"A stranger has come
to live in the house not right in the head.
A girl mad as birds..."
--Dylan Thomas, "Love in the Asylum"

i first met Noelle in the lounge of 154 Quincy Street. to say it that way connotes a bar or club or some other socially acceptable address. even a whorehouse would be more respectable than reality, but the truth is that 154 Quincy is a front, as conspicuous an address as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. it is a mental hospital, which makes Noelle, the love of my life, a mental patient. just like me.

i thought she was the most beautiful girl i had ever seen. during group therapy i would shove the catatonics onto the grimy linoleum floor to sit in the chair directly across from her. not that she ever noticed; she was always staring at the ceiling. but i preferred it that way; it meant i could watch her carefully, memorize every nuance of her face, without making her paranoid. or aggravating her paranoia further, depending on the time of day.

Noelle said, "the medicine is the magic carpet that we all take our naps on," every morning before downing her plastic cup of pills. she had a system for taking her pills: red, orange, yellow, blue. she would unscrew the capsules and let the powder drizzle onto her tongue. "i'm in no hurry," she would say when she caught us watching her. the nurses smiled knowingly.

i brought my cup over to her table one morning, with a knee-knocking terror reminiscent of the high school cafeteria. "can i sit with you?"

she had her chin tilted to the water-stained ceiling, letting the powder from a sunny yellow tranquilizer spill onto her tongue as if it were a Pixy Stick. one big brown eye rolled toward me, as she looked me over, my brutally short fingernails and bandaged wrists, baggy jeans that never stayed clean. finally she shrugged one shoulder. "i'm in no hurry." she shrugged again.

i sat down, relieved, and held my cup of pills to my lips. i wished i was wearing lipstick. Noelle looked alarmed.

"you don't take em like that, do you?" she exclaimed. "you're doing it all wrong."

"why?" i demanded. "i take them all at once."

"but that's all wrong," she insisted. "i've been here way longer than you, and you do it all wrong."

maybe she was right. i had been at 154 Quincy for two months now, and never felt any better after taking my meds. Noelle, on the other hand, always seemed radiant. i had always attributed it to the fact that maybe they were just giving her uppers, but all this time...still, though, i was kind of insulted that she would criticize my way.

"what's wrong with taking them all at once? my doctor said that's what you do."

"no, she said you take them in one sitting," Noelle corrected me triumphantly. "that means you can sit here for two hours if you want. as long as you don't get up."

"but why take so long?"

"why not? where do you have to go?" Noelle laughed. "sorry. but look at you, you're practically drinking them out of the cup."

i did drink them out of the cup, actually. there were only two pills in my cup, and they were little pills. besides, i hated the med room, hated the big fat nurse behind the med counter with the big sheet of plastic over the window. watching over me to make sure i took them all and took them all correctly. sandy was the nurse who gave me my meds. sandy liked me because i took the meds without complaint and took them really fast. sandy liked me better than she liked Noelle.

"so what's the right way?" i asked finally.

"like this," she said, and arranged her pills on the card table. "it goes red, orange, yellow, blue. it's supposed to be a rainbow. but i'm missing some colors." she yelled behind her to the med counter. "sandy, can't i please have a green pill and something purple?"

"sorry, Noelle," sandy called back wearily. "not until your doctor says so."

"i have a green pill," i volunteered.

Noelle whipped back around and peered in my cup. "you DO," she breathed. "AND a purple one. wow." she reached for my cup. "can I?"

i still loved Noelle. i held it out. she fished out the pills and carefully arranged them into her medical rainbow. "finally," she said. the rainbow looked just like the ones we used to see outside. Noelle looked me over carefully. "we should be best friends."

"we should be best friends," i repeated.

* * *

we devised a new system: line up all of our meds together in our pretty rainbow and then took them in order: red (Noelle), orange (Noelle), yellow (Noelle), green (me), blue (Noelle), and purple (me). i didn't like it at first because i had to wait for Noelle to finish three pills before i got even one, and Noelle could take ten minutes to unscrew a single capsule. talking to her during her system only made her take longer, so i had to sit silently for half an hour or more watching Noelle. even though i still loved her and everything, it was boring to watch her take medicine every day. i would squirm in my plastic chair and then Noelle would arch an eyebrow at me.

"you're impatient," she said. "is that why you're in here?"

"no. i'm in here because i tried to kill myself a lot."

"why?" Noelle frowned. "you're not sad."

"not anymore. but i used to do things like shave my head in the middle of the night and sneak out of the house and go to the park. i would fall asleep on the swing set."

"i like the swings," Noelle said happily.

"me too. then at four fifty-six a.m. exactly i would wake up and go home. it wasn't too big a problem but my mom didn't like it."

"my parents liked my problem," Noelle said proudly. "i'm obsessive-compulsive. so my bedroom was always really clean."

"so why are you here then?" i didn't understand.

"because after a while i had a system for everything. i could tell you them but it would take too long."

i tried to shrug like Noelle. "i'm in no hurry," i said.

she smiled. the powder from her tranquilizer had stained her teeth blue. "you're learning. but i don't remember them all. i've been here for a long time, you know."

i knew. we had been best friends for almost a month now, and she had been there since before i arrived.

* * *

one day Noelle brought a piece of paper to the med room. it was yellow legal paper, folded into perfect halves and perfect fourths. the perforation at the top was straight, without a single jagged rip. "this is so you have something to do while i take my meds," she said happily.
i unfolded the paper carefully. it read:

my compulsions
by Noelle

the top part was perfectly centered, with ruler marks. it was written in black pen.

1) i must make bed every morning the second i get out of it.
2) the bed must be made before i can take a shower. if the sheets are dirty or i get a nosebleed on the pillowcase i must take it downstairs to the laundry room and wash it before i do anything else.
3) when i take a shower i must use white rain shampoo and nothing else. it has to be the kind for oily hair. my system for the shower is: stand under spray until my hair is wet, lather in shampoo, while shampoo is setting soap rest of me with ivory and nothing else. work with soap from face down. then stand under spray and rinse all off. if i still feel dirty i must do it again. (some days i would spend two hours in the shower. i had to start getting up at five in the morning so as not to be late for school.)
4) at school my books must be arranged in the bottom of my locker in the exact order of the classes.
5) i can only use the lavatory at school during odd-numbered periods. i can only use the downstairs one. i must use the fourth stall in the row. if it hasn't been flushed or has cigarette ashes all over or is broken or flooded or occupied, i have to hold it until the next odd-numbered period or until i get home, whichever is first.
6) after using the bathroom i have to wash my hands a total of three times, first to wash the germs off then to wash away the germs that came back the first time then to keep them away forever with really hot water.
7) the second i come home from school i must do my homework. i can't eat or drink until all my homework is done and done without a mistake. i do my homework in the same order of my classes. if i spell a word wrong or smudge the ink i have to tear it up and start all over, even if it's the last word of a ten-page term paper.
8) after i finish my homework i can listen to cds. all my cds are in alphabetical order and i can only listen to them in alphabetical order. i mark where i left off the day before by sticking an index card in between the last cd and the next cd. i can only listen to two cds a night.

"you are the only one who can," i assured her. this was as close as i ever came to telling her i loved her. she smiled and reached for the next pill in line.

my book wasn't as long as Noelle's. it wasn't even a book. it was only a page. i only tried to kill myself a few times.

Noelle liked it anyway. she nodded while she read it, her lips moving over the words.

"well," she said finally. "i was afraid of this."

"what?" i asked, alarmed.

"you," Noelle said ominously, "are not crazy."

"i am too!" i protested.

"no you're not," Noelle said firmly. "i've been here way longer than you, and you are not crazy. you're just bipolar."

"if i'm not crazy, why am i here?" i yelled. sandy the med nurse arched an eyebrow at me.

"well, you're still a little crazy. but you're not crazy enough."

"what the hell does that mean?" i was getting mad. sandy was ready to come over.

Noelle looked sad all of a sudden. "it means you can't stay."
she explained. bipolar could be treated with medicine like my green and purple pills, and i could live outside like a norm. but Noelle, no matter how many drugs they fed her, would always be compulsive, so she was safer inside. at least that's what her parents thought.

Noelle looked ready to cry. "you'll probably go home soon."

"i don't want to go home," i wailed. sandy finally came over and touched me on the arm.

i didn't want her fat nurse hand touching me. i bit her, hard. i tasted blood. Noelle screamed louder than sandy.

i wasn't going home soon. i had made sure of that. i was sorry to bite sandy, but i had to. a new nurse gave me my meds. anna. she was nice, a black lady who made you feel comfy when you talked to her. she brought the meds to my room. i wasn't allowed to go anywhere but the bathroom. there was a new pill in my cup. yellow, like Noelle's tranquilizer. i asked what it was.

"don't worry about it, just swallow it," the new nurse said kindly. she pronounced it "swaller".

"but i have to take my pills with Noelle! we have a system," i protested.

"not today, hon. maybe by the end of the week i can see about bringing her for a visit. but you take those pills any way you like. just as long as you take 'em."

"this is our system," i told her. i was tired of being stuck in my room and wanted to talk. "it goes like a rainbow." but because Noelle wasn't there, i took them backwards. purple, then green. seeing the yellow there made me feel funny. that was Noelle's pill. i wasn't supposed to have the yellow one. i decided to hide it under my tongue and give it to her later. i didn't want to mess up the system.

anna was watching me drizzle the medicine on my tongue, exasperated. "i have other places to be," she told me wearily.

"sorry," i said. "i'm in no hurry." i popped the yellow one in my mouth quickly, shifted it into position. faked swallowing.

anna smiled. she was so relieved to be done with me, she didn't even check my mouth. i spit the yellow one out and put it into a kleenex. i gathered the edges of the kleenex up so it folded like one of those nets full of mints that you get at wedding receptions. i hid it in my drawer.

i had trouble sleeping. when anna discovered this she started bringing two yellows in my cup. it was harder to hide them both, but i managed. she had other places to be. she had other systems to ruin. i didn't like anna any more. i wanted to bite her too.

i couldn't hate her, though, because after two weeks she brought Noelle to visit just like she promised. Noelle looked very upset.

"you're going home," she told me.

"what?" i yelled. i hoped we weren't starting this again.

"i heard the nurses in the med room," Noelle was almost crying. "your parents are coming to pick you up on saturday."

today was thursday. "but nobody told me!"

"because they knew you bit sandy on purpose." Noelle's eyes were shiny. "i appreciate that, but it's pointless." one tear slid down her cheek. "i told you you weren't really crazy."

"girls," anna broke in, "i have other places to be."

"then be there!" Noelle yelled. "we're not doing anything but talking." i had already taken my meds. i took the yellow one this time because i couldn't hide it while talking. i was feeling sleepy already.

anna took the plastic med cup and waddled to the door. "i'll be back in fifteen minutes," she told us.

"fifteen minutes," Noelle echoed. then she looked back at me sadly. "the system is going to be all messed up."

"it's already messed up. they make me take a yellow now."

"quit calling them by their color," Noelle said irritably. "it's called a nembutal."
"what's it do?"

"you know what it does. it makes you feel too tired to be crazy. and then you think that maybe if you sleep it off you'll wake up sane."

"i didn't take them, though. i didn't want to mess up the system."

"what?" Noelle looked incredulous.

"she doesn't check." i pointed to the door.

"what did you do with them?"

"they're right here," i said, pulling them from their drawer.

Noelle eyed the bulging kleenex. "it looks like one of those mint things they give you at weddings."

i was ecstatic that she noticed. "yeah, it kinda does."

we didn't know what to do. we just looked at the kleenex, dangling from my fingers. finally Noelle cleared her throat.

"i'm going to miss you," she said.

"me too."

"i love you," she said.

"me too," i said calmly, but my heart was racing.

"i don't want you to go."

"i don't want to go. maybe i can bite anna and stay for another few weeks."

"it won't work," Noelle said solemnly. "they're onto you." she reconsidered. "but you could have fun trying."

"what do we do, then?" i asked. suddenly the kleenex-bag felt very, very heavy. i let it drop into my lap. we both looked at it at the same time.
"will that work?" i asked hoarsely.

"how many are there?" she poked at the pills. "fifteen. yeah, that'll work. seven and a half each."

i divided the pills into two little mounds. the last one stayed in the kleenex. i began to unscrew the first capsule. Noelle stopped me.

"we don't have time," she said. "she'll be back in fifteen minutes." Noelle popped them into her mouth one after another, until all seven were gone. it was strange to see her put aside her insanity for just one moment in order to do something utterly insane.

i followed suit, and only the last pill remained. Noelle reached for it several times before sucessfully gripping it. she began to unscrew the capsule and tried to pour exactly half on her tongue. unfortunately the drugs seemed to be working already and she let all of it drizzle in. i knew exactly how she felt. i flopped back onto the stiff pillow.

"whoops," she whispered. her voice sounded far away, like i was hearing it over a cordless phone. "i know what to do."

she fell on top of me in a woozy embrace and pressed her mouth to mine. i could taste the medicine on her tongue. it was the last thing i ever tasted. it was the best thing i ever tasted.