Willie was an older, grizzled, black man. He was exactly like one of the homeless men that stops people in Nashville and asks for money. Throughout the day, I would hear "Willie, stop it!" "Willie is at it again!" "Willie, stop yelling!" He was like Dennis the Menace of the pysch ward. He would get upset and yell at people or rant at them but it was only people that deserved it. He never yelled at the women in the ward or the nice techs.
He took a deep, personal dislike of one of the techs and would call him "the African" and just annoy the hell out of him. It would make me laugh. I could always tell Willie was getting started because he would get a glint in his eye and then off he went. He would start by circling the tech then ask where he was from then start in about how he was not even an American. The tech really was useless-sexually harassing the women techs, making comments about some of the patients and generally was an ass. I couldn't help but laugh. Willie would start quizzing him about being an African and Thanksgiving and etc and we would just be dying with laughter. "You can't celebrate Thanksgiving..no turkey for you. You from Africa." "Why do you talk in that weird accent? You from Lewisburg? Oh that's right, Africa." Of course, the guy had to take it because we were all watching.
So, I liked Willie. He was smart in his own way. We had another girl there named Tammie that voluntarily put herself in the hospital. She had black outs and couldn't remember anything and it scared the hell out of her. Willie found out she was from Lewisburg and decided they went to school with each other. Then, decided they were married. He would bring in laundry for her to do (like you can do laundry in a mental ward) and write her love notes. He also created a whole history of their high school years. She helped him with homework and they began dating their sophomore year. It was hysterical because they had literally never meet before the ward. We thought he believed it but sometimes that glint in would start in his eyes as he would begin to weave stories.
He would also wear layers of clothes. We would play a game called "How Many Layers will Willie be wearing Today?" I never guessed correctly. He would wear two pairs of jeans and that had to be uncomfortable. The jeans also had writings all of them. He would sign them with markers. We never quite figured it out. Maybe he was scared people would steal them.
I finally couldn't stand it so I asked him what he was in for. It was a bizarre story-typical in the mental ward but I was crying from laughter at the end of it. Another reason I will go to hell.
Here's the story from Willie:
Some whiteys told me to go to the store and get some gum. They told me there was a giant rat there so be careful. I went and it was really dark. I got the gum and then I heard some noise. It was the rat so I ran then a pit bull was chasing me. I got a stick and started yelling at it. All of a sudden, these policemen jumped me and found a gun on me and lottery tickets. I don't know what happened to the gun. Then, I ended up here.
Ok. What got me was three things-the rat, the pit bull and how the police just end up jumping him and he has a gun. This poor man stole two packs of gum and lottery tickets and is now in a mental ward. It was so sad but so funny too. Who steals lottery tickets? And somehow jumps from a pit bull to policemen.
I really lost it though when, the next day, he showed me lottery ticket numbers that he had written down. He had a list of like ten. It was hard not to laugh cause Willie got offended when someone laughed at him. But, he really did steal the lottery tickets! I thought he had made it up.
Willie also loved Suduko and David would give him some of his. Willie just liked filling in the squares and never really tried to do it. He would have like 5 fours in one square. David tried to show him how to do it and finally gave up. Willie would hand it to David and David would pretend to check it and give it back. Willie was so proud that he would complete them and get them right. I must admit I would laugh again because David would just shake his head when Willie turned away.
Willie did steal my marker on my last day but I decided he could steal it. He needed to write more stuff on his jeans and he was busy writing a love note to Tammy.
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