October 4th, 1967: White Girls

Thursday, Oct. 04, 2001 - 2:08 p.m.

Eleanor Roosevelt unpacked for Miss Throckmorton. It was a very small room; a cell really, with a small dresser and a tiny metallic "closet."

She chirped, "Oh, I see you are only 14--you'll be the youngest girl here. Everyone else is 15, 16, or 17. Isn't it nice to be the youngest?" as she breezed out.

Alone. In her room. In the mental hospital. Miss Throckmorton noticed that the one small window was barred, and to add insult to injury, the screen, of very heavy, thickly-woven metal mesh, was INSIDE the glass. A little crank under the window served to open it; the heavy screen and the bars served to make it impermeable. No way to even touch the glass.

What do you do in a mental hospital?

Throcky did what she always did in moments of doubt: started to read. Sitting on the small bed, she tried and tried to read about the adventures happening in LORD OF THE FLIES but concentration had fled. What would happen next?

After about an hour an officious nurse came in. A pre-cursor to Nurse Ratched, although the young Throcky was not aware of this, since "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" had not yet been published.

"Why are you isolating? Don't you know the rules are that you have to be in the day room unless you have special permission to be in your room?"

Miss Throckmorton had not been told the rules. She had not been given a "vade mecum" or any kind of guide book or list of instructions at all. "Mental Hospital 101" or "Mental Hospitalization for Dummies" had not yet been published.

She was led to the "day room" where she saw 19 white girls, all of them pasty-faced, engaged in animated conversation with each other.

She sat down and everyone ignored her.

They were engaged in mental hospital gossip===something at which the Throckmeistress herself would become proficient, but which was foreign to her today. "Raven was committed to Creedmoor." "Lynn committed herself to Belleview."

What was this about commitment? Throcky knew of it as dedication, hard work, being faithful. She did not know the legal terms. Where were these places and how had these girls shown a commitment? Wasn't commitment like wanting to march in Selma, Alabama? Wasn't commitment doing all your homework?

Why so white? Finally she figured out that they had not been out in the sun; that the remnants of her lingering tan made her appear to be the healthiest of the girls.

Dinnertime approached and they were led to the cafetaria in the back of the building. Dinner was a beef stew, a mix of gelatinous and vile looking brown gravy married to a few pallid vegetables and chunks of beef that had suspicious overtones of purple, orange, coral, pink. Surely not colours natural in beef, or even in nature.

After a couple of bites, Miss Throckmorton dashed out of the room and heaved it all up.

When forced to return, the girls, all 19 of them, started throwing food at here. Pummelled with bread, chunks of ill-colored beef, wads of butter, Miss Throckmorton had to make an instant choice: she could crumple, crawl under a table and cry. Or she could fight back.

She had never fought back. Not her whole life. But she stood up, broke a roll into pellets and flung them across the room screaming "FUCK YOU!' as loud as she could.

And then...mirabile dictu.....the food fight stopped. The room relaxed, palpably.

"Hello, I'm Melinda." "I'm Kim". Suddenly, Throcky was a "made girl" and not an enemy. "Do you play an ax?"

"What's an ax?"

"A guitar, silly. Everyone here has an ax."

"We play them in the music room after dinner; before light's out. Then we play records and dance," added one helpful girl.

To be continued.....

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