The Key

My mom and grandmother were out the door, my mom crying and my grandmother crying and the door slammed shut and the key was turned and there I was, 15 and committed to a state mental institution. My mom said that committing me was the hardest thing she had ever done. I always wondered why staying with the man who beat her children, wasn't at the top of that list.

They showed me where I would be sleeping and where I could put the few clothes I brought. ...and then they went back to doing whatever they had been doing and I was alone. In a very scary place. They told me to get to know the other patients. I was scared. Not of the patients, just the whole idea. I wondered what my friends at home were doing. I wondered if the other patients would like me.

Out of the blue, running up and grabbing my arm, dragging me to the side of the room, away from all the others, a Black girl, about 13, Deborah, a schizophrenic, whispered in my ear:

"THEY will tell you it is all about Black and White. The world. The problems. ...but it isn't. It's about who has the key. Don't let them trick you." As I got older I realized it is usually the white person who has the key but still, that stuck with me forever and it, too, is true.

Deborah and I became good friends and stayed friends even after we left the hospital. She was the first person I ever did acid with. ...but then her parents took her away. They moved to another state and I never saw her or heard from her again.

It really is about who has the key. ...the two inches of metal. That is all that separates Them from Us.