Clown Cheeks

I'll admit it. I've been to the psych ward.

The scariest part about the psych ward was that the doors didn't lock. You're trapped in with dozens of crazies, and there's no place to hide. At night, I found myself having trouble falling asleep because I knew my door was wide open. Anyone could have wandered in and woke me up, or worse....

I was particularly afraid of this one guy who was supposedly a drug dealer. It had been rumored that he'd made a bad deal and had been tortured for it with a hot coat hanger. He'd been tortured all right. He scared me. He liked to stare at me.

But most of the people in there was just pathetic. There was one girl who wouldn't stop giggling. A guy who was always crying.

I can't believe I made it out. But what's even more shocking is the way I got out. My psychiatrist believed that if a woman was wearing make-up, she was psychologically fit.

One day, I was minding my own business, avoiding the smokers who stood together around the picnic table. I had just had a rousing walk around the fenced-in compound, and a fellow inmate told me, "Be sure to put on your make-up. It's the only way Dr. Sanders will let you out of here."

"No," I said.

"Yes. He feels that if a woman has the wherewithal to apply her make-up, she must be sane."

"But I can think of many sane women who don't wear make-up." I made a mental list: my economics professor from Oberlin, the woman who took my money at my favorite gas station, my next door neighbor, the librarian at the Stow Public Library...

"Doesn't matter," she said. "That's his litmus test."

Dr.