Second Life

During Donnie's first week in the mixed unit (drugs and crazy), a girl threw a TV set out the window because she thought it was criticizing her. Donnie walked to the window to look. "Probably was," he mumbled.

- Mona Simpson

He'd grown up with a mother who came alive when insulted. The guy sleeping across the room, who'd dealt heroin with his own now-jailed dad, was woken up by the noise and asked, "Are we dead yet?"

"No. You're just sleeping," Donnie told him, and the boy's eyes closed again; his thin arm, with a tattoo of a serpent, hung over the side of the bed. In the southwest corner of the unit, a girl had turned into a horse. She moved on all fours, neighing. Rearing. You had to walk around her.

Donnie had been terrified when his sister and brother had left him at the hospital, off in a remote wing of the place where their mom had been for years now. The whole first month, the staff wouldn't let him visit her. He didn't want her seeing him like this anyway. He wondered if she knew he was here, or if she still pictured him in the town on the hill, finishing up his sophomore year of college. Instead, they were together in this rundown, not-built-right hospital compound in Norwalk, California, in 1981-the bottom of the world.

All day, he was herded into groups with the other drug people, where they told their stories of how they'd become bad. They allowed Sylvie, his dog, to accompany him. Others talked; Donnie kept quiet. It made sense that he'd ended up here. He'd been aiming at something for a long time he just hadn't understood that this place was the target. He liked being on the same grounds as his mom. Even if she didn't know he was here. Some moments, remembering that she was less than a mile away, he felt safe.