Bipolarland, Texas part 20

 18

We need a hiding place until this all blows over, as it's sure to be in the news. So Geoff drives us to Channelview, to Zygmunt's parents' house. Zyg is already there; I called him on Geoff's cell phone. He opens the garage door for us and we drive in. Zyg immediately closes the garage door. “My parents will hide you. They won't tell. They're nice Aspie types,” he says. Meaning people with Asperger's Syndrome like Zyg. And their Aspie obsession, thanks to Zyg telling them all about our mental health projects, is mental health rights.

We hide in the garage. Nobody at the HCPC knows Zyg's last name; apparently they only had to give their first names when they visited. So they won't find us here. Oh, wait! They will! I signed a paper with Zyg's full name on it to disclose information to him. So they do know his last name. We need to think of another hiding place FAST! I open my mouth to tell them.

“My parents are having some friends over, some other Germans we met,” Zyg says. “You guys'll have to be real quiet.”

And then I hear the front door to the house swing open, and a familiar voice. Where did I hear that voice before? But it can't be Johanna.

I rush to put my ear to the door leading into the kitchen from the garage. There are now about five people in the kitchen, making noise.

As if on cue, Zyg's mom says, “Hans. Traudl. Johanna. Do come in.”

Johanna.

Johanna's parents are friendly and Zyg's parents are awkward, but

Zyg’s parents quickly warm up to Johanna's parents and become friendly too.

And that's when I burst into the kitchen.

“Anne, no!” Tiella moans.

“It's okay!” I say. “I know Johanna! We were in the NPC together!”

Johanna looks like she's seen a ghost. Her parents say some stuff to each other in German. Then Johanna translates: “They said 'Vell, vhat do ve have here?'”

And then we're hugging and crying. I even hug Johanna's parents. I know they won't tell. Johanna's been on the wrong side of the law before. She understands. And her parents are nice, and are now friendly with Johanna. Not to mention with Zyg's parents.

“Time to come out and explain,” I say to the five people still in the garage.

And once I've explained to them about Johanna and Zyg and their families, they do.

We all sit down in the living room and plan what to do next. And catch up on what happened to us after Johanna and I were separated from each other at the NPC. We go to Johanna's parents' place because it's safer; they won't find us there.

Johanna's parents have money, as I can see by the mahogany furniture and brocade curtains, carpets and upholstery. They just just bought back her house for her that the Homeowners' Association took away. And she volunteers it for us to hide in, because eventually my family will be questioned by the police, and they know who my friends are and will surely tell them. They'll find us here after a while. But the cops don't know who Zygmunt's family's friends are. Or that I've miraculously stumbled into Johanna. Or even that Johanna and I were patients together in the NPC, let alone friends.

Johanna's and Zyg's parents drive us to Johanna's house in their cars. Geoff comes with us in their car though he has his own truck; my parents know he has that truck and will probably tell the cops, who will put it on the news. If anyone sees it near Johanna's house, we're done for.

Ana Maria is going to have to have her baby here, in the house. God forbid should something happen that sends her and/or her baby to the hospital. But we'll just have to take that chance if something does happen during the birth. She's nine months along. She's ready to burst.

I'm afraid to call my other friends in my apartment from Johanna's house in case the line is tapped and/or the cops can trace the call to here. So Johanna promises she'll go to a costume shop and get us wigs and glasses and colored contact lenses and shoes with stilts inside them and new clothes and fake beards and mustaches and makeup and even lifelike prosthetic noses. Then we'll be able to go out in Johanna's car, which her parents also bought her, and use a payphone to call Sarah and Jules and meet them somewhere public (we'll use code words like “the place we stole the thing from”). Then they'll stay with us until this all blows over. Then ALL of us will go to Lubbock and seek help from Elton's friends. “One of them is a peer support worker at a mental health peer support place,” Elton says.

Jakub, according to Geoffrey, moved away from the “drama,” never to return.

And I don't give a fuck.

I have Geoffrey.

“Shall I go to Catholic Charities to get some lawyers for you?” Jules asks.

“It's too risky. We don't want you to get caught,” I say at once.

The others nod.

“Okay,” Jules says.

“How are we going to get to Lubbock?” Bethany asks.

“In my car,” Johanna says.

“It's too small for all of us!” Tiella exclaims. “Who's going to stay behind?”

“We'll take two trips. We'll call you guys here from there when we arrive,” Geoff says. “I'll drive both groups.”

“I'll prepare a statement for the press,” I hear myself say. “We need to get our stories out about how we're being abused by the psychiatric system. We can mail it to all the news channels and newspapers we know of. Local, national... international. We'll just find a mailbox far away and drop it in, and no return address, of course.”

She's having contractions. And bleeding. Something is very wrong. She isn't supposed to bleed until after the baby is born.

Oh, God. We need to get to Lubbock NOW.

“Me not get to Lubbock,” Ana says. “Baby be born in car.”

Then screw that plan. We're going to have to take her to Ben Taub. Since her pregnancy was high risk due to her medication, she couldn't be followed at the illegal immigrants' clinic in Pasadena. She was instead followed at Ben Taub.

And then Ana says she can't go to Ben Taub, and tells her story.

“Me is bipolar. Me feel like because me is bipolar me might harm baby. Baby be taken away,” Ana says. “And me be kept long time, years, at state hospital. Doctor at Harris County say so.”

Suddenly, Tiella says, “We waited to tell you so that you’d help us. I know a place we can stay where we’ll be safe. But before I tell you all about it, I need you to help me sneak Ana Maria out of the hospital after she has her baby if she needs to go.”

TIELLA, blackmailing us?

Well, I might have done the same in her situation.

“How bipolar are you?” I ask Ana. “At any rate, we can help you take care of the baby.”

“Anne, she needs to go to the hospital or her baby will die,” Geoffrey says. “I'll drive her. The rest of you stay here.”

“No,” I say. “We're coming. We're not going to let her be locked up and her baby be taken away.”

“Anne, it's too dangerous!”

“Ve have guns,” Johanna said. “Ve stay together. Ve go in vith Ana and protect her and her baby. Ve hold the doctor and the nurse hostage vhen doctor ready to deliver the baby. Then ve release them and run to my car.”

“Guys, we can't kill people!” Zygmunt explodes. “Isn't there any pepper spray left?”

“Not enough,” Geoff says. “Those things were small. And we obviously don't have time to order more. And if we're lucky we won't have to kill anyone. Ana's life and liberty are at stake here!”

“Ana's liberty, not her life,” Zyg says. “The people at the hospital are innocent people.”

“Ana and her baby are innocent people too,” Bethany supplies. “And how innocent are the people at the hospital if they turn her in?”

“They might not turn her in!” Zyg argues. “And we can try to get Ana out of the state hospital by other means, later!”

“Is that a chance you're willing to take?” Bethany shoots back. “As far as I'm concerned, Ana's life is in danger. Someone's permanent liberty is their life. It's not like they're just keeping her for two weeks or even two months or even two years. Ana, how long did the doctor say you would be at the state hospital?”

Ana just shakes her head and grimaces as another contraction comes.

“Your car is too small for all of us,” Elton says.

“Ve'll make excuses and borrow my parents' car,” Johanna says. “Then ve drive to other place and get other cars, and drive to Lubbock.”

“Where will we get the other cars?” I ask in a panic.

“We could rent a bus,” Tiella says. “And hide it on a different street, then drive onto that street and run out after Ana has the baby and get on the bus and go.”

“It's the best idea so far. Still risky, but the alternative is worse. We're not abandoning any of our friends,” I say. “We're in this together.”

“Waitaminute,” Zyg says. “Exactly why did the doctor want to hospitalize Ana Maria indefinitely?”

“They afraid me be Andrea Yates,” Ana says miserably. “But me no be Andrea Yates. Me only say me scared me be angry at baby.”

Andrea Yates. The lady who drowned her five kids in a bathtub right here in Houston because she had postpartum depression and psychosis.

“That's ridiculous,” I say.

Geoffrey puts on his disguise-- a fake beard, a fake mustache, and a wig of long light brown hair that he puts over his short dark brown hair. Then he adds glasses with lenses that are just basically windows-- no prescription, meant just for style. Johanna went to a costume shop and bought us all disguises.

Then Geoffrey and Johanna, who's wearing a wig of wavy black hair over her straight blonde hair and lipstick to make her lips look bigger and boots with stilts in them to make her look even taller, get in Johanna's car and they drive over to rent the bus.

We're all on edge, thinking they won't come back. We wait forever.

Then the door crashes open.

But it's not the front or back door. It's the door to the kitchen from the garage. And Johanna and Geoff emerge, smiling.

“I parked the bus a few streets over from Ben Taub,” Geoff says. “Now let's get in the cars and go.”

Then it dawns on me that we could get shot. I could get shot.

I can't do this.

“I can't do this,” I say.

“If I can do it, so can you. You talked me into doing something risky; now it's my turn to talk you into something risky,” Bethany says.

“How many guns do you have?” I ask, coming round.

“Six,” Johanna says. “I go get them from my parents' place vhen they go out.”

“When are they going out?” I ask.

“I valked over in my disguise this morning. They are going to check on Zygmunt's family to see if they're okay.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“Can Ana and her baby wait that long?”

“They'll have to,” Johanna says.

Then Ana gives a gasp and passes out.

Geoffrey speeds all the way to Ben Taub in the truck with Ana slumped unconscious next to him. The rest of us, except Zygmunt, the conscientious objector, follow in Johanna's car. There is no time to get the guns, except for the one Johanna has, her little pistol she has a concealed carry license for. Geoffrey has it. And it has a silencer, which is great.

They take Ana in immediately. They don't let any of us into the room they're working on her in. Then they come out and tell us we can go upstairs and see her and her baby in the obstetrics intake unit on the third floor.

So up we go in the elevator. We find her room. And stop short.

There's a policeman outside her door.

He asks for ID. We all rummage in our pockets as he watches us suspiciously and reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. Geoff reaches into his pocket too. And then there's a gun pointed into the policeman's eye.

And then the cop is on the floor, blood running off his face, out of his hollowed eye socket.

He didn't even get time to shout, or press one number on his phone.

Why am I not more shocked? Or maybe the numbness I feel, the lack of shock, is shock. I don't know. I'm confused.

“Get Ana!”

Geoff is not wasting any time.

Ana is awake, all alone in a private room with her baby, holding the sleeping baby wrapped in a blanket wearing a little white hat with a blue ribbon tied around the end, so I guess it's a boy, but I don't even have time to actually ask what sex it is. Tiella and I help her out of bed. She looks like she can't believe it. She clutches her baby.

We help her out of her hospital gown and back into her clothes.

“Get the body in here!” Geoff hisses as he stands guard just inside the door, invisible to the outside, pistol at the ready. Elton and Teresa yank the body in and Tiella and I rush to wet some towels in the room's bathroom and mop up the blood.

We throw the body into the bathroom and close the door. Then we're off. I hand Ana Maria her baby.

“HEY!” someone shouts.

I suddenly hear a little voice in my head. I know it's in my head, but it speaks to me as clear as if I heard it with my ears. It goes like this: Don't look back, or you're dead!

Killing a cop is capital murder. Geoff had better not get caught. At least we're wearing our disguises.

We keep walking. We surround Ana and her baby so that the staff don't see her. We make it to the doors leading off the unit.

And stop.

The doors won't open.

“Do you need out?”

It's all I can do not to jump. I then process the words: “Do you need out?”

I sigh with relief, but quietly.

“Yes, we need out,” I hear myself say. “Oooooh, I still can't believe it, it's a boy!”

The lady smiles at us and buzzes us out from behind the desk.

I feel I deserve an Oscar for my acting.

We take the stairs. We run. Nobody's in the stairwell; good. We make it to the first floor. We walk right past a security guard, who says, “Whoa, slow down.” Oops; we're walking too fast. “Sorry,” we mutter, and we slow down. We're still surrounding Ana so that nobody sees her. Just in case. Not that we're even going out the same door we came in through.

We get to the parking lot, then slow down. We walk in the direction of the Houston Zoo. That's where the bus is parked, Geoff said. I look towards where Geoff— was. He isn't there any more. I look around.

He isn't with us.

“If we get in that bus we could get shot,” I hear Elton say. “They know now that Geoff had a gun. They probably found the body. And they probably think we have guns too.”

“Yeah, there'll be a high-speed chase,” Tiella says.

“We could also die during the chase, you know,” Bethany says. “The bus could turn over into a ditch.”

We stop. We look around. Police cars are speeding toward the hospital with their sirens blaring.

“It's too dangerous for the baby,” I hear myself say.

I break away from the group, tear off my disguise, put my hands in the air and walk toward the cops as they park in the parking lot.

And the others follow me.