I Want Presents

Dr. Kate Spencer peered through the peephole of Glenn Robertson’s padded cell with pity and sympathy. He just sat there cross-legged with thinning brown hair, a gray T-shirt, and blue pajama pants, repeating the same line over and over again: “I want presents.” Dr. Spencer thought about how bureaucratic her mental hospital had become: sedate, lock up, repeat. No cures, no real treatments, just keeping these poor people under lock and key. A solitary tear smeared Kate’s makeup as she thought about Glenn sitting there with that goofy faraway look in his eyes. All of those drugs and all of those treatments, what for?

The head doctor knew in her heart that there had to be another way to get through to her patients. There had to be more to this hospital than just the business aspect of it. Why did everything have to be for profit? Wasn’t there just one instance where human dignity trumped the almighty dollar bill? Kate knew she was risking her career by trying this new approach, but seeing all of these depressed patients weighed too heavily on her conscience and she couldn’t take any more of it. She wiped the tear from her eye and told the two orderlies that they could leave. They nodded and did so.

Dr. Spencer took a deep breath and steadied herself before entering Glenn’s cell with no protection from the nurses and orderlies. The mental patient didn’t take his mile-long gaze off of the opposite wall. He just sat there like a dope long after Kate closed the cell door. She said in a motherly voice, “Hello? Hello? Is there anybody in there?”

It took a while, but Glenn turned to meet Kate’s eyes. He had a little bit of drool running down his chin as he said, “I want presents.”

“Yes, we all know you want presents, Mr. Robertson,” said Dr. Spencer. She sat next to Glenn in the same cross-legged position as her patient and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He blushed and looked down at his lap. “Guess what day it is?”

“I want presents.”

“That’s right, Glenn: it’s that time of year alright. It’s Christmas Eve! I know Christmas is your favorite holiday. But before I reveal my big surprise to you, you and I need to talk about something. It’s about your health,” said Kate.

“I want presents.”

“I know you do,” said Kate as she fluffed Glenn’s horseshoe hair. “But you need to listen to me for a few minutes. I can’t help you otherwise. Glenn, do you have any idea how much time has passed since you first came here?”

The patient shrugged his shoulders and allowed a spot of drool to splash his pajama pants. Kate’s answer was, “Fifteen years. You’ve been living in this hospital for fifteen long years. You were admitted here at the tender age of twenty-five when your parents died in a plane crash. You had a traumatic breakdown. You couldn’t find work. You couldn’t find anybody to take care of you. So fifteen years later, here you are. It doesn’t seem that long ago, but that’s only because we’ve kept you sedated and drugged throughout most of your stay. I know it’s wrong, trust me, I do. My hands were tied, even as the head doctor of this facility.”

Glenn tucked his head and sobbed softly while sniffing mucus up his nose. “I want presents! I want presents!”

“You see, that’s the thing,” said Kate while patting Glenn on the back. “Presents are not going to bring your parents back. They’re not going to help you find a place to live or a job to work at. But what they can do is bring you back to that sense of nostalgia you once had. You loved Christmas. Your face lit up like a Christmas tree when you opened those presents. If I bring you back to that special moment, you have to promise that you’ll tell me everything. I want to hear more about your life than the fact that you want presents. Okay, big guy?”

“I want presents.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Dr. Spencer before planting a playful kiss on the top of his head. “Now, here’s what we’re going to do. Your cell has a PA system as you already know, which is what we use to wake you up and give you dinner or medicine. Well, today on Christmas Eve, your sound system is going to be used for something else entirely. Consider this your early Christmas present. You want presents? Here you go.”

Kate pulled a remote out of her lab coat pocket and aimed it at the speaker box in the high corner of the cell. One press of the button later and the sounds of rhythmic heart beats surrounded the cell. Thump-thump…thump-thump…thump-thump. Glenn’s stupefied trance turned into a silly grin with drool running down his T-shirt.

The heart beats were accompanied by a glockenspiel recording of the Christmas classic “Silent Night”. Glenn’s smile grew wider and he crouched further in his sitting position. He nodded off for a few seconds and then jerked back to reality. He nodded off again and woke back up. This cycle repeated itself until the song was over, in which case he fell backwards and made snow angels when Dr. Spencer stood up to give him room.

“I want presents…I want pres…I wan pre…I wa…pre….I…I…” His nirvana ended in a flood of tears when he realized the moment was temporary.

Dr. Spencer knelt down and held his hand in hers while petting his arm hair with her other hand. “I’m sorry, Glenn. I really thought this would have helped you. I didn’t know it would bring you so much pain. I’m sorry. I really am.” She slowly stood back up and hung her head dejectedly as she trudged toward the cell door.

“I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home!” sobbed Glenn. His snow angel motions were quickening and began to resemble autistic arm flapping instead.

Dr. Spencer gave him a wide-eyed look of shock as she heard the first real words he said other than “I want presents”. Yes, Glenn was still sobbing like the small child he believed himself to be, but this was the only real progress that no bureaucratic drugging procedure could have ever made. She knelt beside him again and rubbed his belly like a rolled over puppy-duppy.

“Listen to me, Glenn,” she said in a soothing voice. “We can’t let you out on the streets just yet. You can’t go back home. Another family is already living there. Your family has been so far behind on the payments that the bank had no choice but to foreclose on them. If I let you out now, where will you go? Who will you turn to now that you have no family remaining?”

Glenn relaxed his body, smiled at Dr. Spencer, and said, “I’ll turn to you!”

Tears welled up in Dr. Spencer’s eyes as she smiled at her patient. She rubbed them away with her lab coat sleeve, placed her hand on her chest lovingly, and said, “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard from my patients. You really mean that, don’t you? You’re not mad at me for all of these years I’ve kept you here?”

Glenn’s smile faded and the tears returned. “You’re the closest thing to a mother I have, Dr. Spencer. I love you.”

Both doctor and patient’s eyes became excessively wet at the outpours of emotion. It took fifteen years to get through to Glenn Robertson. Fifteen years of sedatives. Fifteen years of untested drugs. Fifteen years of being locked up for simply being sad. In this moment, they were free. Glenn wasn’t out on the streets just yet, but he was there in spirit. Dr. Kate Spencer wasn’t out from behind her desk, but her chains were loosening with every tear and every loving gesture. The doctor and patient hugged each other and sobbed into their shoulders.

They didn’t want to let go, but a boisterous male voice from the now opened cell door shouted, “This is bullshit!” Kate and Glenn looked up to see two orderlies with an electric lance in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. One orderly bellowed, “Dr. Spencer, you know there’s a rule against this kind of treatment! Mr. Robertson is being treated for a serious condition and you’re just…”

“I’m just what?!” roared Kate while standing back up and acting as a border between the orderlies and Glenn. “Is it so crazy and insane to believe that people’s lives matter more than procedure? Isn’t there more to life than making billions of fucking dollars? You two don’t give a shit about these patients! You give a shit about cashing your paycheck and nothing more! If you want to get to this poor innocent boy behind me, you know exactly who you have to go through!”

The orderlies’ faces changed from authoritative rage to solemn contemplation. Everyone in this standoff was breathing heavily and anticipating the next move. “Okay, Dr. Spencer. I see exactly how it is. You’re absolutely right,” said one of the orderlies. “I do have to go through you!” In one swift motion, both orderlies zapped Dr. Spencer with their taser lances, sending her convulsing to the floor with blood trickling out of her nose.

Glenn shouted, “No!” and huddled over the fallen doctor, drenching her in tears and snot. The two buff orderlies grabbed him by the arms and roughly dragged him out of the cell screaming, “No!” and “I want presents!”

“Merry Christmas, asshole!” screamed one of the orderlies before Kate heard another zapping noise. The sounds of Glenn’s painful cries were drowned out by the doctor’s own fading into blackness. The last thing she heard was a weakened and raspy version of, “I want presents.” Her black vision was wet with waterfall tears once again. Where would she go from here? Would she get her own padded cell? Would she be fired? Was there a chance to sue this hospital? Whatever the case would have been, Kate knew even in unconsciousness that it was too late to save Glenn Robertson.

“I want presents….I want presents…I want presents….” she said to herself.