Wilma’s concern. The booze from her four-day binge had been draining out of her liver since she’d gotten into the car with these white coats. The thought of taking a bite out of a sandwich, chewing, and swallowing it made her even more nauseous than the snowballing hangover she’d been trying to ignore. “It’s all right. I’ll stay in the car.”
“Of course you will. And we’ll make you comfortable. Just you sit tight.”
White Coat Two took the jacket he’d pulled out from under the seat and came around to Wilma’s door. He opened it. He rolled down the window. White Coat One opened the other door and rolled down that window. “You’ll get a nice breeze,” he said.
“And just to make you comfortable and warm, we’ll loan you this lovely camisole,” White Coat Two said. He guided her out of the sedan. Wilma stood in the alcove between the car door and the backseat. White Coat Two instructed her to raise both arms. He slid the sleeves down her arms.
“Wait a minute,” Wilma said. “You’re putting this on me backwards.”
Just as she said this, she realized there was no opening at the end of the sleeves. Her hands were trapped. White Coat Two stepped closer, yanking Wilma’s hands behind her back before she could think to resist. White Coat One had already slid across the backseat behind her. He buckled the straightjacket in place. The two men forced her down into her seat. They shut the sedan doors.
“We won’t be long,” White Coat One said.
“No more than an hour and a half, two hours,” White Coat Two added.
“Can we get you anything?” White Coat One asked.
“A coffee, at least,” Wilma suggested.
To his credit, White Coat One did return about fifteen minutes later with a mug of coffee for Wilma. He explained that he didn’t have time to hold it for her while she drank, and he couldn’t take off the camisole. So he put the mug between her knees. “Just you balance it there,” he said. He went back inside the café.
Wilma spread her legs. The mug tumbled to the floor. Coffee soaked the bottom of her housedress, her nylons, and her mules. The coffee itself stunk like it had been filtered through gym socks. Wilma couldn’t take it. She leaned as far forward as she could and vomited everything that was left from her final party with Tom Fillmore: the martinis from the Players, the Formosa Café liver and onions, the red wine to top off the night. It puddled on the floor with the dirty roadside coffee.
Wilma leaned her head against the back of the seat and breathed through her mouth. She waited for some kind of air to move somewhere, for that promised breeze to blow.
The white coats dropped the comedy act on the final seven- or eight-mile drive to the hospital. They left her in the straightjacket and didn’t speak other than to curse the stink of coffee and vomit, which had gotten worse over the two hours they spent in the café. Wilma tried to ignore them and angle her head to catch the wind rushing through the back windows. She watched the rows of lettuce and onion and celery crops angle toward her, then straighten, then angle away from her. This nuthouse was in the middle of nowhere. She’d have to be Pheidippides to get away from this joint by foot. And, as well as she could remember, the story hadn’t turned out well for him. The way things looked from her backseat perch, Wilma was going down for two months. It was time to reconcile herself to that fact.
When they got to the main building of the hospital, the white coats dropped her off with a burly woman dressed like a cop. The woman wobbled like she’d been thrown off balance by the armory of keys on her belt. A couple of the keys looked big enough to fit the kind of doors you’d find at the top of a beanstalk. She didn’t speak. She just pushed Wilma toward a door with a little less iron than your typical bank vault. One of the giant keys opened the door. Wilma had the sense walking through the doorway that she may never walk back out.
A nurse on the inside checked Wilma in. The only words she said were statements of facts, like, “alcoholic” and “two months.” She gave Wilma’s name as Wilma Chesley. This seemed further proof that the old man had pulled strings to set up this commitment. Not that Wilma needed further proof. Not that it took a lot of pull to get a woman committed these days.
The nurse led Wilma down a long hall. Each door had a sign painted on it. “Dental Clinic.” “X-Ray.” “Diet Kitchen.” “Electroshock.” “Secretary.” When they reached the door labeled “Hydro,” the nurse extracted a key from her giant key ring, unlocked the door, and led Wilma inside.
A row of baths stood along the left side of the room. A woman lay in one of the baths. Heavy rubber blankets covered her body. Only her head rose out of the water. The tips of her hair were soaked. A fuzzy patch of dry hair rose from the top of her head. She rolled her eyes slowly in Wilma’s direction. The eyes focused on
