Glenn and the Strange World of Sleep

Posted on October 11, 2005 in Travel - Conferences

When you travel on a scholarship to a national mental health conference, to save money the sponsoring organization will bestow a roommate upon you. Some are demons who pitchfork every rule, eviscerate every common decency, and then lose their temper when you stand up for yourself. Occasionally you get an angel whose entry and exit flutters by so softly that you could almost believe that you have the room to yourself. And then there is Glenn who was neither. Glenn was just himself.

I won’t speak of Glenn’s positive or negative qualities. Rather, I shall attempt to write about the synthesis that results from Glenn being Glenn. I’d have him as a roommate again. He was easy to work with. And his idiosyncracies made me laugh.

Glenn’s shorter than I am by nearly a foot. He walked around in Fort Worth’s fifty degree weather wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. (None of us had thought to bring sweaters. After all this was Texas.) His bad hip did not prevent him from walking from the hotel into downtown Fort Worth and back. The only indication he gave that he was suffering was his slower pace. Gay, another DBSAer from Southern California, and I either stopped to wait for him or slowed our pace. Glenn did not complain, though we urged him to do something for himself about his damaged hip.

On our first night in Fort Worth, Glenn fell asleep on his bed with the television control in his hand. Now and then, his thumb would twitch, changing the channel. I waited until this technique found something I liked and then gingerly removed the control so I could watch it uninterrupted.

When the program finished, I called Lynn to tell her the number of the hotel. As I read it off the stationery, Glenn repeated each number:

“Eight,” I said.

“Eight” said Glenn.

“One.”

“One.”

“Seven.”

“Seven.”

And so on through the seven remaining digits of the number. Then I said “We’re in Room 805.”

“Room 805,” said Glenn. He paused for a few seconds. “That’s our room.” I glanced over at him, barely able to restrain a choking laugh. My roomate lay slightly over the side of the bed, almost falling. His eyes were shut and his mouth half open. His glasses teetered on the edge of his nose. My man was deep in his own skull and he snored. I let him be.

The next day, I told him about his echolalic behavior. He tilted his head forward and adopted a serious look. What had caused it? Should he tell his psychiatrist? Was a new era of lunacy dawning. Glenn, Gay and I assured him, it was probably nothing. Just a ghost from the strange world of sleep.