The Monkey House

This is a first draft of a partially true, stream of consciousness story. Certain minor details have been changed, altered, or omitted.

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In most cases people are aware that they are here. At least on some level. I suppose that has a great deal to do with just how far gone someone is. Sometimes it’s necessary to place someone here because they are a danger to themselves and others. You know that tricky thing we call utility or the ‘greater good.’

I grew up with a pond in my front yard. Two tall maple trees, forsythia bushes, and other variety of vegetation which enclosed our yard during the summer months providing privacy and a sense of safety. The tree frogs would sing us to sleep each summer night. But they weren’t alone. They were part of a choir that included crickets, bull frogs and on occasion cicadas. Together they created a perfect harmony, interrupted only by the occasional car or truck on route 17 in small town Connecticut.

I shared a room with my kid brother, Jaden. We were separated by only 13 months. Almost Irish twins. We may as well have been actual twins. We were that close. My hair was lighter and my eyes blue while Jaden was darker with brown eyes. He took the Italian from my father.

Both times I was sent there Jaden had everything just right in the room for the day I would return. An unhealed child. A product of the experts. It was my fault. I had only myself to blame. I was noncompliant and my unwillingness to be helped encumbered my progress. At least that was what we were told. And why question them? They had no ulterior motives; they were just trying to help. They were doing their jobs.

On those summer nights we left our windows open with the window fan on low. We left it on low to hear the yard sounds, as Jaden called them. The fan carried in the sweet, sweet smell of honeysuckles from the giant bush on Hickory Lane, just up the block. By the mid-90s that spot, where the honeysuckle bush lived, would become our hangout space much to the chagrin of some of the neighbors who saw us as a blight on a beautiful street. But even as a grungy 14-year-old smoking cigarettes with my friends, I never stopped loving the smell of the honeysuckles in the Spring and Summer.

After Labor Day Autumn always seemed to approach quickly. Each year the speed accelerated. The quickening didn’t just apply to seasons but to our lives. My father always said our lives were sort of like the seasons. It seems as if my life began when I was sent away for the ‘greater good,’ and returned. That year, in 1990, the leaves changed colors as they always had. The same giant buses packed with tourists passed through to look at the leaves which I couldn’t understand. None of us could. Why take a vacation to come to our boring town and stare through tinted windows at trees? We jeered at them each year as if it were a ritual. Later in my life I would understand the attraction and what I had taken for granted. After the age of 22 I would never again see Autumn in all its majesty.

The Autumn of 1990, forever cemented in my memory, is when my life accelerated. When I think about my adolescence it’s as if I can watch the years and events in fast forward. There are certain parts where I can slow things down and swim in the thoughts that make the memory. But not many.

I cannot help but wonder if that blur is the fallout from living in survival mode.

I loved the winter when I was young. It was a paradox from 1990 on though. You see all the trees and bushes were bare and the privacy we enjoyed in late Spring and Summer was gone. I hated the space between that added measure of loneliness and the first snowfall. In 1990 that space seemed more like a gulf, or a growing chasm that could swallow me.

I loved a heavy snowfall because it was evenly distributed and perfect before we let the dogs out, shoveled the driveway, built forts, and had snowball fights. I was always the first one to wake and go outside to stand under the floodlight in the driveway while it snowed. I reveled in the silence and the smell of firewood and fresh snow. The safety. After 22 years old, I would never see that perfection again. I would never stand in silence with the freshly fallen snow.

Nobody watching. Nobody but Jaden. He didn’t need to understand so long as he didn’t change. So long as we didn’t change. I decided the world could burn down around us and I could stand it so long as I had my brother. So that’s where I left it because it’s all I could think to do. It’s an awful spot to find yourself in. To be in a position where you won’t be taken seriously, and nobody will truly believe you. I mean let us not forget you had to go there to get well and the experts, who are above question, who are above reproach, reinforce the notion that your thoughts are incorrect, your memories aren’t really memories.

I could imagine the conversation, He's not a liar Mrs. Romano, it’s not intentional. The gaslighting, although in 1990 I wasn’t familiar with the term yet. But it wouldn’t be long.

It just happened. While people kept their opinions to themselves (sort of) I know the path I chose wasn’t what they were expecting. Honestly, it surprised me as well. All of it. By the age of 17 I was a burgeoning writer. 1990 still troubled me, and I reasoned I could write the events of those 78 days away. Tell stories and be somebody else while healing at the same time. But try as I might 1990 repeated in my head. I hated blue and people wearing scrubs. Things that reminded me of the experts. At the very least, I kept reminding myself, I was out in the free and not inside. And I was older and stronger. Foolish thinking, I admit.

On September 28th,1990, I returned home. I remember packing that morning and taking one last walk through the glass bridge over Liberty Street with my parents. The bridge connected the unit to the main hospital. I looked down at the people moving quickly, almost furtively as if on a secret mission, to their destinations. Cars and taxis honking. It was a damp day and I remember thinking I’ll never have to see this street from up high again.

I don’t recall the ride home, only the sound of the gravel crackling and popping under our tires as we pulled into the driveway. Perhaps I had fallen asleep. What I remember is the smell of the house as I walked in. My mother had occupied herself with projects. She put down new linoleum tile in the kitchen. It looked like bricks.

She asked me if I liked it. I’m sure I said yes.

Looking down the hall Jaden came out of our room. In an instant we were tackling one another, wrestling, and hugging. Jaden stood up and I was on my back. It’s a memory that stains me. Rolling over to stand up only to see the bathroom across the hall had been painted blue. And not just any blue but the blue like the railing in the Monkey House. Blue like his scrubs.

I puked right where I stood. Alarmed Jaden called for my parents who were already present. It was a small house, and they heard the unmistakable sound. I realized just how much I had missed my mother’s healing touch, her soft voice and patience. I realized how much I had missed my father’s powerful, protective presence. We all concluded it was the overwhelming excitement of being home.

Exactly. It was the result of overexcitement.

I might have felt rushed. Of course, there were decisions I made along the way that, given the opportunity to choose differently, I likely would. Still, at the end when I asked the question what has my life been about, I maintain that my path found me. At 22 I was a college graduate and a writer who couldn’t write. Or a writer that was scared to write and a writer that never finished anything and certainly never shared. I wanted to believe so much had changed but it hadn’t. I was just older and had bills to pay.

Meanwhile Medusa was spawning children and had found love, which seemed off kilter and unfair. Let me backtrack, Medusa is my sister. And despite my initial concerns that the children would be born with hooves and horns, it seems my brother-in-law’s mild-mannered demeanor coupled with his kind nature balanced things out. Genetically speaking. She always did say he was quite literally her better half.

If I had been a candidate for the inside when we were children, then Medusa fit the bill as well. She had her own demons, I know. But at the end I can’t help but wonder if I would have recovered if not for her abuse and torment. There is sibling rivalry and of course siblings fight, but this was much different.

If I needed the Monkey House then by all metrics, so did she!

But she did NOT get locked in the Monkey House.

And she NEVER met the night-crawlers in blue scrubs.

And she NEVER argued over taking pills, nor did she EVER get locked in a room just for missing home and crying.

Her path included becoming a physical therapist. Her work involves healing children, which I find admirable and interesting.

My path began immediately following college. With dreams of becoming a writer on my mind I took a job working with youth at a boarding school. Then at a shelter in Texas. Following that a drug rehab center for boys, where I was the head of the house. In such a role I aimed to keep them safe, and to employ the best people I could with the resources I was given, which were nil.

What were my dreams again?

Most of us are aware that we’re more than just one thing. Thus our “paths,” include all sorts of deviations. My path from 22 until the final stretch mainly involved taking care of youth in treatment centers. In the final Act it was a drug rehab center. I would love to profess total altruism but why lie? It is true that I loved the kids and the mission. But while I was embarking on finding all the truths out in the world, I was contented to deceive myself when it came to my work. I loved being loved by the kids I worked with, and I loved being needed by the kids and the team. It’s not that I was foolish enough to think that love would suffice, although I was certainly a fool, I just kept moving the goalpost to convince myself there was time. I would work it all out.

In the meantime, I rationalized…

Not much time for writing because of the job, I would tell myself as well as others, if they asked. And they often did.

No time for a relationship, the job makes it impossible, I would say. I often told people that unless you came into the job with an established relationship forget it!

Of course, none of that is true. As the end drew closer I imagined what it would have been like. To fall in love once more, and have that person fall just as in love with me. Might that love have saved me?

I know I waited to long. I was frozen like a deer in headlights. And then in 2020 everything was stolen. And the theft continues unabated. By the day the experts take more. But it’s not their fault. They’re doing their jobs.

I take comfort in the latter years and how I used them when it came to educating the boys. From 2017 all the way until October 8th, 2020, the day before I got laid off due to the ‘pandemic,’ I took the boys hiking once or twice per week. We spent time on campus as well, but it was on these trips, early in the morning, as we sat in a circle under the fading stars in the dried up riverbed drinking instant coffee, a few strumming their guitars, where I tried to help them see the world for what it would become.

A Monkey House.

There are two of them. There is the inside Monkey House and the one we all live in thinking we’re free. A nation on medications to be happy, attentive, calm. And believe me, I am not casting judgment on those taking drugs to find balance because I am sure you’ve guessed by now that I’ve I dipped my toes in that water.

Ok brutal honesty. It was more like I did a cannonball dive into that water.

It did not render the desired results. Or did it? In a world where two things can be true at once…

It was irregular for a weekday hiking trip. But by the Autumn of 2020 restrictions were tight, even in Texas, and to try and keep the boys active and happy we decided I could take an early trip. That Thursday was my final hiking trip with them. And we discussed all the relevant things. I knew it was all going to end. I knew years earlier that my path would only go a short distance.

Early Friday morning two masked bosses came down from Dallas to hand me an envelope and collect my keys. They let me down gently I suppose. Getting paid to leave means two things: you have time to breathe and perhaps pursue things you’ve long wanted to. Conversely, it’s tough to ignore the reality that it also means you’re being paid to go the fuck away.

I had taken the place for granted. That is what we tend to do. The same way I took the fall foliage for granted as a boy. The same way I took time for granted, and my health for granted.

The sound was shocking, and I looked up and realized the light was green. I listened to the crisp sound of my blinker while the driver in the car behind me continued to lean on their horn. The light turned orange, and then red. The driver behind me descended into complete apoplexy. Purple hair whipping in the stiff, cool breeze she was pounding on my window. I stared ahead at the light smiling.

It turned green.

Purple hair cut me off despite the fact I was now moving forward. But I was glad she did. If she hadn’t, I would have never seen the bumper sticker that said something about love and tolerance.

Exactly. I was moving forward.

I had plans for 2021. However, plans, as we all know, tend to change. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that 2021 morphed into 1990. No problem I thought, I can take a year off and heal. And with all that time I can write as well. I can focus on my health and travel.

I’m grateful that I got in the car and traveled. And I wrote prolifically compared to the previous 16 years. I hoped to bond with my family and warn them of the worldwide Monkey House, the hellscape. Yet save for my father all they could see were the righteous experts trying to help.

No more faces or closeness. If I had wanted love and companionship, I had waited too long.

As I stood in line holding the last two things, I would ever buy I watched the controlled chaos. The masks and the fear. I suddenly remembered June of 2021 when I saw my sister. I picked her up at the airport and she had worn three masks and a face shield.

Some are leaders and perhaps some of those leaders are actually genuine.

All I can say is that I contributed where I could and think that all things considered, I did alright.

Before it ended I made peace with the fact that I couldn’t make peace with so much. And I smiled as I sat on the roof of my car gazing at the stars, drifting off to sleep. I smiled thinking that while I never truly left the Monkey House I still left an indelible mark. And, of course, I smiled and took solace knowing that they are all in the Monkey House, too.

Welcome home.