“Hey Buck,” said Willy sitting behind me, “you may want to look, or maybe not.  I really feel like I should inform you though.”

I looked up from my paperwork and peered through the bullet proof glass to see a cross-eyed man in his 60’s furiously masturbating.  I mean, he was going at it.  Which is understandable I guess.  If you are going to whip it out and go to town in a room full of people, you might as well do it like you mean it.  As if this wasn’t enough to disgust me, the look on his face told me that he was getting close.  Not that I am an expert in such things, but from all my, shall we say ‘past experience’, it looked like he was about to finish right on our dayroom window.

Then he did.  Right on the glass.

“Damn, Buck!  Why didn’t you do something?”  Willy was showing obvious disgust.

The patient started cackling and nodding his head back and forth as if to say, “Yeah, I’m bad.  I got this.  Oh yeah!”

“Just what the hell am I supposed to do?”  I protested, grateful that I had an excuse to divert my eyes from this train wreck of humanity.  “Are we supposed to put ‘em in seclusion for that or just try to redirect them?”  There was no specific written protocol for public masturbation.  That or about 80% of what we dealt with for that matter.  This was one of those things where only past experience could guide you towards an answer.

“I don’t know, but letting him coat the glass was probably not a good idea.”  Willy waved his hand dismissively.  He was an older man.  Most thought he was too old to perform the bouncer-like duties that came with being a psych tech at the hospital.  He had just taken his teeth out to eat some peanut butter and crackers.  I was disgusted at the set of teeth he had set on a napkin in front of him on the break table.  But it was a better view than the skeet on the window.

Oddly enough, no one else in the dayroom seemed to care that much.  They were all too busy watching cartoons to bother.  The patient got bored with gloating after a few seconds and left.  Unfortunately he didn’t feel the need to zip up.  He just let it drop and headed towards the bedrooms.

“Where is he going?” asked Willy.  I was nearer to the window than he was so I had a better view.

“Well, if it were me I would be going to take a nap.”

“No doubt.  Well I don’t think we ought to put him in seclusion.  He got it out of his system.  Maybe he’ll calm the fuck down now.  And I know he won’t do that shit again soon.  At least not for an hour or so.  Gives you some time to clean that shit up.”

“How come this defaults to me?”  I protested.

“Because you are young, and you got energy.  And because I am old and on my break.  Now stop arguing with this old man!  Go see what the fuck he’s up to and get a rag.”

*********************

“Hey, man.  You know that’s inappropriate, right?”  What else do you say to a psych patient who had just done that?  There was nothing in the manual about how to start this conversation either.

“What!” he yelled.  He cupped his hand to his ear.

“You know you shouldn’t have done that, right?”  I spoke a little more loudly that time.

“I can’t hear you!”  He yelled.  Now he was moving closer.  His mouth was gaping open.  I could only see one tooth.  And his junk was still out.

“Geez,” I said under my breath.  Then as loudly as I dared, “You can’t just go around doing that in the dayroom.”

“What?”

“YOU CAN’T JERK OFF ON THE WINDOWS OLD TIMER!”

He started cackling and turned around to get in bed.  “Why not?” he said in a lower tone of voice.

“Why you…”  I paused for a minute, knowing I had been had.  “Okay, you gotta cut that shit out man.  We gotta put you in seclusion if you do that again.”

“Can I take my dick in there with me?”

How do you argue with logic like that?  If he was in seclusion he would be at it all day.  I imagined myself with a mop.

“Look man, if you gotta do that, be like everyone else and fire one off in the shower.  But don’t do it anymore in the dayroom or we are going to take your cigarettes away and take you off smoke break.”  That was the atomic bomb.  Slayer of all psych patients.  Winner of all arguments.

“Goddamnit!  You ain’t gonna take my smokes!  Give me one good reason!”

“Cause your jerking off on the windows…I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”

“Give me one good reason!”

I racked my brain.  What was something he would understand?  I ventured a guess.

“Germs!”  I said.  It was all I could come up with on short notice.

“Pah!”  He dismissed me with a wave.  “What do you know about germs?  I’ve never seen a germ.  They don’t exist!”

“Alright.  I am done with this conversation.  Zip your pants, and stop painting the windows.  If you don’t do what I told you, you are gonna quit smoking today.  Cold turkey.  You got me?”

“Pah!”  Another dismissive wave as I left the room.  “Germs!” he called out after me.

*********************

A few minutes later I was cleaning the bullet proof window to the nurses’ station.  Willy was still on break and gave me a golf clap through the window.  Why would a man with no teeth eat peanut butter and crackers?  He was going to be on break for three hours.  Maybe that was the point.

“What’s on the window, honey?”  The charge nurse came by raking the talons she called fingernails down my back to give me a tickle.  She was 20 years older than me but liked to flirt.

“You don’t want to know, babe.”

 “Are you serious?  That’s nasty.  Why didn’t you do something?”

“Again with that!”  I protested.  “Just what the hell am I supposed to do?”

But I was cut short by a collective gasp from the dayroom behind me.  The old man was back.  And he hadn’t zipped up.  This time he was urinating in a large dixie cup.  His last effort had gone unnoticed, but this emission was for the benefit of everyone.  He was cackling and waving his hips back and forth while he filled the cup.

“Goddamnit old timer, get back in your room!”  I started to chase him down the hall.  He didn’t expect this and his eyes got wide.  He turned and shuffled down the hall, still filling the cup as he moved.

This even got Willy up.  A few seconds later there was a show down.  He was in his bathroom, pants around his ankles, and cup full.

“GERMS!” he yelled.  “I’ll show ya some fucking germs!”  He was now waving the cup like he was going to pitch it on one of us.

“Dr. Rush to ICU.  Dr. Rush to ICU.”  A very calm voice made the announcement over the intercom.

Staff was starting to collect in the patient’s bedroom.  This building was originally a dorm for doctors in residence near the turn of the century.  Now it housed the Dallas Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit.  The doctors apparently had it rough.  All the floors and walls were concrete.  And there were drains in the floor.  Someone had told me one time that it was built to TB hospital specifications.  I had no idea whether or not this was true.  There was a shared bathroom between each bedroom.  There were no locks on the doors and they were to be kept open all times.

“You want some germs, mother fuckers!” he was smiling with his one tooth, and waving his cup.

Everyone was trying to figure out how to get him out without getting splashed.  Then all of the sudden, a great idea came to me.  I could see past him through the open door to the other bedroom.  So I simply left the bedroom were all the employees had collected.

“Were the hell you goin’” scowled Willy.  “You started this shit.  You gotta finish it!”

“I will,” I whispered as I held my index finger up to my mouth. “Shhhh.  Keep him busy.”

I went out into the dayroom and walked down the hall to the next bedroom.  I tiptoed in and peaked around the door frame.  His back was still to me and he hadn’t heard me.  The charge nurse saw me and started to laugh.  I put on a glove in view of the doorway so they could tell what my intensions were.

“What you laughin’ at girly!  I’ll give you something to laugh at!”  He was still taunting them.

He waved the cup back and forth.  I was patient, waiting for the perfect opportunity.  Willy finally got the idea that would make my plan a reality.

“Hey old timer, you dropped some on your shoe.  You gonna leave some of that for us or what?”

The patient got flustered, looked down at his shoes, and let the cup rest at his side by his thigh.  I snuck around the corner, grabbed the cup, and was gone in seconds.  Since his pants were still around his ankles he couldn’t give chase.

“Ha!” shouted Willy.  “Now you got nothing, old man.  Unless you’re gonna try to shit on us!”

I ran down the hall to another bathroom, poured it down the toilet, and disposed of the cup.  I returned to the bedroom just in time to see them dragging him down the hall to isolation, his pants still around his ankles.

“Nice work, Buck.”

“Thanks, Willy.”

“Alright.  I’m going back to finish my break.  Make sure you go back and get all that jiz off the window.  That’s nasty.”