State Hospital Crazy

When my mother was still alive she wanted to write a book about her time at the Topeka State Hospital. She had taken notes during her stays and kept most of them. Mom thought it would be good to have her view of it and also my thoughts on what it was like having a parent in the hospital. Good idea...I still have her notes. They are painful to read. She was far braver than I'll ever be. She lived a life filled with more trials and tribulations than any one human should have to face. My life is nothing compared to hers. Her example of facing whatever junk is thrown at you is remarkable and one I'll never live up to.

Mom also gave me permission to write a screenplay based on a weekend overnight stay when she brought her roommates home with her while dad was out of town. Sometime I will get "My Four Things" completed. The other thing will probably never happen. What follows is a glimpse that has been in a notebook for years. None of what I post is meant to be anything other than me just putting thoughts out there. I make no claim of quality but I can vouch for the honesty of almost anything I've posted.

State Hospital Crazy


My mom is crazy. I don't mean like, "Hey, Fryll, your mom is nuts!" I mean all the way mentally ill, insane, nervous breakdown, state hospital crazy. Right now she is on Ward 3, room B. She has roommates. Three other ladies that don't seem very crazy to me. Not like some of her roommates in other times. Wanda rubbed her head so much she had little bald spots. Mom told us not to stare but that can be hard when you are looking at a red headed woman mother age with curly hair and bald spots. She tried to cover the spots with flowers on hair bands or church hats and sometimes what looked like pre -tied Christmas bows from a sack. Trying not to stare was hard. If Court could get my attention sometimes he would scratch his head and I had to fight to keep from laughing. I would pound him later in the car.

We have been meeting new roommates since the summer after kindergarten. Not all the time, but it seems like most of the time. Mom being sick(that's what we call it. I think of it as crazy because that is basically what she was even if we weren't supposed to say it. You can call it whatever you want but if you act like she did when she was "sick", crazy is the word that explains it best, in my opinion) lasted off and on all of first grade. Mom missed my birthday that year, but got to come home for a few days at Christmas.

She got out of the hospital in March and just drove over there during the day. She was an out patient. That lasted up until right before school started when her psychiatrist, Dr. Rosenblatt , shot himself in the head. I know that's what happened. It was printed in the newspaper. The police found him near the monkey island at the zoo. I hope Mom wasn't what caused it.

Second grade she missed my birthday again, but was out for good before Thanksgiving. We all got to drive to Sprockett for the holiday. The day President Kennedy was killed she didn't even know about it until we got home from school. She hadn't had the TV on all day. It was the first time I saw Dad cry. When we got to Texas my cousin, Miranda, said it was against the law to sing that big D, little a, double l, a, s song. Miranda knew lots of stuff. She was the same age as Caitlin but not as mean. I didn't know much about government. I knew they made laws. They must have passed the law against the song in a hurry.

Mom was an out patient again for most of third grade. I wished she would get well. I was happy she was home for my birthday. I got a German chocolate cake. We lived in a new house and I was afraid I was going to get a dog because Courtland and Caitlen wanted one so bad and now we had a big yard that owned not rented. I didn't want one at all. I dreamed I could hear a puppy barking. I don't like dogs ever since the two German shepherds backed me up against a church. I was walking home from school. It was cold and cloudy. I was scared. They kept growling and snapping their teeth. I was in second grade and I tried not to cry. The dog's owner stood across the street and laughed. I'm not kidding. She stood there smoking a cigarette and laughing. Finally, her phone rang and she stamped out her cigarette and clapped twice. The dogs ran across the street and into the house. I was mad and scared and missed my mom. It was right before Halloween so Mom still wasn't out. When I got home it would be our helper, Helen, there. She was nice, but it wasn't the same. I waited until Dad got home and I only told him I'd had a little accident, not about the dogs. I was afraid he'd get mad. I will always remember that he didn't say anything. He just helped me clean up and it was our secret.

As nutty as this sounds when mom gets sick it starts off with her being happy and lots of fun. She has lots of energy and wants to try new fun things. She gets all the housework done and so we barely have to do chores. We don't have to do any of the laundry. Because she already did the day time dishes there is hardly any after supper. When you come home from school you get to play outside. Our rooms and the basement are already picked up. Mom and Dad barely fight and they sleep with the door shut more often. Weekends we get to do fun stuff. Dad mostly doesn't like to go to movies. but once he went with us to Sound of Music. He wouldn't go to South Pacific when we did, but I think that is because some World War II stuff makes him get up and leave the room when it is on TV. He won't let us watch Combat unless it is on the downstairs TV. We even went to the big art museum in Kansas City that has a giant statue of the Buddha. When you stare at a Buddha statue they seem quiet and happy. Dad took lots of pictures of Buddhas in Japan after the war. They looked peaceful even after a war. When Mom is all pepped up she tries out new recipes and the house is still clean. My favorite hyper dish was the spaghetti with a cheesy cream sauce over baked fish with chunks of avocados. It was like eating at a restaurant.

Everything seems nice and if you aren't careful you begin to think that maybe she is well this time. After a week or so she starts staying up late watching Johnny Carson. She reads. That keeps her up even later. There will be a stack of library books by her chair. It gets later and later. It ends up with her not sleeping. That's when you know it is going to happen.

She will go to bed and just not get up. As we get ready for school she might get up. You can bet that as soon as we clear out she lies back down. When we come home from school she gets up and acts like she's been doing stuff all day. You know she hasn't. She gets slower and slower. She gets all draggy and goes back to bed. You can tell she hasn't been picking up as much. Newspaper are left unfolded on the coffee table. Magazines aren't arranged neatly like at a doctor's office. Mom won't remember stuff. At first it isn't anything important. Later after you stay late at school to help put up tether balls she forgets to pick you up. That can lead to a fight.

Dad comes home and there's shouting and cuss words and we get sent to the basement or our rooms so they can "talk." From the basement we can hear the crying and the wailing. Sometimes it can be scary.We turn up the television. The speaker vibrates, but you still can hear. When we finally get to come upstairs for a supper that Dad fixes Mom sits quietly at her place. Her eyes are red and pile of used kleenex grows at her place. Moist wadded up tissues on the table when you are eating supper is unsanitary. It makes me mad that Mom would do that. While we try to eat she sniffles and fights back tears. She looks at you and mouths that she's sorry. I know she means it and that she really is but part of me wants to know...if she really is sorry why can't she work harder to get well? How can she put us through all of this? Is this what growing up is supposed to be like? It doesn't feel like normal to me. When she gets sick I'm the one that has to clean up the kleenex . I want to ask other kids what they do when their moms get sick and go to the state hospital, but I don't have anybody to ask. I figure, well, just one more thing. All part of some program I don't understand or get to vote on. Just one more deal. Before long Mom is back at the hospital and it is almost time for my birthday. Give it a few weeks and we get to start visiting again and meeting the roommates.

I don't understand it. I want to. I don't want to. I don't want to think about it. I don't want it to be. I want normal. I want to go to sleep and wake up and have all of it not the way it is. I'm not bad if I want normal. When mom goes to the hospital I only know one thing for certain. It feels just like when those dogs had me up against the church. I am as alone as it gets except I can't see who is laughing at me. Nobody will help me clean up later. I hate my mother for causing all of this. Now I feel bad. Mom never asked to be crazy.

One from the past...

Sharing things can be touchy. I started this with the intention of now and again posting stuff that I wanted to share. Mostly my writings but sometime I'll share books and movies and records, things folks need to know about, in my opinion, as my late mother always wanted me to add. She wanted it known for certain that it was my opinion not fact. Why do we call dead people late? Is it because they just can't seem to make their appointments because they're buried in the ground? Maybe somebody knows. My mother has been gone 15 years. A week doesn't go by that she and my father don't come see me in my dreams. After all these years she still wants to correct me and remind me how much smarter my brother and sister are.

To the point: I have a bag of writing. When we moved I found it again. I am going to start posting some of it. I want it understood that these short little pieces are like poems to me. Faulkner claimed a good poet could say it in as few words as possible. I just say it and hope I don't make anybody mad. This story is a combination of several and helps to explain some things. I'm posting it because just recently I'd thought of the girl in the green and orange
striped dress and when I got email about a class reunion she was on the committee. Here goes...

Cart monkeys and the wisdom of Oz


They call us the cart monkeys. I can't remember who put it on their name tag first. It must have been Clooney. Everybody thinks he looks like that actor. I don't see it, but most all of the others on the crew do so Clooney it is. He became using the term officially on a Saturday during the Christmas season, not holiday season, no war on Christmas here. Actually if you think about it that business, is just that, business, so that someone can get outraged, shout, get on the news and in the paper. Sometimes it isn't follow the money but follow the ego. The period of time from Thanksgiving until January 6th or so is the holiday season, the holidays. I grew up in a church that didn't celebrate Christmas. No mention what so ever yet we still thought we knew more of what God wanted us to know. If he didn't mention Christmas then we didn't. We didn't dance either so to this day I can't. I still look to the sky for lightning when I start tapping my feet. If it is cloudy I can't honestly enjoy music no matter how great the beat is. Happy holidays and back to my point. Why we are called cart monkeys.

On Friday we all got together at Moochie's. Most of the crew made it. Me, Mooch, Clooney, Richard not Rick, Dick, or Rich, Connie and Dusty. The only person that didn't make it was the professor. He had some play or concert to go to downtown. Dusty had read in a magazine how to sync up a video tape of Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon so that the music matched. It was going to be so cool. After a half dozen tries we got it to start working. We tried it with a record but it was scratchy and Moochie's apartment bounced when you walked across the room and made Pink Floyd skip.

Moochie lived in what we called the Pleasant Quarters. Mr. Pleasant owned the house and Moochie lived upstairs in an apartment that resembled a miniature hobbit hole. It was a regular apartment but two thirds the size. Being in the quarters was like making a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary. The light fixtures were smaller than normal and only took 40 watt bulbs. You could reach them to change bulbs with your out stretched arms. The kitchen was complete but the size of a closet. One bedroom actually was in a closet. It was furnished with couches and chairs that seemed normal but were actually scaled down. Mr. Pleasant was a warehouse manager for the school system and he knew how to do everything, even make little furniture that looked store bought. It was just about our favorite place to hang out. The only normal sized room was the bathroom. It was as roomy as a stateroom on the Titanic. Commode wise it was as comfortable as any I've ever seen or sat. The tub was an old deep claw footed model that you could swim in. It would hold two people easily. Clooney made Moochie work late weekends just so he could sneak in and prove it. The only bad thing was that the Pleasants' downstairs controlled the heat and the AC. If Dusty and friends got too noisy the climate would adjust accordingly and you either got quiet or called it a night.

Once we switched to an old Floyd 8-track that would just go round and round repeating, the movie was magical. I'm not sure how it works. My mind can't even understand little things how could it explain a magical relationship between a stoner album and the most famous movie of all time. Masons, that's what it was, Masons! That night it fit perfectly and Dorothy and the witch and the flying monkeys made more sense to me than ever before. Watching the movie with the record was more fun than the first time I saw it in black and white hiding behind my dad on the floor. The black and white part made me cry. I felt the lion's inner pain and for the first time I felt and understood the tin man's loneliness at a primal level that left me depressed and contemplating why no one loved me for days. I didn't have a wizard to give me a watch so what shot did I have.

It made me think about a little girl I met when I was a kid. I was in fifth grade and for a day I was a page at the state house of representatives. Fifth graders aren't mature enough to be obsessed about what other people think or if they will embarrass themselves. At that age you are a kid living in the moment, being here, and focusing on right now. Buddha would be proud. There were other kids there from all over the state. Because I lived in the state capital I could only be a page for a day. I wanted to make the most of it. We got paid two dollars a day, excused from school, and if you were lucky the reps might tip you a nickel or a dime. The job consisted of sitting in a chair waiting for the call light to come on. Whoever was in the first chair went and ran the errand. It might be getting coffee, copies of a bill, or putting change in a parking meter. All day long I had my eye on the girl in a green and orange striped dress. I can still the dress and how it looked on the girl. We were only in fifth grade, but she looked like a model to me. I was smitten, but at the age of 11 I'm not sure I understood what it was I was feeling. To that point in my life I'd never seen a cuter girl.

Who can explain why anyone is attracted to someone else. You could spend a month in a library studying and still you wouldn't have the answer. In my life I have never been involved with any woman for any length of time that didn't start with that spark, that irrational instant judgement without contemplation that makes us stop and go, "wow." Wow-worthiness is subjective and unexplainable. All true romantics are hit by it multiple times in their lives. I wasn't always just a cart monkey. There was a time in my life when I had nearly everything that I wanted. Even then if I wasn't in a steady deal( Why can't men call a relationship a relationship? Why is there that need to live behind a secret code of colloquialisms? Could it be that we want to deny the truth of our emotions? ) at that time I couldn't help but travel backward through my life's record and think of those moments when I was hit by the blinding explosions of awareness. I think we choose to remember those moments because the positive nature of the event causes a surge of a chemical deep in the brain that if harnessed would end the need for psychiatric medicine. Try to recall pain. I don't think we can. I can only remember the fact that it occurred. I'm unable to recreate the sensation. Why would I want to? On the other hand I can call up happy positive thoughts most anytime I want. With that being the case, explain to me why humans spend so much time frowning and not smiling. The girl in the green and orange striped dress possessed a classic smile as well.

I came back from getting a copy of H.B. 1017 and took my seat. I scooted over as another page headed out on a mission. The next thing I know someone sits besides me and says, "Hi, I'm ___." (lest you think I can't remember her name, I can. I don't use it to either protect her privacy or my emotions.)I turned and it was the girl in the green and orange striped dress. Instead of stammering and stumbling over my words I introduced myself. We spent the rest of the day talking about nothing of consequence. She knew kids that I knew. We'd end up going to the same junior high and high school. We made fun of people, told jokes, and learned how our state government worked. In less than eight hours we had become friends for the day. We might not ever see each other again but on that one day things were swell. Kids can do that. At the end of our day we said our goodbyes. I didn't see her again until the first day of junior high.

As an adult I've often wondered why things don't come that easy for me anymore. If I meet someone and I think that "wow-worthiness" is there I don't trust my instincts anymore. I have the need to mull it over in my head, dissect, and analyze it until I'm no longer confident of the initial perception. By the time I can make the decision to act the object of my contemplation is long gone. Maybe that's why I'm still a cart monkey.

Which gets me back to why they call us cart monkeys. After the movie you could sense how it had effected all of us. I wasn't the only one absorbed with the deeper meanings. Connie saw herself as Dorothy and the rest of us..well somebody has to be a munchkin. We each had new theories and insights to the movie and we needed to discuss them. After arguing for ten minutes about where we would go we settled on Dug and Edna's because they were open late, it was dark(the walls were painted black) and the wait couldn't be too long.

On the drive over Clooney was very silent. I thought he was focused on the road until, driving he missed one red light but it was late, after midnight, nobody noticed. We were driving down Westlawn on the divided section when he slams on the breaks and pulls over to the side of the road and blurts out, "Cart monkeys, get it cart monkeys! We are just like those flying monkeys doing the bidding of others. In that part when they flew into the woods and tore up the scarecrow and scared everybody one of them was pushing a little cart picking up pieces." He laughed his patented Clooney laugh and pulled back into traffic. "Cart monkeys...sweet."