At first glance, they could be almost any group of women in any institutional lounge or day room--college students, staff personnel, or patients in any medical hospital. But on closer examination, differences become apparent. Bodies slump just a shade more than you've ever seen bodies slump before. Flesh seems to respond more to gravity than to muscle and bone. Even the youngest and most slender of the women--and there are lots of young women here--have the beginnings of pot bellies. There's a general impression of poor or missing teeth, of eyes that don't focus properly, of clothes worn so sloppily they look like hand-me-downs from some undetermined era.

And then there are the scars. Nearly every body shows some sign of physical abuse. Some bodies are battlegrounds.

One body separates itself from the rest--a skinny teenager with a limp. She approaches quickly and, cupping her hand around her mouth, whispers a single word: "Help!"

She looks no more than fourteen, and she's shaking. "I'm nervous and upset," she explains. "I'm nervous and upset because I'm in this place. It's driving me crazy!"

She smiles. Her name is Gloria, and she's not fourteen but nineteen. She's been on Ward 81 ever since what she calls her "accident."

"I threw myself out of a fourth-floor window."

Physically, she says, she's never been the same since, and she's scared she never will be. She's afraid she may never be free of Ward 81.

"Most women, after they leave 81, they come back," she says. "They're institutionalized. They've been behind barred windows and bolted doors, in locked rooms too long.

"I hate the bars on the windows," she sighs. "They're there to keep people like me from jumping out. But I hate them anyway."

The windows on Ward 81 are covered by lengths of steel diamond-grid wire mesh that looks like cyclone fencing. They're not bars, but they serve the same purpose, and that's what the women call them.

"Look!" a strong voice booms out. "A beautiful black crow just flew by this window. I love those birds when they come flying by and nestle in the trees. They're so cute! But I'm gonna close the curtains. I don't want to see the birds through bars. If I can't be out in nature's beauty, I don't want to see it!

"You're real lucky," she continues, "'cause I'm gonna tell you all about Ward 81. You know, yesterday I wrote a poem about freedom. I was gonna read it to you. But I decided not to, 'cause freedom doesn't have any meaning in a nut house!"

Her name is Mary, and everything about her is exaggerated--the heavy makeup, the strong perfume, the scarf that glitters on her head, the loud rapid-fire voice. She's a natural performer, dominating her space on the ward. She came to Ward 81 two and a half years ago, after being in a fire of questionable origin.

Mary is in her mid-thirties, and this is not her first bout with a mental institution. That began more than a dozen years ago. Somewhere outside is a husband she can't remember, and two teenage children she hasn't seen for years.

"Hey, want to see pictures of me and my children?" She produces old snapshots of two small children being held by a woman. The woman's head is cut out of all the photographs.

"Mother looks better that way," she laughs. "Ward 81 is not a fun place. Someone might visit and say, 'Hey, this place isn't so bad.' But try living for two and a half years with only woman company in a nut house!"

"Ward 81 is where I met Mary," another voice says very softly, "so there's a good side to everything."

Grace is a gentle-looking girl, as soft as her voice, and so quiet as to be almost invisible. But wherever Mary is, Grace is sure to be close by. She's in her early twenties and has been a patient on Ward 81 for about a year. She is an unmistakable leftover from the hippie days of the sixties. A great mane of dark hair adorns her head and frequently falls across her soft, vulnerable face. Mary patiently brushes it out of Grace's eyes as she would a child's.

"I love Mary because she's so pretty," Grace declares, "and because she's a good and loyal friend. I trust her because she loves me, and because, well, she hugs me a lot."

"No matter where you're at," says Mary, "if you have someone who loves you, you can get by. I'd hate to be on Ward 81 alone."

The relationship between Mary and Grace is obvious to everyone on the ward. The aides, who spend more time on the ward than any other hospital personnel, including doctors and nurses, are not pleased by their closeness. They would like very much to separate the two. The other patients rarely bat an eye. But sometimes they're a little surprised at the conversations between Mary and Grace.

"Grace is my tomcat," Mary laughs, "though I think he's trying to be a tiger. Right, Grace? See, I got me a good man now. I don't have to do all the dirty work myself. If I need someone to help me, I just call on Grace and he'll be right beside me."

"Mary, when we get out of here," Grace promises, "I'm gonna take you out to a steak dinner twice a week."

"That's acting like a man," says Mary. "Grace has given me all his love. What more could a woman ask? Who else could I trust in a women's ward?"

"You're...a...guy! You're not...a woman...You're a guy!" The slow, deliberate words are aimed at Grace by a fierce woman with an intense face, Henrietta, the most feared and respected person on the ward. She is labeled "combative and strong" by the staff, and everyone who sets foot on 81 is warned about her. She has been known to slug people who make her angry. She keeps her distance from most of the patients, though, speaking to them very rarely. The sound of her voice is enough to turn tomcat Grace back into a timid pussycat, and even the indomitable Mary is unnerved enough to move herself and Grace away from Henrietta.

Henrietta looks different from the other women on Ward 81. She has a sense of dignity, something rare on the ward. Her nails are always polished, her mouth lipsticked to match. She primps in front of one mirror or another, adjusting her clothes, fussing with her hair, applying and reapplying lipstick. Henrietta is obsessed with trying to escape. She will lurk in her doorway hour after hour, all of her earthly possessions in a pillowcase, her eyes glued firmly on the security door of Ward 81--the only door on the ward that leads outside. Anyone entering or exiting by that door has got to keep an eye peeled for Henrietta's surprisingly swift body. So far, she hasn't escaped, though she's commented to herself several times, "Nice try."

The only other patient who repeatedly attempts to escape is Jane, an eighteen-year-old who spends most of her day either sleeping or scheming to get out. She is fresh-faced and lovely, but like most of the patients here, physically marred. One eye doesn't quite focus, and in times of stress, it tends to cross.

According to Jane, she's only here for 180 days of observation, but she's not too sure of her release at the end of that time. But then, she's not too sure why she's here at all. "I guess my family had troubles," she says vaguely. "They couldn't handle me."

Jane was a runaway, trying to be "somebody" and dropping a lot of acid along the way. "When I was thirteen," she remembers, "the police took me away from home to foster homes, to see if I'd like them. I didn't." She wound up here on Ward 81.

Despite her troubles with the outside world, Jane wants nothing more than to reenter it, and as soon as possible. She petitions for release at any meeting assembled for any reason. She is one of the few patients who persist in using a lawyer to try to regain their freedom. Her dream is to get to California "with two guys on 83"--83 is a neighboring male security ward.

"One guy has five dollars, and the other has twenty-three hundred. That'll make it for a motel.

"When we get there, I'll try to get a job or something. I want to be a model--a model, or a secretary--'cause I like clothes--cords, jeans, outfits. Don't have no money to get me clothes. Can I get a job if I didn't finish high school? I don't know if I finished or not."

There's a teacher who instructs several teenagers on Ward 81 during the week. The basics--reading, writing and arithmetic--are taught. Jane carries around a notebook in which she occasionally appears to be working out arithmetic problems, but she works for only a few minutes at a time. She sometimes reads MY WEEKLY READER, a periodical for primary-school children, but that again is only for a few minutes at a time. Her lack of fundamental skills would be shocking on the outside. But in here, it's a condition she shares with most of the patients.

"If I could really be anything I wanted to be," says Dixie, the youngest patient of them all, "I'd be a doctor and help people. But I don't want to go back to school. The other kids make fun of me 'cause I don't know how to read."

Dixie is red-haired and spunky. Her body is marked from head to toe with scars.

"Today is my birthday," she announces. "What a place to spend your fifteenth birthday!"

On this ward, nearly everything Dixie does meets with approval. She is everybody's darling, and--provided you are not an aide or some goody-goody patient who plays up to the staff--you are likely to be her darling as well.

"Shock treatments this morning," Dixie says. "You get them when you cut yourself. That's when they gave them to me. Look at me! I'm all cut up!"

She unwinds a bandage around her leg to reveal a deep wound, not very old. "If you think that's bad, look over here where I got shot by a bow and arrow," she says, delivering up the rest of her body for viewing. "I was shot by a gun here, and I have brain damage from being in three bad wrecks and a fire. I broke all my ribs and my leg. My leg was cut off--almost. Wanna see?"

Many of Dixie's wounds are self-inflicted. To use ward language, she "cuts" herself. This act is not unique on the ward. Many of the women are here because of self-destructive acts. Most patients injure themselves while on the ward.

"Come out and sing with me," Dixie calls to Ellen.

"Don't make much difference," Ellen calls back. But it does to Dixie, who finally wins the shouting match with a threat to go in and get her. Into the TV room comes a frail woman who looks like an ancient little girl. Now in her forties, though she looks closer to sixty, Ellen has been institutionalized for thirty years, longer than any other patient on the ward.

Dixie sets the fragile woman on her lap, urging Ellen to sing her favorite song, "Three Blind Mice."

"Blind?" says Ellen. "Almost blind. Don't know what's the matter with Ellen, anyway. Don't know how old Ellen is. Gettin' fat, too."

Instead of "Three Blind Mice," Ellen sings "Jesus Loves Me."

"You're cute, Ellen," Dixie insists. "Isn't she cute?"

"Cute, indeed," comments Ellen. "Oh, my head! The shot machines (shock therapy machines)! Oh, the visions! I'm gonna be locked up for the rest of my life. Ward 81 is where I'm gonna be locked up forever."

From the TV room, Henrietta watches with fascination as Ellen shuffles her way down the corridor to her room. Much that happens to Ellen fascinates her. Ten or fifteen years ago, Ellen contracted tuberculosis in the hospital. In order to keep her still, she was kept in "restraints," kept strapped to her bed for three years. That, plus weekly shock treatments and medication four times a day have made Ellen a "dud"--a totally passive person. Ellen's been confined for ten years longer than Henrietta. Henrietta fears she may become just like Ellen in another decade.

Once Ellen's inside her room, Henrietta does not return to TV gazing with the rest of the women. She turns, instead, to a book. She is the only woman on the ward who reads. Her tight body relaxes as she lounges majestically across three pillows, book in hand, and she smiles when you ask her about her reading.

"Hello, hello, hello! I'm Henrietta and she loves to talk. I'm feeling cheery about everything you can think of--damsels and elephants and rhubarb. You're pretty swell. You hit the spot with me.

"I like to read books, all kinds of books, any kind. Little kinds, big kinds, lovey-dovey stories. Kahlil Gibran, he says I love you all the way through, and I love you back. Lovey-dovey. Dovey-lovey."

An aide announces that it's time for medication, and the women slowly line up in front of the ward office to receive their prescribed drugs. Afterward, nearly all of them watch television.

"Ward 81 is Shangri-la, the only place to dedicate my life to living," says Ann, darting up and glaring at a space above everyone's head. Twenty-seven years old, Ann has a wilted, old lady's body and an ageless face. She pauses a moment and then continues, still addressing thin air. "Nobody listens to me, not to one word out of my mouth. I'm never given a chance for anything, and I don't like it. So I'm going to end myself. I did end myself."

She's right. Nobody listens to a word Ann says or pays attention to her at all. Yet all her speeches relate to something actually going on, and occasionally her words make sense. She talks to the walls, the windows, or a spot above your head. Ann wanders over to a window, clutches the steel wire grid that covers it and peers out.

"Finding the way out," she says softly like a plea. "Finding the way out is all I have left. I'm crazy and they lost me in here."

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