Werewolf Shot

Hell is endless waiting

The chairs are fluorescent green and bolted to the ground. Every other chair has a faded sticker that says: DO NOT SIT. I’m sitting on a stickered chair, trying to load Instagram. I only have two bars of service. CNN is telling me about antisemitism on college campuses, the need for police presence. A man dressed in head to toe green chats up the receptionists. He calls them ladies: Hey ladies, I love chatting with you. You ladies are why I’ve been standing here chatting with you for so long. You ladies sharing money? I love that. You ladies sure got a lot of food. I’m going to a barbecue this weekend. You know that jerk spice on the chicken? I love that.

The man in all green does not stop talking for thirty five minutes. The small woman in a long skirt sitting one chair away from me turns to me. She spits: He’s disgusting. I shrug. The green man has pulled his pants below his underwear to mimic a guy who wears his pants below his underwear. Instagram is not loading. I’m too anxious to answer my friends’ texts. How can I explain hell is not a punishment reserved for the end. At any point, the earth opens up. Hell is here; hell is now.

Today is a full moon. I’m waiting for what I call my “werewolf shot.” Anyone who knows, knows that it’s an apt euphemism for the uncontrollable chaos, unwitting destruction, and irreparable pain I might become. I spent seven weeks on the 4th floor of this building convinced my dad was trying to murder me. Convinced he already had, and that I was dead and not in hell but in purgatory. Nothing to do. No phone. A place of endless waiting and constant noise.

So once a month, I sit in the waiting room of the Primary Care Clinic at [REDACTED], and wait for my shot politely and with no complaints. Today I have been waiting for 45 minutes.

Another man has come up to the green man and told him he looks like an anime character. The green man is somehow laughing louder than he has been this entire time. He is showing a picture of the anime character to the receptionists through the plastic wall. He is dabbing.

My unspoken discomfort is that I am the only white person in the room. The patients, nurses, staff, and doctors are all Black. I feel every pair of eyes ask, What is she doing here? To which the answer is obvious.

Hell is the admission: I’m just as crazy as you are. The admission: I can’t afford to go anywhere else. The admission: This shot is the lifeline between life and death.

My favorite nurse calls my name, and I follow her into a room where she tells me not to put my bag on the floor. Put it on the chair. I sit and she takes my blood pressure. I’m a pro. I keep my feet flat on the floor. I don’t talk. It’s good. It’s always good. She weighs me, and I have not gained or lost any weight. I tell her the souls of my shoes are platform. She says they’re not that high. But she takes 3 lbs off my weight. She says, Now no crying this time, alright?

I say, I never cry.

I take a deep breath. It’s not the needle that hurts. It’s the fluid she’s injecting. I know, and so does she, that I am locked in as soon as I enter the building. If I lost it, they would bring me straight to CPEP, strip me of my belongings, give me two gowns and disposable underwear. Show me to a cot.

It is not so bad, really. The werewolf shot keeps me human. I pull my pants up, tell the nurse I’ll see her next month.

The bathroom across the hall does not have a hook for me to hang my purse, so I put it on the floor. I take pictures in the warped mirror for Instagram, but do not post that the tile pattern triggers PTSD.

I do not know that years later, after I switch to taking the medication orally, I will almost miss the circle of hell that is the endless waiting and the constant noise, the discomfort, and then the care. The rush of adrenaline as the syringe pierces my skin. The tears that threaten to fall as I take a deep breath in. I choke them back. Flee the building before they think twice about locking me up.