I was allowed to visit with my brother once. For ten minutes. In the hallway. With a guard. To make sure I didn’t run. I might run off to the drug rehab unit across the hall. You had to be eighteen to visit on the adult psych units. Jared wasn’t old enough. He wasn’t allowed on the unit. Technically, neither was I. Joe was allowed to visit. He was eighteen. Sonja had just turned seventeen. She wasn’t allowed. We talked on the phone sometimes. None of my other friends were allowed. They were all to young to visit me on a unit I was to young to visit, let alone be held on, myself.
  Towards the end of my stay we had Thanksgiving. Dry mashed potatoes, drier turkey and something calling itself gravy. The jellied cranberry sauce was okay. Jellied things were always okay. Although the flavor combinations were sometimes questionable. Jell-O was the one thing that kitchen was able to get right. And thanksgiving was no exception. At least it was edible.
  I was often in trouble for not eating.  They had caught on to my hiding the food between the plate and the silver plate holder thingy. So I had to have the orderly in charge of dinner sign off on my having eaten at least half of dinner or more. If I wouldn’t eat it the doctor would be notified and I would lose my visitation for the next day. One day the meat was green. Actually green. I shit you not, green. So I called over the orderly. It was usually the same guy every night. I called him over. I showed him. I told him I would eat it. If. IF he would take a bite of it first. I never got in trouble for not eating after that. He never told on me anyway. So the Thanksgiving food was bad, but it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t green. I ate some of it anyway. At least half. Maybe a little more.
  November into December and still no discharge date. My mom and I watched “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” on tv in the dining room with Jeff. Me and him in our hospital robes and slippers. Her all dressed up on her way home from work and fidgety. The tv had a lot of static, it always did, but it was watchable. In my family it was tradition to watch “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” every year on tv. Right up until they moved it to cable and then took it off tv altogether. And we didn’t let the psych ward stop us. Although my brother wasn’t there.
  After thirty one days, longer than I’d been in drug rehab, they had to do something. By law they had to. Now they want to follow the law? And so something was done. I was leaving. But I wasn’t going home. The found another place for me. Another place to take me. I was being transferred.
  There was some discussion about how to transfer me there. The hospital wanted me to go by ambulance. As if I was going to run away. In the end, that didn’t work out. Probably my mom’s insurance said no. So my mom was the one who would take me. She was to take me right there, no stops. No going home. No nothing.
  I was allowed to have my pants and shoes for the trip that day. And I finally got to wear my trench coat. I got all my t-shirts. I left with more clothes than I came in with. And all of them clothes I didn’t own before my hospital visit. That was a neat little trick. And one I would repeat.
  It was sunny out and much colder than I remembered the last time I had been allowed to wander freely in the world. I wasn’t prepared for it. I had only a t-shirt and a trench coat. Apparently I wasn’t going that far. I didn’t really know where I was going. They gave my mom an admission packet to give to the hospital staff, driving directions and sent us off with instructions to take me straight there and not stop for anything. Where’s the trust? Seriously. And off we went. From Covington to Ft. Mitchell.
  I paid extra close attention, trying to memorize everything, all the landmarks that I could. So I could find my way back. I didn’t know where I was going but I would be damned if I was going to stay there. I had lived in Kentucky for two months, the last month of it was in the hospital. I had no idea where I was or where I was going, but I thought it seemed pretty simple so far. The side streets around the hospital had confused me, but there were signs. And so far we had only taken one major street with no turns.
  And look here. There’s a Pizza Hut. It was lunch time so we stopped of course. It only occurs to me now, just this very minute as I write this, that Pizza Huts and hospital stays went hand in hand for me back then. Or maybe we just ate Pizza Hut a lot.
  Over lunch my mom had a little look-see in the manila envelope will all the admission forms for the new hospital. I didn’t get to see. We didn’t talk much and I didn’t ask where I was going. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t be staying very long if I could help it. Besides, I was busy going over where we had come from in my head. Memorizing the street we had come down in detail, so I wouldn’t forget. And I never did.
  After lunch we continued. I didn’t want to. I felt sick. I wanted to throw up. I didn’t. Up the hill. Left at the four way stop. Left again at the first stop sign. A little ways down the road. There it is. Off to the left is the entrance to the parking lot. To the right of the parking lot is the ugly brick building. What I can see of it is in a U shape. To the left of the parking is a baseball field. In front of the parking is walkway with benches. In front of the building is a large lawn area with several picnic tables. Far out, beyond the lawn and the baseball field, extending all around the fields, just before they go to woods is a very tall fence. And I can’t tell, but it might have a barbed wire at the top. I’m not sure.
  I read the name on the sign as we drive past, into the parking lot. Children’s Psychiatric Hospital of Northern Kentucky.