The Things They Say You Are

Nominated for the Pushcart Prize

by Alexis Silas

Signing yourself in is the easy part.

Initial after each paragraph, then write your legal name on the dotted line. Everybody’s real nice at the beginning. Eager to help.

Don’t trust them.

The sign-in part will be the last time anyone speaks kindly to you. After that they take you through steel double doors with heavy locks and tie you down with cloth restraints.

Your psychoanalyst, Dr. Greenson, and your psychiatrist, Dr. Kris, arranged for your stay here as a “rest cure” after your divorce. You trust Dr. Greenson. Judy Garland is one of his patients, and look at how well that’s going. Judy’s never out of work.

Beg the orderlies to call Dr. Greenson and tell him there’s been a mistake. You are not supposed to be locked up.

They don’t call Dr. Greenson. Instead, they pull the restraints tighter.

Try another tactic: screaming. While you scream, they wheel your gurney into some sort of … hallway? It’s hard to tell, because strapped down as you are, you can only see the lights overhead. Wherever you are, they’ve left you all alone.

After you’ve screamed yourself hoarse, a bespectacled face appears above you. It’s a new doctor, one you haven’t met before. His eyes are drawn with concern, and his voice is laced with sympathy, but you know acting when you see it.

“You’re a very sick girl, Norma Jean,” he says. “But don’t worry. We’re going to make you better.”

***

His name is Dr. Wilson, and over the next few days, you discover more about what he and the other doctors think you need in order to get better. Their methods include forced baths, where burly orderlies strip you and scrub you themselves. You are never allowed proper clothes. Instead, you shuffle around in a thin hospital robe. Above all, the doctors want you to agree that you are sick.

But you know you aren’t. Not the way your mother was. A paranoid schizophrenic, she could barely keep you out of foster care for more than a few months.

You explain this to Dr. Wilson, and he tells you to stop resisting. We can’t help you heal until you admit you aren’t well, he says.

You’re used to people saying things about you that aren’t true. Dumb blonde, brainless cupcake, sexpot. A photographer for Life magazine once thought it would be a good joke to shoot you reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, because ha-ha, sex symbols don’t read classic novels. Ulysses is one of your favorite books, but you sat on your chaise lounge and smiled while the man took his funny picture. You didn’t care if they thought you were dumb, because you were in control of that.

But you’ve known for a long time that you are not all the things that people say you are. You’ve done a lot of work in therapy to figure that out.

Maybe it’s a test. Maybe if you keep telling the truth, someone will listen.

***

You try to show the doctors how calm you can be. You thank God and Elia Kazan for all those method acting classes, and you put on an award-worthy performance as Reasonable Woman Stuck in a Mental Hospital.

“I’m not saying I don’t have problems,” you tell Dr. Wilson. “But I don’t think being here is helping me. I need to talk about the things in my life that have impacted me. The miscarriages, the divorces.”

Dr. Wilson explains that before you can talk about any of these things, he needs to examine your breasts for lumps.

“But I just had an exam from my internist last month,” you say.

He tells you that the sooner you let him help you, the sooner you will feel better.

You ask how you are supposed to feel better when every action of his seems to take away your dignity.

Your resistance, he says, only serves to lengthen your stay at this hospital.

There’s a look in his eyes that is familiar to you. He covers it well with the expression of a concerned doctor, but it’s the same look you’ve seen in every man who’s decided he isn’t going to let you leave the room until he gets what he wants.

You swallow your anger and allow the doctor’s trembling hands to palpate Marilyn Monroe’s breasts.

***

You call Arthur, your ex-husband, and beg him to get you out of here.

“There are cinderblock walls,” you plead. “The people here are severely depressed. And they won’t let me out until I say that I am, too.”

“Honey, did you ever think maybe you’re in the best place you could be right now?”

You try to keep the panic out of your voice. “That’s not fair. I only signed myself in here because of you.”

“Don’t start with that again.”

You can’t keep your voice from rising. “For six months, I held it together while shooting a film about our marriage, our life together, and the whole time you’re chasing the script girl on the side!”

You’re getting heated. Arthur never responds well to confrontation; he needs flattery. You try again.

“Baby, it’s just like your play.” Your tone is soft and admiring. “They accuse that character, John Proctor, of witchcraft, and they won’t let him off until he confesses. But he refuses to lie. And it’s the same for me, see. I can’t say I’m crazy when I know I’m not.”

Arthur makes a pained sound. It’s the noise he makes when he’s embarrassed for you.

“The Crucible had nothing to do with mental hospitals,” he groans. “You’re a beautiful woman and you always will be, but don’t try to understand something you can’t.”

You blink back tears. Appeals to mercy have failed, flattery has failed, and so you grasp at your final straw: manipulation.

“You owe me, Arthur. I was the reason the House Un-American Activities Committee didn’t go after you any more than they did. They couldn’t stand up against me, and they knew it. I stood by you then. And if you can’t stand by me now—”

“That was then. This is completely different,” he says.

The phone goes dead; you hear nothing but the dial tone. You rub your forehead and curse. You forgot how much he hates being reminded that you are more famous than he is.

***

You are not crazy. But you played a crazed teenaged babysitter in Don’t Bother to Knock. Sitting in the ward’s common room, you decide that this is as good a time as any to play out the scene.

You smash a chair against the windows, once, twice, again. When the glass breaks, you conceal a shard in your hand. The orderlies come running. You comply meekly as they wrest the chair from you.

When Dr. Wilson arrives, he asks if you are ready to let them help you. You show him the glass shard and tell him you are ready to kill yourself if they don’t let you out of here. The orderlies are too quick for you to cut your wrists. That’s fine. You had no intention of seriously harming yourself. You just wanted to be heard. There’s no time to explain before the Haldol kicks in and sends you to sleep.

***

You decide to give up. You won’t admit you’re crazy. But you will call on the one person who’s always been there for you. She’s you. Or a version of you that you keep inside. She’s gotten you out of many a jam: poverty, bad marriages, loneliness.

Dr. Greenson doesn’t like her. But Dr. Greenson isn’t here, so you’re going to have to rely on the tools you have if you want to get out of this place.

You reach inside, and you access the dumb blonde. She’s a survivor. She’ll know what to do.

She does. She knows that since no one cares about your anger, you’ll need to borrow someone else’s. Someone with power. Fortunately, you know just the right person. He’s rich and famous, and you know just the right way to make him angry.

And so you, a dumb blonde, call a different ex-husband: Joe DiMaggio.

“Please, Joe. Come get me.” You make your voice a little breathy. “I need you, baby. I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”

He shows up shouting in the thunderous voice you remember so well. You used to quaver when you heard that voice. But now all that anger is working for you. The hospital staff can’t stand up to his wrath any more than you ever could. He swoops you up and carries you right out of the ward. It’s like something out of fiction, but it’s real.

You can worry about getting away from him later. Maybe now that he’s been the big hero, he won’t need to make you feel small. For now, stay in dumb blonde mode. Smile. Gaze adoringly at Joe. Hint that you’ll have sex with him. Try not to care that you might be all the things they say you are.

About the author

Alexis Silas grew up in a small, rural town in Michigan. She spent much of her time reading, or, when not reading, riding her bicycle to the library for more books. Her work has previously appeared in Tales from the Forest and Every Day Fiction. An unabashed cat enthusiast and Star Trek fan, she loves stories of the future and the past. She lives with her partner in Chicago, where she continues to enjoy riding her bicycle to the library.

About the artwork

The illustration is an image released by George Hodan under Public Domain license.