Wednesday, February 14, 2018

BUGHOUSE TALES #4 - CODE BROWN

BUGHOUSE TALES #4 - CODE BROWN

I was always a huge fan of the movie Blade Runner so I was really geared up to see the sequel Blade Runner 2049. I saw it at the theater and again on disc through Netflix. I liked the sequel but I still don't think that the Harrison Ford's character, Deckard, was a replicant. That's something that is rarely done in the movies these days - everything all wrapped up neatly at the end. The sequel leaves you with that feelling of mystery.

But anyway, back in the 90s, Blade Runner, was re-released as a director's cut to the theaters. I went with my ex-wife and at first we were the only people in the theater until this gigantic guy and his girlfriend came in and sat about four rows behind us. When I say gigantic I don't mean Pizza Hut & Taco Bell for every meal gigantic, I mean shooting horse steroids gigantic. He was wearing a weighlifting wife beater shirt and Zubaz pants and looked like he could give Hulk Hogan a run for his money.

And I knew who he was. Unforunately!

I leaned over to my ex-wife and whispered to her, "Don't turn around. But do you remember that Code Brown we had at the hospital? Well, that dude is sitting a couple rows back."

I was working at the time at a private psychiatric hospital. The kind of rubber room where they keep you until your insurance runs out and then you're miraculously cured.

At the time I was working on the teen unit, which sucked, some of those fucking teenagers are pretty fucking big. And when you combine that with raging hormones (it was a co-ed unit), horrible family issues, and being locked down - some of those boys were damn hard to handle. Especially when they wanted to fight you to impress some crazy bimbo on the unit and you were supposed to use only "approved" methods to restrain them.

It was the evening shift and we had the unit down in the gym playing basketball. The phone rang and it was a Code call which meant trouble on another unit and they needed all male security to respond.

The call was on the adult unit and four of us showed up. A male nurse, and three technicians - Quint, Les, and myself - the other male staff in the fucking building must have conveniently not heard the call. Both Quint and Les had played college football and Les had actually tried out for several NFL teams and had fielded an offer from an Arena League team.

I looked in through the observation window to see who was locked up and raising hell. It was the guy I would see at the movies - only he was buck ass naked and had literally shit all over the floor! It was like elephant shit and he had smeared it all over himself! How could a guy crap that much? He must have eaten six chickens a day and ten heads of lettuce! The turds were the exact color of horsehit. He was standing in front of the outdoor window and slowly beating his fist against the security glass to some tune only he could hear. It was making a rythmic thumping noise and everytime he made contact with the glass, a little spray of shit would fly off.

To top it off, this motherfucker was enormous and all I could think about was if we had to do a cell entry and wrestle him down! I was quickly going into a state of panic! I didn't mind having to fight the guy - I just didn't want to do it when he was covered in ten pounds of feces.

I grabbed Les's gigantic bicep and looked him in the eye, "Are we going to have to take this guy down? Are we? Huh?  Jesus H. Christ! This is going to be a nightmare. I might just quit."

Les just looked at me with vacant eyes, like he was looking right through me. Obviously, I wasn't the only one who was freaking.

The nurse was looking at us. "OK, you guys, I'm popping the door. You know what to do."

He opened the door and we charged in - and three of us charged right back out!  The stench was worse than the sight! There was a bathroom directly across from the observation cell and Quint had dropped to his knees and was barfing up lunch that he had eaten last week. I crawled over him and hurled into the sink. Les just stood by the door, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and shaking his head and repeating over and over, "Goddamn! Godamn!"

The stench was unlike anything I had ever smelled in my life! Worse than Wilson & Co., the meat packing plant from my hometown.

Looking up, I saw the nurse with towels wrapped around the patient's upper body and calmly walking the shitter out of the observation room and down to the showers. He was as gentle and docile as a kitten.

Thus, the legend of "Code Brown" was born. All three of us technicians would be written up for "unprofessional behavior" and I had a hard time eating for three days. It turns out that the patient had been taking a huge cocktail of steroids and other recreational  drugs and was detoxing cold turkey which was making him lose - literally - his shit, physically and mentally.

After Blade Runner was over, I slowly followed him and his girlfriend out into the parking lot. If he knew who I was, he didn't show any recognition. Not that I would have either if I had been in his place.

His girlfriend was a fucking knockout - easily a 9 out of a 10. They climbed into a vintage ragtop Corvette.

I climbed into a rusty Chevy Citation.

Life is fucking weird!