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Yesterday, Sunday, was my rest day.
I woke at about 6.30, the usual start time of a working day – my brain has been quick to learn and enforce it – but after a moment of panic and confusion, I wallowed in the wonderful realisation that today, no one would ask anything of me at all. I turned over the stuffy pillow and felt the cool side embrace my face as I landed on it. I waited for the brick wall of sleep to hit me.
The power had gone out. I could tell because the ceiling fan, spinning above my head was buzzing gently, a noise which means its running off the solar power reserves it accrues during the day. I became aware of a choir of dogs that had started outside, their every bark inviting another and another to join until it was a veritable cacophony. Just like a solo, lead violin might propose a motif to the rest of the orchestra; the sweeping strings, resonant brass and crashing percussion would come thundering back in response. It seemed to me that these canine virtuosos were composing a symphony. My veil of somnolent drowsiness lifted and the noise proved, now that I was aware of it, a fairly impenetrable barrier back to sleep.
R was shouting downstairs.
The dogs grew tired of their recital and things quieted down again. Or I eventually zoned out and sleep simply overcame the din. Either way, I wasn´t awake again until around 10. I had planned to make the 90-minute journey to Bocachica, in the East of the city, out past Las Americas airport, where I first arrived in Santo Domingo only a few, both momentary and eternal, weeks ago. This small outskirt town is built around an idyllic stretch of white sand with warm crystal turquoise water and is frequented by tourists and locals alike. It is awash with picnicking families sitting on plastic chairs at plastic tables under beer-endorsed parasols, and snack sellers, charging tourists who are universally labelled ´Americanos´ at least double what anyone would pay anywhere else. A number of all-inclusive resorts face out on the beautiful Caribbean sea and smile at Venezuela and its South American friends somewhere across the water. The beach bars and shacks blare out Bachata music and couples dance together, following eachother`s flowing movements with natural intuition and innately choreographed steps.
After a modest breakfast and owing to the extortionate price of beach food (25 pounds for a plate of Spaghetti Bolognese if they really hit you) I decided would eat lunch in El Ara and leave in the early afternoon. I would eat in the other ´hogar´ or house, the one I don´t work in. When I arrived at the table for food, the others had started eating. Indeed, R had finished.
R is not wheelchair bound, he only really ever uses one to get around on longer journeys or excursions. His legs are thin and his knees nobbly and swollen. He does not use them very much. Walking is done for the greater part by way of his arms and upper body; dragging, lifting or pulling himself along. As a result of years of such a daily physical regime, R has an incredible amount of force. He was a young boy when he first came to the community, and is now in his late 20s. R is at most times incredibly kind, gentle and affectionate towards everybody; he has bright eyes, a toothy grin, and a wicked laugh. He can however become extremely violent, and is, in such moments, as much a victim of them as anyone else.
As I sat at the table, I passed my plate across and watched hungrily as it was heaped with a mix of rice and fried banana, chicken and sauce and delicious fresh avocado. R swung his big eyes over to the assistant sitting next to him who had done the cooking, C. He picked up his plate and pushed it forward, asking for more. C had, I think, already told him that there was none, and did so again. R took a second to consider this, during which other conversations continued. He picked up his plate, and tapping it, shoved it again at the assistant. C shoved the plate back and told him again there was no more.
R´s eyebrows furrowed, and he spoke louder this time, cutting through the other conversations and tapping his plate more forcibly with a large, muscular finger. While we were still waiting for people to finish, R slipped off his chair and pulled himself along towards the kitchen. C was up and beat him to it, blocking the door and raising his voice as well now.
R put his hand up to his mouth and bit it hard. It is a hand covered in marks and scars. It bled, and he shouted at C who stood still, looking at him. R grabbed C by the shirt and tore at his belt, which broke. C had recently lost a gold chain and 4 shirts to such cajoling and this seemed to be a final frustrating straw. He shoved R back who sprawled with his hands behind him, and then walked into the kitchen, shutting the metal gate which separates the two spaces. R pressed up against the bars and took off his own belt and, folding it, began to whip at the door, and at C.
The rest of us still sat relatively calmly at the table, waiting for everyone to finish eating, quietly observant. Another assistant was warning R to calm down but R would not. He kept lunging and pushing his arm through the bars, biting his hand violently.`R, calm down or you know that we will have to inject you´. I had heard that R is sometimes given a sedative, so that he cannot hurt others or himself when he becomes violent. He had, during one outburst, destroyed the wardrobe in his room with his bare fists. Though I had not yet seen him so violent, I had seen him in the post-injection state: one of stuporous incapacity, where the beginnings of thoughts and movements seem to crawl towards fruition, but are blocked out.
Still R would not calm down and C came back out from the kitchen equally enraged and frustrated and the two bellowed at each other. R hit at him with powerful fists which C pushed back. He howled and bit himself again before launching at the assistant with furious eyes and open mouth, trying to clamp teeth around his wrist.
Then C did something which shocked me a lot, but that anyone might have done without hesitation had they been in his place, fatigued by months of exhausting long days, overcome with frustration at this irrational situation and the lack of any sort of time or possibility to just retreat into private space and calm down. He kicked him in the face.
Another assistant got up and came to intervene, but R was still wildly lunging and shouting, biting his bloodied hand, now raising fists and spilling threats at the new assistant. He calmly warned R to be extremely careful. In no uncertain terms this meant the injection. The injection was indeed where we were headed.
We found ourselves a short while later flat on the floor. R was pinned on his back, under C. I came across to hold his left arm, and held his head down on a pillow, so he could not force it up and bite at C´s face or hands. Another assistant held his right. We leaned on with full weight, and still R would wriggle free at times or else manage a lunge with open mouth and chomping teeth. Our bodies trembled statically with the opposing forces. We three held him like so for some time, waiting for someone to arrive with the injection. R´s face was glimmering with sweat, my t-shirt was soaked, and as I held his forehead it was slippery and it was impossible to tell whose sweat was on whose body. Veins bulged on the brink of explosion on R´s neck and you could feel the anger and the pain pulsating through him.
He would scream and shout and still we waited for the assistant. Eventually he came, and a sort of automatic protocol run down took place, where everyone seemed, with regret and fatigue, to know their role. The recent arrival now steadied R´s head on the pillow and spoke to him. He had known R for years, and was able to calm him enough so that he lay still. This assistant steadied R´s face with his leg, blocking him from seeing the needle go into his left shoulder. The rest of us still held on.
He screamed, but knew there was nothing to be done. His pupils flew about wildly from side to side as if he had just come off a play-park roundabout. A minute or two later we climbed off wearily. R pulled himself up and went again towards C, but was blocked from him by the newly arrived assistant. He pummelled his giant fist into his fleshy palm but the assistant passed this off lightly, lowering himself to eye level and putting his hands on R´s face said “He´s got two fists too you know, you can´t fight him”.
About 20 minutes went by, and R became quieter. The rage which had so consumed him seemed to become hazy and confused. He moved towards different people or raised his fist towards them. You, then you, then you, then me. He sat an arm´s length from C now, oblivious of him, enraged by someone else.
He sat on the sofa next to the assistant who had been last to arrive, and when would begin to lean forward or raise a menacing finger, his neighbour would lean across his bulky frame and ease it gently back to the sofa. His raised finger would hang in the air like that of a politician considering the next line of his speech to an expectant crowd, but the words would desert him. His mouth hung slightly open, eyes glassy. There was still some distant remnant of anger there but he was unable to transmit it. His movements were sluggish and lazy. He raised his finger to his mouth and began to suck it. He didn´t speak anymore.
The scene reminded me eerily of A Clockwork Orange. To see this unstoppable violence swell over R and consume him, and to see him carried away by it. Like seeing a violent wave crashing over someone swimming in the shallows, sending them tumbling and turning and spinning. There was, almost from the onset of that sequence of events, no way of stopping it. Like trying to hold back an ocean with your hands.
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