Masturbation and Suicide

    I'm back in the hospital - some deal my lawyer worked out with the DA.  Self imposed incarceration here in exchange for having the assault charges against the prison guard dropped.  I asked if I could file charges against the police, but my attorney advised me against it.  "Leave well enough alone," he said.
    They all laughed when I checked in, the orderlies, and said, "Back again, huh?"
    I was only supposed to be here a week, but on my second night, mad from a handful of pills I had bought from Pyro Johnny, I tried to hang myself with my pajama bottoms.
    The hospital is controlled through a modern variation of Bentham's Panopticon.  Every inmate is hidden from the other, while cameras mounted high in the corners of each room force us to assume the guards are monitoring us constantly.  They don't actually have to watch, because each patient must conclude that they are currently being singled out and watched.  So I masturbated into my palm and rubbed the semen all over the camera's lens.  This gave me time to string myself up, along with a sense of pleasure from the knowledge that someone else would have to clean up my jizz.
    I dangled for a few minutes then blacked out.  The pants must have ripped, because I woke up with with one light blue leg around my neck and the other dangling from a sturdy light fixture above.  Just as I came to, the orderlies burst in and carried me away, confused and thrashing, screaming cries of rape.  Now, I sleep bound to the bed with padded leather restraints, and, during the day, I require a constant escort.  The doctor told me my suicide attempt earned me extra time, which sounds like a prize but isn't.
    The doctor tells me all sorts of things.
    Do I know that I'm manic?
    Yes.
    Do I know that I'm suicidal?
    Well, yes.
    Do I know that I'm a sociopath?
    This is new.  The doctor explains that this means I'm unable to conform to society's standards, and that I have no care for the rights or feelings of others.  This can't be true.  When I was five, I habitually raped my stuffed animals, and I was always so worried I'd hurt their feelings that, afterwards, I would leave little pieces of chocolate on the bed next to them.
    I'm not allowed visitors, but yesterday I gave a skinny black orderly fifty bucks to let me meet Lisa at the chain link fence that surrounds the compound.  The orderly, Michael, agreed that nothing cures misery like strong drugs and a good ejaculation, so when I pulled my penis through my fly and stuck it at Lisa through the fence, he just watched and rubbed himself instead of stopping Lisa as she began to masturbate me.  After a few minutes of moaning, she began to cry and had to leave.  This made me sad - both because Lisa was so upset and because I hadn't yet orgasmed.
    Billy One Eye has a seizure as we eat lunch together today.  While he shakes and flaps on the tile floor, I steal his apple sauce and his little carton of chocolate milk.  Cranky Craig eyeballs me and the milk.  He picks at the white gauze bandage taped over his ear.
    "That ain't your milk," he says with a glare.
    "Shut up, Craig," I hiss.
    "No!  You stole Billy's milk and I'm sick of your shit!  You're just like all those other assholes.  I hate those assholes!  None of 'em know how to drive!  It's so goddam frustrating!"
    "Fuck you, Craig.  You attacked a woman for not using her turn signal.  I took some milk that Billy's not even going to drink.  You're the bad guy here.  You're fucking crazy."
    "So are you!"
    The orderlies rush over and pin Billy to the floor, jam a rubber guard between his teeth.  A stretcher is brought in that has a bad wheel which wobbles and clicks as it roll across the hard floor.  Billy is lifted onto it when he stops seizing and they wheel him out.  Thump, thump, click clack, thump clack.
    "I hate you," I mouth at Craig.
    "I'm gonna kill you," he answers and grabs a plastic butter knife.
    A big vein in Craig's forehead pulses a bloody shade of purple.  He stands near six foot four and outweighs me by at least sixty pounds.  An American flag bandana is tied around his head and he's wearing a t-shirt with a Great White Shark baring its teeth amid a cloud of blood.  We can wear our own clothes here, but footwear is regulated, so Craig has on a pair of thin white slippers.  I go into a Sambo stance.  Sambo is a lethal Russian martial art that, several years ago, I watched a fourty minute television documentary on.
    "I'm gonna fuck you up like I did those Japs in Korea," Craig tells me.
    "You're only like thiry-five, shit head."
    "I'm special forces, Mongoose Squad!"
    He grunts and waves his arms in a series of punches and karate chops.
    "Jesus, you're a fucking idiot."
    Craig screeches and charges, drives the knife into my gut before I can react.  There's painful pressure, but the plastic bends and snaps before any real damage is done.  I try to sweep kick his legs out from under him, but he's like a Redwood trunk and doesn't budge.  Craig grabs my hair and pulls my face down into his knee, over and over.  Something cracks and I feel slick blood in my throat.
    "'uck," I moan and cup my nose, then punch him in his bandaged ear.
    "Bitch!" he yells.
    An orderly clubs Craig in the small of his back and he screams and collapses to the floor.  I kick him in the nose with my slippered foot before I'm tackled.

    "You've certainly managed to distinguish yourself here," the Doctor says and lights a cigarette.  He has a long, looping gray mustache.
    "Okay." I touch the splint in my nose and wince, then hum part of a Ween song, Japanese Cowboy.
    "In an institution filled with psychopaths, arsonists, and schizophrenics, you've continually managed to stand out."
    "I once saw a man drink his own urine."
    "What?"
    "Then he masturbated a dog."
    "So?"
    "Perspective."
    "Perspective?"
    "That's it."
    "What about perspective?"
    "Just perspective."
    The Doctor sighs.  "Alright.  Well, you're supposed to be released in a couple days.  I'm not going to stop it.  You'll be free to go."
    "Okay."
    "You really deserve to spend the rest of your life locked away in a box, but you're a pain in the ass and I'm a state employee with a shitty salary, so fuck it."
    "Okay."
    "Aren't you going to thank me?"
    "You know that smell that floats up from the water when you fart in the bath?  That old, wet corpse smell?"
    "I suppose."
    "That's what this office smells like.  I think it's coming from you."
    He forces a smile.  "Maybe we'll have a chance to try a little electo-shock before you leave us."
    "Maybe."
    The Doctor stubs his cigarette, walks over, and shakes my hand.
    "I hope I never see you again," he says. "Next time you try to kill yourself, do it right."