This story set is after the “Homeless Shelter in Place” story list, but before the “memories of Brooklyn story. When i was writing my last story, jogged by Facebook memories, I thought about what a crazy couple of years it’s been, and couldn't’ believe I had never written about Wards Island.
The pandemic was rough on a lot of us, and it was especially rough on me, given I was homeless and addicted to inhalants, and whatever other intoxicants i could get my hands on. Somehow I did get off the street in the spring of 2020, and I landed in the nicest psychiatric hospital I’ve ever been in. I was in New York Presbyterian westchester for 2 months from may to july 2020. The brilliant doctor deduced that I had medication resistant bi-polar depression and recommended ElectroConvulsive Therapy. So there I was getting my brain electrocuted a series of 15 times over the course of a few months, and watching Grateful Dead videos on the hospital ipads. ECT isn’t that scary, though, you’re on propofol. My love for propofol is well documented (by me, on this blog).
ECT was helpful I think, but it didn’t help the fact that I was homeless. So when I was “cured” I still had nowhere to go.
I ended up on the dreaded “wards island”. Wards island is some kind of complex of homeless shelters and mental hospitals, on the end of the 35 bus that goes from 125th and Lexington in East Harlem. While 125th and lex is the most fucked up place in the city (that I've seen) , wards island is a close second.
When I got dropped off there it was pouring rain, and I didn’t have anything but the clothes on my back and a few donated articles of clothing in a paper NYP bag. I had gotten one of my stimulus checks while hospitalized, so I had the iphone 6s that I had ordered for me in the psych ward. I was back on the digital grid, and pretty optimistic about life, despite being in a place that would scare most of you to death. I wasn’t as afraid as I was disgusted. For some reason I was in a decent head space, in the bottom of the New York barrel.
The way I see it, there are two islands in NYC you don’t want to end up on: wards, and Rikers.
The Schwartz Building on wards island is a giant homeless shelter, with huge rooms full of beds and no air conditioning. It was hot, and smelled like you’d expect homeless people to smell like. Stinky shit hole. There were no covid precautions, despite the fact that it was still a pre vaccine NYC covid epicenter shit show. It’s a wonder that I didn't get sick in there.
Ambulances were coming all the time, as people were dropping dead from opiate overdoses everywhere. Everyone was smoking that K2 synthetic cannabinoid, semi PCP shit and freaking out all over the place. If you aren’t from New York, you probably don’t know what K2 is, but its prevalent everywhere here, even though you can just literally smoke pot. I will never forget sitting in the big TV room before going out for the day, and a man in front of me casually turned his head and projectile vomited that white stuff that comes from the android’s mouth in the “Alien” franchise, like it was nothing.
I was just happy to be free from the very covid restricted hospital, with about 500$ and a phone to walk around the city listening to spotify, and catching up with everyone. Using drugs was the furthest thing from my mind at that time, and it’s pretty wild that I didn’t get high . I was sleeping in a full on heroin shooting gallery at night. I didn’t want to be there, and i spent my days walking around New York, sober and wide eyed, smoking as many Newport's as I wanted.
Life is funny, though. I got a call from a woman that worked at my insurance company, who said she was my case worker. She told me about a way off of wards island. She was like some guardian angel on the other side of the phone, who told me to go to a program on 121st street in Harlem called Odyssey house, where I ended up until April of 2021. I need to look back in my emails and get her name (i cant remember, because I'm an asshole), she had my back for the next whole year.
I was thinking of piecing together the whole covid experience, and wards island is definitely part of it. I don’t think I’ll get at the 10 months at Odyssey house yet, maybe if the whole pandemic story comes together it will be interesting. I lived some shit that is pretty remarkable, i think.
honestly, i’m just glad to be writing again… like i used to, hopefully i can keep it up, and dig into all the stories i have to tell.
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