Billie Girl

Chapter Forty Two

Things started getting clearer and clearer as I was put on a stretcher and carried down the steps of my house. As I was going past the living room, I saw another stretcher, but is was so dark in the living room and there were so many paramedics and cops, I could not get a clear look and I called to her: "Mother, mother! I want to know what has happened to my mother!"

"We are here to take care of you," a female paramedic said. "We don't have the information that you need at this time, but you need to relax. "

I was rolled up into an ambulance, and my face was covered by an oxygen mask. I took in deep breaths. I wanted to be alive. I no longer longed to die. There would be time later to meet up with my dad. For now, I wanted to be here on earth.

These were the things that I was rambling about when I arrived at the ER where I was examined. I felt like I was at the gynecologist's. I was put up on the stirrups and I could feel the latex gloves. They were washing me inside, and just for a moment I imagined I was in a boudoir in Paris and being douched by streams of water. I could see in my minds's eye a wonderful hotel facing the very phallic Eiffel tower. But those moments when my imagination ran wild were fewer and farther in between. It felt like I was coming down off a very strong drug, and that drug was all generated by my own mind.

Though I longed to see familiar faces like Blake, Tova or Mother, I was treated to only one familiar face. Dr. Moody. He came in and asked me some pretty basic questions in a hushed atonal voice. He asked me questions like I was someone with amnesia.

"What is your name?"

"Billie Girl. I mean Billie Moore."

"What was your mother's name?

I questioned his use of the past tense when it came to my mother, so I corrected him.

"Her name is Florence."

"Do you know the name of the president of the United States?"

"Yes, Obama."

"And before him?"

"Bush."

"And before that?"

"Bush again."

"Very good."

"How old are you?"

"I will be eighteen in May."

"Nice. Thanks. Now Billie, do you know what has just happened?"

"I..I am not sure....I was with Blake. We were...you know, having private time. I am not ashamed to say it. We made love. It was my first time, you know. We....well we were married this evening and everyone came. You should have come, Dr. Moody. Did I forget to send you an invitation? I am so sorry."

Dr. Moody looked at me with great concern. He typed something into his blackberry, then he wrote something down on a clipboard.

"Thanks, Billie. Now try to get some rest."

I spent at least forty-eight hours in emergency before they had a bed ready for me in a hospital called Pine Rest. It was a mental institution. Dr. Moody had said something like,"It would be to your benefit to have some inpatient rehabilitation. We just want to observe you for a few days. It is for the best."

I was asked if I wanted a single room or to have a roommate, but I just wanted to be alone. My room was not bad; I had my own shower and a bed with a view to what l looked like a wild forest. There was a metal grid on the window.

Patients were roaming the hall, and it looked like "Night of the Living Dead." I could hear one patient in the kitchen which was not far from my room, and it sounded like he was reciting passages from the Bible. He just would not stop. I tried not to let it bother me.