The Enfield Marine units — "4’s residents wear jammies 24/7, the…"
#4’s residents wear jammies 24/7, the diapers underneath giving them a lumpy and toddlerish aspect. The patients are frequently visible at #4’s windows, in jammies, splayed and open-mouthed, sometimes shrieking, sometimes just mutely open-mouthed, splayed against the windows. They give everybody at Ennet House the howling fantods. One ancient retired Air Force nurse does nothing but scream ‘Help!’ for hours at a time from a second-story window.
Context
Unit #4 on the Enfield Marine roadlet: Alzheimer's patients with VA pensions, warehoused, faces splayed against the glass. The "Help!" screamed for hours — at a complex whose recovery house drills Asking For Help as doctrine — is the scene's bleakest joke, and nobody answers it either way.