Young Writers Society

It was my first night on duty as an overnight rehabilitation worker at a short-term intensive care mental health facility. I walked into the building at ten to midnight in my only pair of khakis and a black ribbed T-shirt, with a small black drawstring bag with the Iowa Hawkeyes logo emblazoned on one side. Inside the bag was a notepad, two books, a bottle of Gatorade, and my wallet and keys. I was introduced to Tony and Craig, the guys who would be training me in. Craig was dressed in jeans and a plaid work shirt, Tony in jean shorts and a blue shirt with Cookie Monster’s face nice and large on the front. Immediately, I felt over-dressed for the job, and vowed to dress far more casually the next night.

Tony and Craig gave me a tour of the facility—ten rooms, a med counter, a community room, a dining room, and a high-end kitchen area—showed me how to document what was surely going to be a boring night, and handed me two huge binders full of policy information for me to read. Before they released me, they went to the back office to grab some forms for me to fill out. I took the opportunity to browse the titles of the other binders on the shelf. Nothing out of the ordinary—anger management policies and activities, an affirmations binder for the staff, and med schedules, among other things. Below all of the policy information were the patient binders. There were only seven patients, but one name stuck out to me.

Andrew Bettendorf. I wondered where I knew that name. It was definitely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. I thought that it was a unique enough name that I recognized it, but not unique enough for me to place where I knew it, when it suddenly hit me.

Andrew Bettendorf. I graduated high school with him. And he was a patient at the facility where I was now employed.

For a moment, I couldn’t exactly remember him. I remembered exactly what he looked like—lanky kid, freckles all over his face, thick rimmed glasses, light brown hair cropped short, baggy ill-fitting clothes, and a plaid shirt, always a plaid shirt—and I remembered that he mostly kept to himself, and seemed to be pretty good friends with a kid named Reggie, who I thought was a pretentious bastard that needed to be taught a lesson. But I couldn’t remember how I had treated him in high school. I was mean to a lot of kids in high school, by a product of being treated poorly myself with no way to break the cycle, but I couldn’t remember if he was a victim of mine. I sincerely hoped he wasn’t, but knew full well that he was.

Around 12:40 AM I set up camp in a conference room, stacks of policy and procedural information surrounding me. I read all about Patient’s Bill of Rights, how to file a grievance, who to contact in case of an emergency, what to do if a bomb was found in the building, and decided that 80-90% of the information in these binders did not pertain to me, an overnight staff worker. By 1:15 AM I had moved on to the instructional videos, which starred failed actors stiffly reciting lines written by C-student script writers. One scenario tried to show me how to use my rapport with a client to facilitate communication.

Scenario one had the teacher being firm and direct with the student. “Give me your cell phone,” he said. “You know the rules, you can’t have it out during school hours. Your parents can pick it up tomorrow after school.” The student didn’t move. “If you don’t give it to me now, you’ll have to pick it up at the end of next week. Would you rather have that? Come on, let’s go to the principal’s office.”

Scenario two had the teacher being understanding and compassionate toward the student. “Give me your cell phone,” he said. “You know you can’t have it out during the school hours.”

“I wasn’t using it,” the student replied. “Can’t you cut me a break just this once?”

“Do you want me to bring Mrs. Churchill into this? I don’t want to, but I will if I have to. You’re not helping your cause. If you don’t give it up now, I’ll have to call in Mrs. Churchill, maybe even the principal, and that’s a lot of paperwork I don’t want to fill out. If you comply, maybe I can see if we can’t get this back to you by the end of today, okay?”

The well-dressed man in the video said that scenario two showed the student that the teacher was just trying to enforce the rules, and that he wasn’t trying to be a dictator, and that was why it was the better option. I, however, felt that scenario one was much more effective, as scenario two made the teacher seem weak and easily manipulated. But I guess that’s what I get for living in the real world.

As I watched the videos and read the policies, I kept thinking about Andrew. I was almost positive that I had tormented him during high school, called him Andrew Betten-dork, maybe even shoved him around some. I kept imagining what it would be like to see him face-to-face in the morning, if he would even remember me. My mind wandered with thoughts of him seeing me sitting in the office as he went to take his meds, recognizing me, having the memories of all the terrible things I had done flood back to him, and lashing out physically, maybe not at me, but at somebody, because the emotional trauma of what I had put him through was too much for him to bear in his fragile state.

******

4:00 AM. I had finished reading all of the policies, I had watched all of the movies, and I was still thinking about Andrew. I had totally lost track of him after high school, like I had lost track of all of the minor characters in my life during those years, remembering them only through old pictures on my computer.

The night gave me plenty of time to think. I doodled on my notepad. I tried to read one of my books, but couldn’t concentrate, because I was wondering what Andrew looked like now. I had certainly changed since high school—I gained some weight, grew out my hair and beard, and tried to be as professional as possible in everything I did. Would he look the same? Hopefully the clothes would be different, but would he still keep his hair short? Would he still be wearing those thick-rimmed glasses that made him look like one of the characters from Revenge of the Nerds?

I had my opportunity to find out at 5:00 AM bed checks. The process was simple—go down the hallway, crack open the door, and make sure they were still in bed by shining a light on their feet. Andrew’s room was Room 6, and I knew if I shone the light just right, I would be able to see his face.

The anticipation was almost too much for me. I had a mixture of feelings: excitement, for being able to see an old classmate again; regret, for all of the things I may or may not have done to him; pity, because I had it so well while he was stuck here with a mental illness and a med schedule. We finally reached Room 6, and I cracked open the door, and shone the light inside.

I felt relief, but also a bit of disappointment, that he was facing the opposite way, thought I wasn’t sure what was going to happen when I saw him sleeping.

******

At 7:00 AM we had to make the rounds to wake everybody up so that they would have time to eat breakfast. We set out bowls, plates and silverware; four different kinds of cereal; fruit; toaster pastries; and granola bars. I was delegated Rooms 4 through 7. I got to Andrew’s room, opened the door, and said, “7 AM. Time to get up.”

“I’m up,” he mumbled. At least he sounded the same.

Meds needed to be administered by 7:45 AM. One by one, the clients exited their rooms and stood in line for their meds. After receiving them, some clients went back to their rooms, while others escaped to the dining room for breakfast. One client, who had trouble sleeping that night, decided he was going to go for a walk around the block.

I waited impatiently for Andrew to come out. I wanted to see him. I wanted to see how he would react to seeing me. I wanted to see if time had healed whatever wounds high school had given him. But thinking back on it now, deep down, I wanted to see how broken he was.

At around 7:30 AM, Andrew came around the corner. He definitely looked different; his glasses were replaced with contact lenses, his clothing was still baggy but almost all black. He had a new eyebrow piercing from the last time I saw him, and he wore a smart looking goatee that looked neatly trimmed. His hair was a little longer, and seemed slightly darker underneath his black plaid flat cap.

Andrew turned to look at me, and I saw that his eyes had little life in them. “Hey,” he mumbled in my direction.

“Good morning,” I replied.

Andrew walked up to the medicine counter, took his eight pills, and returned to his room. He seemed very subdued, and I wasn’t sure if I liked that about him. It was almost robotic the way he moved, the way he took his medicine, the way he stood there and waited.

I felt uneasy—he definitely wasn’t the same as he was in high school—but recognized there was nothing I could do. Maybe he had forgiven me for what I put him through. Maybe he had forgotten. Maybe I didn’t put him through anything at all, and made myself uneasy over nothing.

I was released from my shift at 8:00 AM. I immediately drove across town to a 24-hour diner. The waitress came over and poured me a cup of coffee. “What can I get you, hon?”

“Short stack of pancakes. With sides of bacon and breakfast potatoes, please.”

“Coming right up.”

As I drank my coffee, I looked out the window and reflected on my day at work. I thought about the other people from high school I hadn’t seen in a while—Ben, Stephen, Angela, Matthew, Brian, John, Kristi, Tim—and I wondered what they were up to. I wondered if they had changed as dramatically as Andrew had, or if they had stayed relatively the same.

I glanced to my left, and thought I saw Caleb, a guy from high school that I tormented so much that I was almost certain I had driven him to suicide. He looked exactly as I had remembered him: crew cut, wide green eyes, dirty jeans and a paint splattered T-shirt.

I turned away, and wondered if there were people out there that really never changed. When I turned back, Caleb was gone.