Page 52 - Philly Girl

36 Janice Shapiro

enough. I was saving money for an end-of-summer vacation
with my girlfriends to Hyannis, Massachusetts.
One day the head nurse gave me a new assignment. I was
to take the women—most were diagnosed with “involutional
melancholia”—to their electroshock therapy treatments.
My job was to hold their hands. And to put straps on
their ankles. And to place a padded tongue blade into their
terrified mouths. This was not what I had bargained for at
two dollars an hour, planned vacation or not!
The huge jolt came, and I nearly gagged, fighting the
urge to vomit from the horror of watching my nice, heav-
ily sedated, middle-aged smokers look as if they were being
electrocuted. Which they were, in a way. When it was over,
I helped them into their wheelchairs and took them back to
their rooms. I cried quietly, trying not to let them hear. For
two weeks, the women became total zombies. They couldn’t
remember my name. Now I understood why they all called
me “Hon.”