I’ve gotta admt, several times during my one-month gig as… my little brother’s keeper, this song kept playing in my mind. It was quite popular in 1959, and it had been very popular with me ever since. Even if you’re very young and don’t recognize the name of the band, The Coasters, you are very likely familiar with their signature song “Charlie Brown.”
Anyway, here it is: “Run Red Run.” Hope you enjoy it.
The Coasters are an American rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group who had a string of hits in the late 1950s. With hits including “Searchin’“, “Young Blood“, “Poison Ivy“, and “Yakety Yak“, their most memorable songs were written by the songwriting and producing team of Leiber and Stoller.[2] Although the Coasters originated outside of mainstream doo-wop, their records were so frequently imitated that they became an important part of the doo-wop legacy through the 1960s. In 1987, they were the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“OK. This little piece was supposed to have been the epilogue, but… damnit, apparently it’s not. There was a little too much to cover. So once more I must say, once again, “Gee Whiz, be sure to stay tuned for Chapter 6, The Epilogue!“
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So… FYI: something totally unexpected happened approximately nine days into Gizmo’s visit. I got a phone call from California. It was Sandy. Of course. I didn’t know anybody else out there at the time. And after all the hello’s and how are you’s and how’s Gizmo doing small talk, she got to the point: her return was going to be delayed for another week. Some technicality. But she was sorry.
And there it was: Gizmo was ours for another seven days or so. Just like that.
That sudden change in plans kind of rocked us, to be honest. A confusing, mixed bag of emotions. Confusing like, Oh my God… NO! and, at the same time, Yay! Because we’d come to love the little critter, no one (I believe) more than me. He was continually growing on us. All of us, not just me. He was becoming one of the family. To me, a tiny baby brother. Still, a real handful though, for all of us.
What could we do? Obviously nothing, while Sandy and Brian were on the West Coast. So inevitably, we just rolled with the punch. We looked at our work schedules and set to figuring how we were further going to tweak our lives. We could do another week. We had to. And life went on with the little bugger.
Missy giving the Giz a drink
Chris entertaining Gizmo; Gizmo entertaing Chris…
I have to admit, the notoriety was still fun, albeit quite a bit taxing on our energy levels. The Giz had turned us into local, small town celebrities. Phone still ringing off the hook from families and individuals just dying to come over to have a taste of the Gizmo experience. Appointments still being pencilled in. So many of them, our home run was like a doctor’s office. And Gizmo himself was still fun. A barrel-of-monkeys fun. He had more energy than the Energizer Bunny, tearing around the house for three hours non-stop, wearing us all out. And then bless his little heart, all of a sudden, dropping straight to sleep in his tracks. Usually in one of our laps. And then he was so cute. And tiny. A little handful of silent sweetness. A joy to behold.
Sleeping against Chris’s belly…
Of course then unthinking someone in the next room would do something, like noisily pushing a chair back under the dining room table. Gizmo’s eyes would blink back open and then, bang! Look out. In a single second, he’d leap right up off your lap and be right back on his happy little warpath! The monkey naps lasted only fifteen minutes, that being all he’d need for his next Tasmanian four- or five- hour tour of deviltry. I have to admit, I’m grinning just thinking about it.
He loved games. Every day, quite a few times a day, Gizmo enjoyed his “egg hunts.” But instead of Easter eggs, he’d be searching all over for my empty, plastic 35 mm film canisters. Empty of film rolls, that is. What they had in them back then were his favorite treats: raisins, grapes, and pretzels. He loved popping off those film canister caps for his “Crackerjack-type “prizes” within.
And boy, did that little rug rat ever love to wrestle!
Wrestling…
That was the fun that wore me out the most. I’ve always loved going at it with frisky little kittens and cats, to the point where my hands would always end up with happy those itchy little criss-cross cat-scratches all over. But Gizmo never bit me. Often he would playfully close his teeth on my hands in what I knew were little love-bites. Just like cats do, only when they do it they’re signaling you to back off. Gizmo. He was a wrestling ball of electric energy!
Of course his favorite game unfortunately was still snitching one of one of my cassette tapes and absconding, with me the easy-to-escape posse humping behind on his trail.
So, all in all, entertaining our little guest wouldn’t be all that hard to endure for an extra week. Just gloriously exhausting
But… oddly, there was something going on with me that at the time I was consciously unaware of. Something subconscious, and psychological. It’s like I had fallen under a spell. So much so it was like Gizmo’s and my brains had practically merged. And I was thinking about him all the time, whether I was in school or at home. If I wasn’t talking about him with somebody, I was probably worrying about him. So OK, I guess I’ll have to call it what it was: co-dependence.
I didn’t know it before Gizmo came into our lives, but I was just a damn simian co-dependent waiting to happen. When he was happy, I washappy. When he was sad,so was I. And when he was very, very sad, as he was every evening when it was time for him to be put back in lock-up for the night like some little prisoner (which he literally was, which he had to be), oh man, I felt so terribly guilty. A lot of it was still the guilt hanging over me from shutting his tail in the door.
But most of it was… well, he was just so damn human. So it was kind of like, Hey, is it humane to lock up a very human-like child alone in a cage every night? No! Of course not. Would I want to be locked up in a cage every night? No. I would not. And you know, if the damn cage had been a lot larger, I think I probably would’ve crawled right in there with him to keep him company and keep him from getting so damn sad and lonely. Yes, that’s pretty messed up exaggeration, I know.
Oh, Gizmo was an artist when it came to tugging at my heart strings. I mean big time. Because whenever he would finally allow himself to be placed back in the cage for the night, he’d drop heavily down into the bottom compartment of his cage; select one of his two security pillows (usually the Chicken, occasionally Garfield); pick it up and hug it in his arms ever so tightly to his little chest for all he was worth; and then begin his slow, tragic rocking. Back… and forth, back… and forth. And you couldn’t cheer him up no way, no how. I knew a lot about depression back then, and the word “depressed” would begin echoing in my brain. Gizmo seemed so depressed. I couldn’t blame him. And his depression began to osmose into my own head. Yes, unhealthy, I know but I was so wrapped up in him, I couldn’t think about me.
And the real kicker was, he’d make his face into the saddest mask you could ever dream up. The epitome of heartbreak. The Oh woe is poor old me! And nothing you might think of to do to try to cheer him up would have even a sliver of a chance of working. That expression would remain tattooed on for the night. It was his nightly night-time face and that’s all she wrote.
There used to be this very famous circus clown in the 1950s and 60s you might have heard of named Emmet Kelly. His signature “character” was the world’s saddest clown, “Weary Willie,” and his face was alwaysSO sad, his audiences would be overcome with a sense of deep sadness even while they giggled at his antics.
I could swear that Gizmo was channeling Emmet Kelly. Yes, his Weary Willie’s face was killing me. And I was at a loss as to what ever to do about it. So that was it. On went his little life. Comedy during the day time. Tragedy during the night.
And time marched on…
Days later, the phone rang again. And yes, it was once again Sandy. So, I was thinking to myself as I picked up the phone, Wow, apparently the end has arrived. I said Hello,” with anxious feelings. Yes, I’d really become so attached to the little fellow but, you know, if he had to go… he’d have to go, right?
But that wasn’t what this call was about. At all.
Sandy, it turned out, was calling to let us know that, unfortunately, she’d just discovered she had been suffering all along from (wait for it) an allergy to Gizmo. While in California, all the hives and breathing problems she’d been tolerating for months had (poof!) just disappeared.
(Can you imagine what was starting to go through my brain at hearing this news?)
She went on. It was impossible therefore, she informed me, for her to keep on keeping the Giz. So therefore…
(Impossible? Again… can you imagine what was starting to go through my brain at hearing this news?)
…she was being forced to consider finding some alternate caretakers to assume the responsibility for not only caring for the little guy, but to also become active partners in the Helping Hands Foundation program, with all that might entail…
(By the way, back in 1989 the expressions OMG and WTF? had yet to be coined.)
… so, she went on, it would seem that the most likely candidates for this responsibility would be our family since Gizmo had so successfully bonded with, and taken such a monkeyshine to, us.
Bing!Freeze-framed!
Say what!? I felt as if somebody had just buried an axe in my already-stove-in chest. But even so, old immature and caught-off-guard me (a guy I just loved to hate),I was actually already asking myself, Should I say No?
(Wait, had I just actually asked,SHOULD I? See? What was I thinking? What was wrong with me?)
Should I say Yes? Should I say Maybe? OK, my world, my life was spinning. And slowly picking up speed.
On the one hand, I of course really loved little Gizmo. Somuch. But on the other hand, there were qualms. Lots of qualms. Tsunami qualms, without even considering the soon-to-come Phyllis Qualms. Oh, inside I knew I wanted to say No, of course not and say it right away. But…
I also somehowsorta wanted to give in and say yes, too. So there I was, standing in the center of a crossroads intersection with heavy traffic was barreling head-on at me from all four lanes.
I really needed to stall, obviously. Be wishy-washy about it, I told myself. The truth was I was honestly feeling awfully damned wishy-washy inside anyway. Plus, damnit, I was cursed as being one of those guys who, for whatever reason, always found it next to impossible to say no to most requests. Never wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, you know. But meanwhile, my brain was playing ping-pong with Maybethis, maybe that… maybe I might even… really want to do it. I mean…? Agonizing that Jeez though, if WE don’t take him, then who will? Finding another caretaker for my little buddy wouldn’t be very easy, if not impossible. And even so, what would this mean for Gizmo? Getting bounced around again and again? How so unfair would that be?
So I stalled. “Uhmmm… not sure. Hafta talk to Phyl about it. See, I really don’t know, you know?”
Whatever! Damn, why hadn’t Phyllis picked up the stupid phone? I said goodbye and hung up, my stomach one big, churning, gastrointestinal merry-go-round. But at least I hadn’t said yes. At least there was that. But neither had I said no. I’d just bought me a little time is all. But after that call, it was Should I or Shouldn’t I? rolling around in my head. And… could I even sayI maybe even might… actually want to take on Gizmo for two or more years? Which is what the Helping Hands Foundation required.
Surprisingly Phyl did not automatically scream NO! ARE YOU CRAZY!? right in my face when I told her what the call had been about, which is what anybody who knew her would have expected her to do. That, in itself, unnerved me. I mean, what was going on in her mind? Everything would’ve been so simple if she had just put her foot right down then and there.
Then again, she hadn’t exactly said yes either, had she. Nope. It was like she was coming across as, OK, let’s take some time and think about it, me being like…What, really? On such a possibly life-changing decision as THIS? Just, what, up and suddenly increase our family by one more, that one being a hairy little mammal-with-a-tail to boot, and Phyl not even likingany animals one bit (except me, maybe)?
But wait just a minute. Maybe her game was Hey, if I just bide my time a little, the odds are that Tom’ll come around to his senses by time the final bell rings. So sure, let him paint himself into a corner and then, when the stark reality of just how much hard WORK for him a yes vote is going to mean (him being the totally lazy one), and how many drastic changes in his good-old, laid-back lifestyle a yes vote will require (heh heh), HE’ll be the one ending up saying no himself. So then it won’t be on MY conscience: he’ll have made the decision himself, not me.
It’s true, Phyl did have that wily side sometimes…
So much to think about! So hard to decide! Jeez! If I were the type of writer who was into clichés, right now I’d probably be tapping away, “I was between a rock and a hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea. I didn’t know whether to fish or cut bait.” Fortunately, I never use clichés, so I’m not going to do that.
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Back to the dilemma. So, I could say No, we can’t keep him and… then what? Poof! Life would simply go back to normal…? Well normal, except for the part where then I’d have to live with this painful hole in my heart and guilty soul for having heartlessly kicked the Giz to the curb. Could I live with that?
And if I said OK, we’ll keep him…? What all would that actually mean?
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That night my guilty feelings doubled when faced with Gizmo’s sad Emmett Kelly face once again. And sure, how much sadder would his face become when I coldly showed him the door? I’d already been staying up later and later with him, but that night I lasted into the near-morning. Me, just inches away, just outside the cage for company; rocking in my rocking chair and reading Stephen King to myself (often aloud so he’d have a hopefully comforting voice); and Giz, rocking his woe-is-me chicken pillow back and forth down there in the basement of his living quarters.
Tom and Gizmo. The odd couple.
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Finally. The hard decision came three days later. It had been a gut-wrenching, eternally long three days. There had been so much discussion pro and con, pro and con, ad infinitum, during which it had become more and more impossible for me to think. And damn, the onus had been placed on me and me alone to make the decision. Meanwhile, I could feel the family holding its collective breath. How nice of them to wait so patiently for me to see the light.
I remember sitting disconsolately on one of the sheet-covered steps one morning, half way up the staircase, and no doubt channeling Rodin’s The Thinker. I made myself take a good look around, all around, at my surroundings. And what did I finally allow myself to see? A home that now resembled the Badlands of the South Dakota hills. A desert of white-sheeted chair-sofa-and-dining-room-table “dunes.” Random monkey-toys spilled helter-skelter over the floors like random sprouting clusters of cacti. A traveler would do well to watch where he stepped. And behind and before me at the top and base of the stairs, my two foolish attempts at monkey barriers fashioned from anything and everything I could lay my hands on (short of barbed wire), both barriers with the same likelihood of keeping Gizmo out of our upstairs bedrooms as Trump ever had of getting the Mexicans to pay for his equally ineffective wall.
As hard as it was for me to admit, I realized I was suffering from Reverse Stockholm Syndrome. I, the captor, had totally and helplessly identified with, and surrendered to, the captive, rather than the other way around. Gizmo had made a monkey out of me! As joyful as it always was to be in exuberant Gizmo’s company, I’d become an exhausted but happy sad-sack. And for one brief, flickering moment, I knew what I needed to do.
And I knew I’d better do it in one hell of a hurry, lest I lose my focus and fail. Which was still somehow a naggingly tempting possibility.
I immediately stood, made my way down the stairs, struggled my way over the comically useless Gizmo barrier and, with a heavy heart, picked up the living room phone…
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Now, I need to explain something about the layout of our house, before I begin moving along in this next memory…
Beside the kitchen’s main-entrance doorway from the outdoors, our rectangular kitchen had two more, one each on opposite ends. Now, these were doorways; that is… doorways without actual doors— I guess you could call them passageways. Anyway both passageways opened into the dining room. This made it possible for anyone to be able to walk in a loop, passing from the dining room into the kitchen through doorway #1 on the right, traversing the kitchen, and then exiting the kitchen back into the dining room through the left doorway. Doorway #2.
Over the years, we’d enjoyed watching our grandchildren furiously pedaling their tricycles in their little Indianapolis 500 around that loop, before zooming back through the rest of the house and then wheeling back around to do the loop again. And Gizmo loved that loop too, as it gave him escape options when running evasive action ahead of me, him usually unreeling one of my prized cassette tapes that he’d cruelly absconded with.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
OK then. So Phyllis had met Sandy and Brian, finally back from California, at the door and invited them in. Me? I was otherwise temporarily engaged, but it would only be a matter of fifteen seconds or so before they’d witness what I was up to with their own eyes. And I have to say, the scene that welcomed them as they stood in our kitchen, waiting to retrieve their little man, was a bizarre one to say the least.
Before Phyllis and company could get their Hello’s and So how was California’s out of the way, here I came! Barreling recklessly into the kitchen through door #1 (nearly colliding with them), skidding in my stocking feet on the floor as I rounded into a wide turn, then gunning t across the kitchen floor, skidding into yet the second turn, and zip! disappearing out through door #2 in a flash!
I’m sure it must’ve taken them a few moments to reassemble in their brains just what in Sam Hell it was they’d actuallyjust seen.
What they had just seen was me with a long white bedsheet tied around my waist like a belt. The rest of that bedsheet had been dragging out behind me on the floor like the train of a wedding gown. And standing upright on that rear end of the bedsheet, and holding tight to side edges of the sheet in his clutched little fists, was our bold little Gizmo the Surfer, hanging ten, with the wind slightly feathering his hair as he’d beach boy’d past (artistic license here—The Giz didn’t really have long enough hair to feather).
And then before you’d ever have guessed it possible, the Giz and I were back once again, performing yet another skidding-across-the-kitchen-floor looptey-loop! And as we bombed our way back out of the kitchen through door #2, I heard Sandy yelling sarcastically at my back, “Oh, thanks SO very MUCH, Tom! We’re just SODELIGHTEDYOUDIDN’T SPOILHIM while we were gone!”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
You know, Shakespeare was right. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
After Brian had loaded The Famous Cage With The Infamous Tail-trap Door into the bed of his pickup and had trucked it off and away… and after Sandy had bundled up her little Gizmo all safe and warm inside the front of her quilted parka (with just his doll-like little head peeking out with those big dark eyes peering back at us… we closed the front door behind them, symbolically closing that door on our wonderful and heart-breaking month-long little odyssey. The little Giz was off to his homecoming. And as we surveyed the left-over hurricane clutter around us that would be taking us a few days to rake back into order, we collapsed in bittersweet “homecoming” that was awaiting us as well.
I was of a heavy heart for days. But as days went by, and the come-back-and-go-away-again heavy heart pangs lessened, the knowledge that I’d done the right thing in letting Gizmo go became so much more obvious. My relationship with the twerp had been way too emotional for me to endure for two more years, and I still can’t imagine to this day what the chaos of our daily lives would have been like. I seriously doubt that I would ever have made it. I mean, I practically had myself a P.T.S.D. flashback after re-reading aloud my entire 1989, 80-paged Gizmo daily journal to Phyllis, only just a few weeks ago. Yes I so wanted the adventure then, and that’s exactly what I’d received.
I can’t imagine now, at 77 years of age, how we ever managed a month of it. Youth is made of sterner stuff. But all in all, I’m happier that I took the adventure on for as long as we did. Better that than kicking myself for having passed it up and then looking back in regret. It remains one of the great little memories of my life.
So we never found out who received the joys of Gizmo’s personality after us. Only that it was some nameless and faceless family in some other county in Southern Maine. I sincerely hope it all went well for our little critter.
In the weeks following his departure, I’d grin bitter sweetly to myself whenever I’d find another one of my missing, unraveled cassette tapes hiding behind or under the chairs and sofas, and that one I found by finally spying just one corner of the thing barely poking out from under the refrigerator…
The Giz came into our lives some thirty-five years ago in 1989. I may have been forty-three years old at the time, but faced with the sudden prospect of getting a chance to spend some quality personal time with the cutest little monkey you could ever imagine…? Hey, Presto! I was a ten-year-old little boy once again.
And it’s no exaggeration to say that Gizmo turned my life (no, our lives) upside-down in oh so many ways.
First of all, during the first six or seven days of his “visit,” it being February school vacation week, finding adequate time to care for the little twerp wasn’t much of an issue. The vacation had been a key factor in our final decision to take Gizmo on in the first place. However it was also clear from the beginning that Gizmo’s stay would crawl “a few days” into the following week as well, meaning then we’d have to make some serious adjustments. I, Phyllis, and Missy had job obligations with specific times for getting to work, etc. and Chris was a student at Foxcroft Academy. I guess we figured we’d just deal with that when the time came.
Secondly our entire household was turned upside down. Every piece of furniture we cared about, which was all of them, was draped in sheets… ours looked like some home where the occupants had gone abroad for a couple of years after covering everything they owned to keep it dust-free until their return. Only we hadn’t gone abroad.
We were all still living there in what now looked like a furniture morgue. Hell, even the stairs were covered in a two or three tacked down sheets, as it turned out that the white paint on the wooden risers was ancient and had begun to chip off here and there; and little ol’ eagle-eye Gizmo (who, like any baby) wanted to put everything including the paint chips he’d break off straight into his little pie-hole.
Thirdly, didn’t Ol’ Giz just love my stacked stereo components: the receiver, the dual tape-deck, the amp, and the turntable. I mentioned earlier his fascination with movable parts, like buttons, knobs, and levers. Several often-recurring stereo-related occurrences included the following two, and more:
(1) Picture a perfect and blessed moment of peaceful, golden silence; Lyford family sprawled upon their sheet-draped sofa and stuffed chairs, soaking up a well-earned rest from all of their exhausting Gizmo-related exertions; Gizmo at the moment nowhere to be seen; the faraway strains of “Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts’ Club Band” suddenly beginning to waft in from the adjacent dining room; all the Lyfords eyebrows simultaneously raised with the immediate understanding that Gizmo has once again just switched on the stereo out there; then, hmmm, a slight increase in the volume and…
(JESUSH. CHRIST!) THE POWER-AMPED VOLUME CRANKING ALL THE WAY UP TO THE MAX… AND ONE SUPER-TERRIFIED CAPUCHIN RUGRAT JUST A-CANNONBALLING THROUGH THE LIVING ROOM FIVE FEET ABOVE THE FLOOR LIKE SOME FLYING SQUIRREL WITH JERICHO-JOSHUA’S BLARING WINDOW- QUAKING TRUMPETS HOT ON THE LITTLE GUY’S TAIL LIKE A FLASH JUNGLE-FIRE! (You’d think he’d learn…)
(2) And secondly… picture this little “Gizmo game”:
Tom, sacked out on the couch, engrossed in Stephen King’s Richard Bachman four-novelette anthology; everything quiet… tooquiet; Gizmo, in his darling little pirate pantaloons, suddenly peering around the living room door; the little twerp then prancing jauntily into the room (skidding to a stop at a safe distance with arms held high to sportingly taunt Tom with the small object he was holding in both hands); Tom, duly eyeballing; Tom then ejecting himself up and off the couch with a roar; Gizmo, now a.k.a. the Looney Toons’ Roadrunner (mbeep mbeep!) having already rocketed off and away with Tom, his personal Wile E. Coyote, lumbering behind in his dust! in cold pursuit!
And that object? What was the precious little object that sent Tom barreling off on his fool’s errand of trying to tackle the little brat? Why, only one of his 500+ collected cassette tapes is all. And the one he’d just pilfered might have been Tom’s most sacred-of-all-time The Best of Leonard Cohen. Or perhaps his equally sacred Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home. It could have been his James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James. But it really didn’t matter if it were his prized Ricky Nelson’s Garden Party, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s Déjà Vu, The Stones’ 12 X 5, Johnny Cash’s 1964 I Walk the Line, 1972’s Doctor Hook, or even Dr. Demento Presents the Greatest Novelty Records of All Time, Volume II. Tom had spent a lifetime up until that week in February, 1989 meticulously collecting each and every one of those damn titles, first on 33 1/3 vinyl LP’s and then all over once again on cassette tapes! It was his damn collection and each one of those cassettes was one of his hard-earned possessions.
All of his cassettes were sacred!
Now you might be saying to yourself, OK, but so what, Lyford? You’d get it back from Gizmo eventually, right?
No. NOT right! What you don’t understand is this: as Gizmo would run away with one of Tom’s tapes, as he did often, he’d deftly pinch up an inch or so of the strip of that shiny brown celluloid tape and start unspooling it! Yes! Imagine that! Just like some crazy cat in the bathroom completely and irritatingly unrolling an entire roll of Charmin off the dispenser for fun! There’s be Gizmo up ahead with the already-long, ever-lengthening loop of tape in his wake as they rounded corners through every downstairs room in the house! And what could Tom do about it?
NOTHING! The Giz was just too fast, too wily! All Tom could do was give up eventually, sit in the living room, and wait for an hour to pass for Giz to grow tired and finally abandon it somewhere. And then later, after Tom finally did retrieve it, you’d find him toiling away at the dining room table with the cassette in his left hand, a #2 pencil in his right, and practically getting carpal tunnel syndrome re-reeling the whole damn tape back inside the plastic cassette once again. And looking as pathetic as some chimpanzee digging ants out of an anthill with only a twig for a tool!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Oh, the things that can happen when you home’s been turned into a monkey house! One of those things I still feel pretty badly about to this day, by the way.
See, Phyl and I have three children: Missy, the oldest; Kathy; and then Chris, the youngest. Kathy hasn’t been mentioned in this little memoir yet, due to the fact that she wasn’t home with us when Gizmo arrived. Instead, she was a student at Colby College in Waterville, Maine which was still in session. She was, however, due to return home nearer the end of Gizmo’s stay.
And me… I’m the idiot who came up with the this great idea:
Let’s not tell her about Gizmo! Let’s let it be a surprise! She’ll be so excited! It’ll be great!
The reason I was so sure it was a great idea is that, surprisingly, Kathy had a real thing about monkeys and gorilla’s already at this point.
When she’d been a lot younger, I’d read aloud the Michael Crichton’s sci-fi novel, CONGO, to all three of our kids. Although it had a very scary, and almost-Indiana-Jones-type plot, the book had a big impact on Kathy. This is because the story’s heroine, one Karen Ross, is a primatologist working with a female mountain gorilla named Amy, who has been trained to communicate with humans using sign language. (Michael Crichton admitted that his Amy was inspired by the famous Gorilla, Koko, who’d actually been trained to do the same thing.) Anyway, the novel was really inspirational for Kathy, leaving her at a very early age looking up to the likes of Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, and even talking about considering a possible career in primatology herself.
That’s why I just knew Kathy would be delighted to experience the wonderful surprise of finding a cute little capuchin monkey in her very own home. Everybody loved Gizmo. Everybody! So Kathy was sure go nuts over him.
Finally the day arrived. Kathy came home to find me (for some reason) grinning like an idiot, I’m sure. (Wait, did I only say like an idiot?) She came shuffling in through the kitchen carrying a little luggage, passed through the dining room, and headed straight for the living room staircase that leads up to our second-floor bedrooms. Unbeknown to our daughter, Gizmo was perched on the stairs above her. I remember him looking like a silly little jailbird up there, peering down upon her through the railings as if through the bars of his jail cell.
I also remember me holding my breath for the big surprise when she’d see him and possible break down in tears of joy, saying something like, “Oh my God, we have a monkey? And look! Why, he’s so cute!” It was a beautiful scene. In my MIND, that is. (My dumb bunny mind.)
Reality? She screamed in terror! Something big and alive had just landed on her head! Probably it felt to her like an 8-pound spider in her hair. Her hands flew to her head! She muckled hard, violently gripped whatever it was, and started trying to yank it free!
Problem? To Gizmo it felt like he was the one under attack! He too was terrified! So he did what animals do when attacked. He sunk his two canines (Dracula fangs) into the back of Kathy’s hand! (Yeah. That’s what he did.) She screamed, of course! He screamed! We all screamed! It was a train wreck! My train wreck.
And when it was over, Kathy was hurt! Infuriated! Livid!Mad as a wet hen! And she immediately crossed Primatology right off her future career dreams list. Just. Like. That. Monkey? Monkey not good! Monkey, bad!Dad? Dad, bad as well. Dad, not good!
So, Iapparently that was day-one of Kathy beginning to switch “majors.” Kathy, no longer the primatologist. Kathy, the future chemist. Dad, in the dog house.
The whole thing made me so sad. And rightfully feeling guilty.
And Gizmo? How did Gizmo feel? Oh, he was pretty much over it in a half a minute. I’m pretty sure that from his point of view, he was like, “Jeez. What’s her problem? I mean, OK, I jumped on her head. What’s the big deal? That’s what I do. That’s how you get around. That’s how you meet people. And heads? They’re like stepping stones for crossing a brook anyway, right? Come on. I mean they’re there, aren’t they. Might as well use’em. And hey, that’s how I met Tom Lyford, right? And look how well that’s turned out. Well, other than him slamming my tail in the door…”
My brother Dennis is a photographer. When he learned we had a monkey, he asked if he could come over and do some videotaping. I said, “Sure. Why not?” So he came over. And while he was getting his video-camera out of its carrying case and set up, I pointed out Gizmo way over in the living room on the floor “wrestling” vigorously with Chris. But by the time Dennis had the cam up on his shoulder and was ready to shoot, Gizmo had spotted him! A stranger in the house! Someone new to get to know! So the little guy had already bounded through the dining room and had launched himself in a leap heading for Dennis’s head. Honestly, Dennis caught him in his lensas a head-on shot of the little Superman incoming, and only microseconds from impact!
The resulting video was hilarious. There’s the split-second HERECOMES GIZMO! and then for six or sevens seconds Dennis, not accustomed to wearing a live monkey hat, instinctively began to spin wildly around, the resulting video becoming a blurred ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the County fair! You almost needed a Dramamine to watch it.
But yeah, heads
Heads were the preferred Gizmo way of saying how do ya do?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
OK. This little piece was supposed to have been the epilogue, but… damnit, apparently it’s not. There was a little too much to cover. So once more I must say, once again, “Gee Whiz, be sure to stay tuned for Chapter Six, The Epilogue, coming soon to the screen on your preferred device!”
(Previously, Chapter Two ended with…) “I pulled myself up onto my feet at last. Gizmo was watching me tentatively. So I leaned slowly down and looked him right in the face.
‘Next time, buddy!’ I growled softly. Which sent him scampering! ‘Yeah! You just wait till next time!’ I called after him.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What had just happened is (A) I had been taught what I’d all along been doing wrong while trying to diaper Gizmo, and (B) I was justbeginning to learn that the girl I’d married had somehow just crazily “channeled” Jane Goodall, right under my nose! I mean, come on! Not my mousey little Phyllis?
(Ahem. “Mousey” back thenI’m talking, mind you— in 1989!Not the Twenty-first Century I am woman, hear me roar Phyllis of today…)
What, not the mousey little Phyllis who feared cats and dogs and bunny rabbits and chipmunks and lizards and lions and tigers, and bears, oh my!? Not the sweet, unassuming, little lady who, only a few weeks ago, had somehow succumbed to my sleazy used-car salesman’s “charms,” when I’d practically swindled into allowing (against her better judgement) one wild, hairy, tree-swinging, wannabe, nudist Tarzan into our living room and her life? Yes, her. I was flabbergasted!
But why should I have been surprised? Because If I’m honest, our marriage has always played out, and still does to this day, like a reverse variation of the I Love Lucy Show, wherein I’m the Lucy and Phyl is the level-headed Ricky Ricardo. But… whatever. At any rate, it had dawned on me that this no-nonsense Phyllis had stepped up to the monkey-business plate and… I’d been relegated back to the showers.
For instance, a couple of afternoons later, I came home from school and, dreading the answer, asked, “So. How did today go with our little friend today?”
And she answered me in a ho-hum, off-the-cuff voice, “Oh, I dunno. OK, I guess. I had to get groceries at the Shop and Save. Gizmo made quite a stir with all the shoppers…”
“What!? Let me get this straight… you, on your own… took Gizmo… our little Gizmo… out in public? To the grocery store? Onyourown!?”
“Yes.” Hmmm. Only that simple, matter-of-fact, little ‘yes?’
“Well, Jeez! That must have been pretty traumatic for you!”
“Nope.”
Me, with my jaw-dropping incredulity being cruelly teased by these single-syllable responses? “Well…? C’mon, tell me about it! I mean, I know it couldn’t have been easy…!”
“Actually, I just put him on his little leash, poked him into his carrier cage, and… just went!”
“What, that’s it!? That’s all you have to say?”
“Well, no. I mean, we were quite the celebrities, obviously. At least Gizmo was. Just trying to get up and down the aisles was the hard part, that little magnet attracted such a crowd. Everybody ooh-ing and aah-ing, talking to him in, you know, baby talk. I thought we’d never get out of there. So many questions to answer! And he cuddled in my arms most of the time, although a few others did get to hold him a little. But wow. I mean, we’re just doing this for a little over a week, so I can’t even imagine what Sandy and Brian’s lives must be like all the time, you know?”
And that’s the way it had become, you know? Suddenly we had so much company at the house! I mean, all the time! We honestly had to start setting up appointments. So many ‘friends’ were coming out of the woodwork, you’d have thought we’d won the Megabucks! Not that we weren’t enjoying the crazy ride, because we were. It was, however, beginning to become a little exhausting.
Meanwhile, I’d fell totally head over heels in love with the little guy. And he with me, with the exception of a few sporadic flashbacks of that unfortunate tail-in-the-door fiasco.
I really missed him when I was in school all day, though. So of course I suddenly came up with this ‘great idea.’ I went into the main office and asked Howard Ryder, the headmaster, “How about I bring Gizmo into my classroom for a couple of periods, to give the kids some time to meet and enjoy him? Both classes I have in mind are in the middle of our creative writing unit. This would give them something interesting and unusual to journal about afterward.” (Of course the creative writing plug was really just a cover for me to officially get my selfish “Bring Your Little Buddy to Work Day” rubber-stamped as… ‘legitimate.’ So yeah. Let’s make it legal…
Mr. Ryder, being the good guy that he was, readily OK’d the plan. Honestly, he was visually excited to have a little monkey-time himself during his otherwise relatively boring, day-long routines. So it was a go. The kids couldn’t wait. Me either! Phyllis (the really cool wife of the now-really-cool English teacher) dropped him off mid-morning. And what a day we were to have.
First of all, I had arranged the students’ desks in a wide circle, so everybody’d have an equally good chance of watching the Giz. And man, were the kids in both classes excited as they came pouring into the classroom! And of course Gizmo picked right up on that excitement as well. Inside the circle, I began by walking around with Giz in my arms and introduced the little fella to each kid. I gave some info about the Helping Hands program that he was in training for; gave the kids the warning that he was bound to be unpredictable, that he might want to climb up on their shoulders; that as cute as he was, he did have a set of vampire fangs; that I would stay close and vigilant, and be on the ready to remove him and answer any questions that might come up. In the meantime, Gizmo was squirming like a worm on a fish hook, wanting madly to get at this new audience. So eventually… I set him down on a student’s desktop. And let go.
And he was off!
Watching him tearing around that circle of boys and girls, stopping here, stopping there, I was reminded of the little ball on a roulette wheel table. With his speed, he was like a sweet Tazmanian Devil. He picked up and examined anything and everything a kid might have in her/his desktop or breast pocket: a pencil or pen, a paperback textbook, a comb… you name it. The world was his oyster.
Unfortunately for me, the Giz didn’t keep himself confined to just their desks. He leaped onto my bigger one, of course, and sent a blizzard of essays and quizzes waiting to be passed back up into the air, leaving me rushing to retrieve them and squirreling the away into my desk drawers for safe keeping. He was up on top of my file cabinet; he was examining my pencil sharper; he was sitting on a girl’s shoulders, examining her barrette with his little curious fingers; he was peering into my wastebasket! And then back down onto the roulette wheel of student desks he’d land once again, and round and round he goes, where he stops nobody knows…
He was… everywhere! It was wonderful. It was crazy. It was exhausting.
Soon the headmaster and assistant headmaster came in to join in the fun. And they ended up having as much of a good time as any of the kids.
Jim Smith, Asst. Headmaster with Howard Ryder (& the Giz)
Howard Ryder, Headmaster, Foxcroft Academy, 1989
All in all, it was a day to remember. And remember it, I always will.
(Previously, Chapter Two ended with…) “I had no doubts whatsoever that it wouldn’t be me putting the little man to bed tomorrow night. Or perhaps any night. No. I definitely got it that he’d never allow himself to get anywhere near both me and the tail-trap door at the same time any time soon, not even with a ten-foot pole.
And I was damned if I could ever blame him.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I couldn’t get to sleep for a long time that night, I was so guilt ridden. Over and over, my mind continued to harass me with the why’s and the what if’s. What if I’d paid more attention? Why couldn’t he have just obeyed the “Cage” command? Why didn’t I just realize right away that his howls didn’t even sound like separation anxiety? Why couldn’t I have been more careful? I’m always going off half-cocked. What if we had tried to put him to bed a little earlier? I mean, you never know– chances are that maybe it just might not have happened then. Right? Who knows?
Anyway, next morning, I certainly made sure that it was me who let him out of his cage. I wanted to be the one to present him with the gift of his morning-after freedom. At least I was good for that. For something!
And was he ever ready! I mean, he practically flew out and was off to the races! Round and round the house, seemingly as happy as the proverbial clam. That did my heart some good.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I’, including the following from my “Gizmo Chronicles” journal of that morning—
“The problem was now two-fold: (1) beginning to work on somehow regaining his sense of trust and comfort, and (2) getting Gizmo back into his cage before I had to get to work. And sure enough, as time for work drew close, Gizmo was making of quick backtracks at all of our approaches (and who could blame him?) But sheesh! Why hadn’t I gotten my clothes ready the night before? I kept asking myself, noticing the clock had crept to 7:05! I mean, I was seriously beginning to cringe at the prospect of how the headmaster of Foxcroft Academy might respond to a possible very late phone call from me, saying, ‘Hi. Howard? Uhm… uhhh… Hey, surprise. Guess what. I… er… can’t make it to school today. See, I can’t get Gizmo back into his cage.’ Yeah, right!
“So I suggested we trychild psychology. I allowed myself to collapse to the floor, just sitting passively with my back against the wall. And then none of us went after him. We just left him alone.
Gizmo seemed to really appreciate this. He began chattering and squeaking at us fairly conversationally while still running around and inspecting everything. It almost seemed like he’d forgotten about out tip-of-his-tail fiasco, but I didn’t really believe that. And after a while (surprise), he actually landed in my lap. However, I was dead sure that even the slightest hand movement toward him would put him straight into I. E. A. mode (Immediate Evasive Action). Holding my breath though, I tried it. And sure enough, he bolted.
And the clock was ticking…
“So our new strategy came from my having watched several Jungle Jim movies back in my childhood. I had the four of us form a wide-sweeping line, and then we proceeded to ‘beat the bushes’ so to speak, hoping to flush our prey forward toward, and hopefully into, the cage. Good theory, right?
But apparently Gizmo’s P.T.S.D. from the previous night’s rat-trap-door nightmare experienced a flashback that provided us with a too serious psychological obstacle to overcome. And on top of that, Giz was a just too amazing a prodigy of on-the-job escape artistry. However, on the third sweep of our indoor veldt, our prey must have become a little desperate. He decided to strike a bargain with one of his his tormentors. Suddenly he just scampered right up the leg of Chris’s sweat pants and began cuddling in his arms.
“‘Chris!’ I whispered. ‘In the cage! Now!’
“Chris slowly walked him over to it and, wow, Gizmo slipped right in (unfrickingbelievable!), albeit with one quick flashback-mini-shriek just to rub some more salt i’nto the wounds of my guilty heart. He must have been exhausted. Then he just hunkered right down into the cage’s lowest level (there were three levels, or ‘stories’ if you will, divided by platforms), began hugging his Garfield The Security Pillow, and rocking himself back into some sense of comfortable security.
“Before leaving for school, I made it a point to sit and talk softly to the little guy for a while. Finally, I passed the prisoner two pretzels, which he accepted gracefully, and put my face down really close to the cage’s screen. And (yes!) Giz did likewise! So we had ourselves a warm little moment, gazing into each other’s eyes, nose to nose, me apologizing to him from the bottom of my heart and telling him that I loved him.
It seemed too good to be true. But it felt… promising, at least.
“Despite that, suffice it to say that it was pretty much a hollow, emotionally exhausted husk of a man who managed to report to my classroom just barely on time (OK, a little late) on that last Friday morning before February vacation was to begin.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So yes, Giz had to spend some time in is little “apartment” alone in the house. It was unavoidable, but was never for long. We’d scheduled ourselves best we could to his needs. Phyllis would take her lunch at home and sit with him from around 11: 00 to 12:00. Twice a week I had a free period around noon so I’d scoot right home to the dear little critter on those days. Missy came home from work at around 1:00. Chris arrived from school around quarter to three. And finally I’d show up at 3:30 or thereaboutsfor the rest of the day. Meanwhile, we always made it a point to keep the TV going, volume turned down low, so perhaps he’d find at least some comfort in the babble of human voices.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Now. Let me tell you what one of the things coming home usually meant for me during those Gizmo days: the Diaper Ordeal.
OK, “ordeal” would be too strong a term if we’re talking about Phyllis. However, we’re talking about me. “Ordeal” very accurately describes my experience when it came to diapering the Giz. And no, it’s not what you’re probably thinking. I’m not talking about any… mess, or whatever. Honestly, attending to Gizmo’s hygiene wasn’t nearly as much a messy task as you might believe. He was a baby, after all. A tiny little thing. I mean, it wasn’t like we were babysitting a full grown gorilla or anything, thank goodness! Giz made only a few little “problem” messes (most of them confined to his living quarters) and they were likewise tiny. Easy to clean up. So that wasn’t the problem at all, nothing more than just a minor little inconvenience we had to deal with now and then. No, see, the main problem was me.
See, I’ve always been this frickin’ empath. I’m always feeling other people’s pain as if theirs were my own. But with Gizmo, it turned out to be a fullblown curse back then. It’s true. Gizmo brought out the bleeding heart in me big time…
Me:Hi. My name’s Tom, and I’m a bleeding heart.
The Bleeding Hearts Anonymous Crowd: HI, TOM!
But so what! I’ve always said we’re all of us occupying our own personal spots somewhere on the vast expanse of this Great Social, Psychological, Spiritual, Intellectual, and Physical Spectrum. And hey, I’m just here to tell you I’m more than comfortable occupying my personal spot, over here in the Bleeding Hearts’ Neighborhood. Better than serving time over there in the Cold, Spartan, Nazi Precinct at least. Because…
Yeah, I’m that guy who slams on the brakes, stops the car, gets out, and lugs the turtle the rest of the way across the road before some Neanderthal, beer-drinking ass hat purposely veers his goddamn pick-up truck across the road to run over the innocent little guy for“sport!”
I’m that guy who, after the officer finally did show up, late, decided to take the responsibility of releasing future critters back into the wild by myself, it being the more humane thing to do.
But yes… I’m also that guy who accidentally slammed Gizmo’s tail in the door. And I wasn’t about to be getting over it any time soon, apparently.
So how does my bleeding empathic heart relate to my inability to simply change the Giz’s cute little pirate pantaloons diapers? Here’s how…
I was obviously feeling very guilty after our pinched-tail incident. And very nervous. So, when I was lucky enough to finally succeed in coaxing the poor guy to have enough trust in me to actually sit in my lap (which he did allow sometimes after those first couple of days), I was a lot tenser than he was. I mean, I was just so conscious of him probably remembering how I’d hurt him that I just knew he was going to bolt any second! And the truth is, whenever I tried to get those pants on him, I’d find myself actually holding my breath without realizing it! And then my hands would begin to shake! I mean, the whole process so damn awkward! Never a walk in the park for me even under the best of circumstances, me trying to jockey him into those damn pants. It was pretty difficult, threading those squirmy matchstick legs all the way down in through those long pirate’s pant legs, mostly because they were each gathered in a tight pucker at the bottoms! And also because the pantaloons’ legs were so long, they’d end up getting all bunched and twisted up! It was nerve wracking!
I’ve already told you that Gizmo’s super power was sensing fear, even from afar. So I’d always be pretty damn convinced his radar was picking up on every twitch of my mounting frustration as well, and that he’d be wondering, What the hell was taking this dumb human so long? (Told you I’m am an empath. Did I also tell you that I’m a frickin’ mind-reading empath?) It always felt as if Gizmo had a ticking stopwatch timing me! Like I was on that old TV game show, Beat the Clock! The pressure would be crushing me, me fearing that every second he was gonna give up on me and bolt! And guess what: he always would give up on me and bolt!
However, one time I at last did manage to gethis feet finally poked down through the little holes, get the waistband hoisted the up around his tiny waist, and get the little velcro strip thumbed up against the fabric in the back! And I was all, Eureka!I had achieved the impossible! My self-esteem was soaring.
As I gently placed him down onto the floor between my knees, I found him gazing up into my eyes. Was he… what, proud of me? As proud as I was of myself? I wasn’t sure. But probably. Maybe. And then…
He backed away a few short steps, and stopped. I was about to blurt out, “I did it, Gizmo! Can you believe it?” But suddenly, my boy broke into what looked like a crazy combination of a happy little tantrum and the Chubby Checker Twist! And in two secondsflat, his not-so-tightly-whities were lying in a heap on the floor down around his ankles!
And the look in his little eyes? I swear: smug! I mean, way too smug for a tyke his age! And then what did he do? He started capering around the living room floor, dancing sassily right back up in front of me only to snatch up that contentious diaper and fling it into the air above his head! Then he was gone.
He’d scampered off and away, out toward the kitchen… leaving me with gravity, just tugging on me… pulling on me… sliding me down onto the floor. Me, dead weight… settling… seated with my back against the sofa… sitting slumped there, all alone.
And grateful to be alone. The house, silent. Me, still sitting there. Sucker-punched. A little dazed. Done in. And with no plans to be getting back up any time soon, if ever.
But that was OK…
The final score? Gizmo: 1, Tom: nada...
And that was OK…
I didn’t care. It had been an eternally long day and I didn’t have the energy to care anymore. So I just sat there. And continued to sit there. And time went by. Yes time, but no longer the stopwatch. Time was just time, is all… standing still…
And that dark little mote, that rorschach flicker in my eye that resembled a hairy cavorting little nudist pausing intermittently at a safe distance near the broken down trainwreck… the trainwreck that was happy to be me…
It was OK…
Eventually, however, I was aware of the sound of the front door being opened. And then there were… footsteps. Something loomed over me, shading out some of the sunlight gleaming through a window pane. I willed myself to move. I looked up. And there was Phyllis, home from work, looking down.
“Hey. What’s happening?” she said. That question tended to mildly jumpstart my stalled life somewhat.
“You’re lookin’ at it,” I answered.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I failed.”
“At…?”
I nodded over my shoulder toward Gizmo, bounding into the room to check on the voices.
“Oh,” she said. “He’s naked.“
I shrugged. “Yeah. The diaper thing.”
She looked down at my white surrender flag lying on the floor. “So I see. OK.” She was peeling off her coat and heading to the hall closet. “Be right back.”
“Not if you’re smart…” I warned.
She did come back though, plucked up the deflated pantaloons from the floor, sat herself down in the stuffed chair next to the couch, and dropped the diaper at her feet.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now, we wait.”
“Yeah. Right,” I said. “You wait.” Me, the Doubting Thomas.
But waiting was unnecessary. Because, giving me a wide berth, Gizmo sauntered somewhat close to her chair, her not being the threat of someone who had recently rat-trapped his tail.
“Hi, Giz,” she said. “What’s up?”
Being addressed personally drew him a little closer to her. And then…
SHE POUNCED! Had him quick as a spider abducts the fly that’s barely feather-touches its web! Rolled him over her knee as if for a spanking, pinned him there, worked those whitey pant legs up his legs, yanked the waistline up over his hips, and had the little bugger velcroed, done, and dusted before he knew what hit him.
It was amazing! Like watching a rodeo cowpuncher rope and hogtie a calf in record time! Of course with three kids already under her belt, this wasn’t exactly Phyl’s first rodeo.
When she placed him back down on the floor again, the look he gave her was priceless. Pure… chagrin!
He immediately dug his tiny opposable thumbs down under the waistband and started pushing down for all he was worth. They didn’t budge. His puzzlement was a wonder and a joy to see! He danced around, hopping up and down, still trying to force what was stubbornly refusing to get out of the way of his wanting/needing to be au naturel.
It was a losing fight. He slowed down fast.
“How did you do that?” I demanded.
“What do you mean? You watched me, right?”
“Well, yeah, I did. Only… when I did that… and it looked just like what you did… his pants just fell right off him like a ton of bricks. And after the whole thing took all my energy! All my energy for nothing! I don’t get it.”
“Ah!” she replied. “I bet you didn’t properly fasten the velcro strap in the back.”
“But I did. At least, thought I did anyway.”
“So. You attached the velcro strip to the little sticky patch on the back of his pants.”
“What? What little sticky patch?”
“Oh, OK. What’d you, just stick it right on the plain diaper cloth? Just any old where?”
“Maybe. I dunno. I guess. Nobody told me anything about any stupid patch.”
“So it’s no wonder his pants just… fell off then.”
“OK. So…what, you gonna show me where the stupid patch is?”
“Sure. Go get the diaper bag.”
“So there’s a glimmer of hope for me then? Even though I don’t have an ounce of energy left for it?”
She shrugged. “You’ll catch on. It’ll get easier. With practice.”
“Yeah? So why do I feel so doubtful then?”
I pulled myself up onto my feet at last. Gizmo was watching me tentatively. So I leaned slowly down and looked him right in the face.
“Next time, buddy!” I growled softly. Which sent him scampering! “Yeah! You just wait till next time!” I called after him.
(And yes, I know I said last time that Chapter Two was going to be called “Tweeter and the Monkeyman,” but it turns out that MAYBE that’s going to be the title of Chatper Three instead. (Or four?) My apologies.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(But previously, Chapter One ended with …) “It seems she had to go to California for a week, and was at a loss as to what she was going to do about Gizmo. So yeah, you can see where this is going. Soon I was running like a 43-yearold little kid to Phyllis, my darling wife, begging her “Please, please, PLEASE! Can I? Come on, huh? I’ll feed’im, I’ll change his diapers, why… you won’t hafta do a thing, I PROMISE!”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
OK. See, the reason I felt I had to dramatically beg like a little kid to be Gizmo’s babysitter is that Phyllis suffers from a lifelong aversion to animals. Hairy mammals especially. (However, she does strive valiantly to make an exception for me). Cats and dogs were anathema to her. Me, I passionately love cats and dogs. I love pretty much all animals.
Except bears.
So anyway, I instinctively I knew that a hairy baby-monkey-mammal was way too close to being a cat or a dog. So I knew my chances were slim at best. However… my acting like the pathetically hopeful eight-year-old begging for the puppy that had followed him home, or the bunny rabbit, or especially even the pony, might in fact, just might prove to be too overwhelmingly disarming. And if I could just get her to crack a grin, that just might be the chink in her armor I could use to get her flustered and off-guard.
Especially considering it was my plan to purposely perform my little comedy act with Phyllis in front of a random audience of YMCA members standing in the lobby. Who, by the way (yes!) ended up thinking it sufficiently “cute” to begin chanting at her in a chorus of, “Aw, come on, Phyllis,” and “Let the poor kid have his monkey,” etc. (See, I’ve had a lot of practice learning how to manipulate this woman.)
And hah! She did crack a grin (immediately wishing she hadn’t). Peer pressure is a marvelous tool. Her defense momentarily collapsed. I was in!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
SO… a few weeks later, as a way to get Gizmo to feel more familiar with and closer to us, his future one-week monkey-sitters, Phyl and I were invited to a getting-to-know-you-better evening chez Gizmo. Giz was so excited to have company visit. Phyllis positioned herself on the sidelines, wanting to distance herself from the action and just passively watch me having a ball rolling around on the floor with him. I say “wanting to distance herself” because it was impossible for anyone to distance themselves from that frisky little ball of energy.
Gizmo had a super power. He could sense fear from a mile away and he was compelled to hone right in on it. In the future I’d see it time and time again. Those who fearfully tried to avoid the wild little simian were always the very people Gizmo was drawn to the most. Immediately, Phyllis sensed that she was a target, like her lap had the big Gizmo bullseye on it. That’s where he wanted to sit.
And strangely Phyl, who wanted nothing whatsoever to do with any pets of the animal variety, had always turned out to be a frickin’ animal magnet. We’d be in a room with some dog and I’d be calling, “Here, fella!” or “Over here, girl!” and Phyl would end up with the dog at her knees. And cats?Just the same. They’d be rubbing against her ankles all night long. Me? I’d be only too happy to run defense for her. Because I wanted all that attention all for myself.
Looking around, I discovered there was another “monkey house” at their home as well, identical to the one at the Y. And this monstrosity would soon be trucked over to our house when Sandy and her husband, Brian, flew off to the west coast for a week. I couldn’t wait.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Gizmo and his monkey house arrived at our house at 7:30 pm on February 16th, 1989. There were four of us waiting to answer the door: Phyllis and I, plus our daughter, Melissa, and our son, Chris. The temperature outside was +6 degrees Fahrneheit. If you’re wondering how I still know the exact date, time, and temperature, I kept a journal. Here’s a picture of the actual front cover.
Sandy and Gizmo waited in our living room, with Gizmo temporarily jailed in his pet carrier (like some cat on his way to the vet’s) while a couple of men muscled his cumbersome “abode” into our den. It was obvious poor little Gizmo, looking so forlorn, knew what was going on. He’d been through such a scenario at least once before, if not more. Home is where the heart is, yeah, but for the Giz home had to be wherever his little “house” went. And now that little house had just been noisily dragged into our strange one.
With our front door finally closed against the frigid temperature outside, the little guy was finally released from his travel carrier. Immediately he scampered right into Sandy’s lap, where he remained cowering, a little squirrel-size ball with sad little frightened eyes. I’m pretty sure the little fella probably felt he himself the orphan who was being ditched once again. It must’ve been very stressful.
And how did I feel? Also stressed. Both excited and scared. I felt like I had when we’d brought four-days-old Missy, our very first-born child, home from the hospital. We didn’t feel confident at all about knowing how to take care of a baby then. But there she was anyway: a little, helpless life lying there in her crib. Sure, we’d been given lots of pointers from people in general and medics, but thank goodness we had that Dr. Spock manual for child care.
Well, here we were again, another little baby getting thrust into our care. Only this one in no sense of the word was helpless. We’d seen him in action. This guy could walk. This guy could swing from the chandeliers if you didn’t watch him. This baby could saddle up your head and ride it to a standstill like a simian Urban Cowboy. But still, he was just a baby, too. In his own way. And there was no Dr. Spock manual for Gizmo.
With Gizmo nestled safely in Sandy’s lap, we gathered round in the solemn, final, how-to demonstrations, not that we hadn’t gone over a lot of it prior to this. We covered what foods he liked, what foods he didn’t like, what foods he must have, and what treats he favored (pretzels and grapes). We were cautioned again that Giz had a blazing curiosity which, coupled with his safe-cracker’s dexterous little fingers, meant lock up what you didn’t want messed with and anything that might be dangerous for the little fella. Because Gizmo could and would get into anything and everything not nailed down: closed drawers, jewelry boxes, cupboards, things with zippers, you name it. I remember that in the days leading up to our little sleep-over friend’s arrival, we had thoroughly monkey-proofed the house. (At least we thought we had.)
Sandy took out the diaper bag and emptied its contents. Among other things, it had a number of diapers, some with pant legs gathered just above the knees and some… pantaloons basically, with pant legs gathered below the knees. The latter made him look like a jaunty little swashbuckling pirate. So cute.
But finally Gizmo was temporarily locked into his seven-foot tall, toy-laden, security-pillowed monkey penthouse, for safe keeping while his foster parents got busy pulling on their heavy coats and shuffling out of sight, out into the kitchen. And sadly, when I watched Gizmo’s little body slump, and that beautiful little mug of his crumple into soft despair when he heard our front door open, then close, and then at last the whole house become so much more silent, I was so wistfully reminded of Shakespeare’s “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
Yeah, so sorry little fella, they’re gone, aren’t they. And you’re afraid they aren’t ever coming back. Oh, baby, I know, I get it. But hey, you’ve got us. Right? And the thing is, they really are coming back. Trust us, Sweetie. But you and me? We’re gonna have so much fun! Every single day. It’ll be great.
Sandy had instructed us to wait about fifteen minutes or so before releasing him from his little “apartment,” to give him a some time to begin to get used to his new circumstances. A period of adjustment. Then, we could let him play with us to his and our hearts’ delight, which I could barely wait for. Then, when the Cinderella hour (or whenever it was we wanted to go to bed) finally rolled around, we could put him back in for the night. He’d been thoroughly trained to obey the simple command, “Cage,” she told us. “Say that just once and he’ll scamper his little self right back into it for the night,” she said. It was such a relief and blessing to us to have been given a magic word like that, as I was still feeling almost like we had a real human baby in the house again, and without the assurance of a Dr. Spock monkey manual.
When we opened up his door, we found him rocking back and forth nervously and hugging his cute little Garfield pillow. He looked out at us inquiringly for a moment. And then cautiously he hopped out, still with pillow, and continued watching us to see what we were going to do.
When he’d decided we weren’t going to eat him or anything, he was off! Bounding around the house from room to room, stopping here and there to inspect things, and then moving on. Slowly and non-threateningly trailing him, we found his Garfield abandoned on the kitchen floor.
He was hell on wheels! Practically a blur! He had so much to explore, an entire new world. He hopped up onto my desk and grabbed a pencil out of my pens-and-pencils holding mug. He was in the bathroom examining his own little self in the mirror. He was (yikes!) paused in front of my stacked stereo components, already pushing buttons and twisting knobs! He was examining our own toys that we’d laid out for him in anticipation of his arrival.
Me, I laid down on my back on the living room floor, waiting. It didn’t take long. He landed on my stomach just as I’d planned and boy, we went at it, the first of many fun “wrestling matches” to come that would all turn out to be more fun than (dare I say it?)… a barrel of monkeys. We chased him around. He chased us around. We wore him out. He wore us out. A little kid’s dream: I had a monkey!
It was nearing bed time. But we kept putting it off because, damn, it was just too much fun. Eventually however, common sense had to prevail. We were bushed. So… per instructions… I went to his dwelling, opened the door, looked down upon Gizmo, and spoke the magic word. “Cage.”
Giz looked up at me and blinked a few times. Perhaps I hadn’t said it clearly enough. I said it again. “Cage.” We were still looking at each other. Hmmm. OK, one more time, this time with gusto. “CAGE.”
And Gizmo moved immediately. Oh he understood that command alright. That was obvious. But rather than obey it, the little devil took off in the wrong direction, scampering out toward the kitchen! We followed him. And that monkey? He led us round and round in circles, being careful to stay just far enough ahead of us that we couldn’t lay a hand on him. We were a little parade, with Gizmo leading as the grand little marshall. Stupidly, Phyllis, son Chris, daughter Melissa, and I were bringing up the rear, chanting the now obviously ineffectual “Cage!” over and over in vain, thereby proving the time-worn definition of insanity. It had become a game for him, catch as catch can. And that twerp was so slippery and so evasive, our attempts at “heading him off at the pass” were just exercises in futility.
Eventually though, I was able to snag him. And feeling a little badly for the little critter as he and I approached his bungalow, I repeatedly assured him in a soothing voice, “Hey there little man, everything’s OK. Alright? It’s just that it’s time for bed. You’re worn out. I’m worn out. We’re all worn out. So what’re you gonna do, huh? But just think: tomorrow we’ll have an entire full day together. We’ll let you out and you’ll have the run of the house again. It’ll be great. Just a hoot.” And by the end of this babbling I was standing directly in front of the cage door.
I asked Phyl to open the door for me, so I could keep both hands firmly clamped on the inmate. As she did so, I could feel him tense all up, readying himself to spring for the great escape. I however was determined that that wasn’t about to happen. So I positioned him quite a ways inside, to give me a little wiggle room, because I had a feeling that as soon as I let go of him to close the frickin’ door, he’d bolt. So I held him in place a little longer, all the while reassuring him in soothing baby-talk that everything was OK. And then, on the silent count of three, I let go, backed away, and slammed the door fast!
There! I had him! Finally! But as I was fumbling with the lock, Gizmo let loose with a shrill wail! Oh, the poor little bugger, I thought as I leaned hard against the door to be sure to keep it closed. He misses Sandy and Brian so damn much. And who can blame him? I sure couldn’t. But then the wail increased in volume, becoming a piercing yowl that was honestly quite close to deafening. So I began showering him with earnest promises about what tomorrow would bring us, and how his loved ones honestly would return. Someday soon! But me, always the empath, I could imagine and feel his stark loneliness as clearly as if it were me there in that cage, locked away. But jeez, the heart-rending lamenting still hadn’t stopped! It had, in fact, gone up another notch.
By now my heart had started pounding in my chest.! I was sweating! I could barely even hear any more! And I could barely think straight! I mean, what the heck was wrong? What was I supposed to do? What could do? I hated to admit it, but I’d begun to suspect I had obviously bitten off more than I could chew this time, with this monkey-sitting gig…
“Come on low, little buddy. This’ll all be…”
What? Somebody’s hand was suddenly squeezing and jerking my shoulder from behind. Hard!What the…? Now, that was just one more distraction I didn’t want or need right then. I was busy! I was under duress! So I shrugged the damn hand off me! And…
My God, I was thinking, won’t this guy EVER calm the heck back down, for crying out loud? I mean, what’ve I gotta DO? I was going stir-crazy! Certifiably NUTS!
WHAT damnit it!” I bellowed.
And then, if things weren’t crazy enough, somebody started pounding me in the back with their fist! Equally as hard!WHAT? And amid all THIS? This was a freaking nightmare! I was just about stone deaf! I was at my wit’s end, and I was entering full panic mode for Christ’s sake, if I weren’t there already! So I spun around viciously, ready to start screaming myself and maybe biting somebody’s head off to boot!
Whoa…! There were three wild-eyed faces all gawking at me like I was crazy or something! And I could tell they were talking at me because I could see their lips moving, but in all the racket I couldn’t make out heads or tails of whatever it was they were yelling!
“OK,WHAT!? What the freakin’ heck do you WANT? Can’t you see what I’m…”
Suddenly, I noticed all three were pointing their index fingers, not at me, but at something… downward! They were pointing at something they urgently wanted me to see!
Insanely confused in all this madness by now, all I wanted to do was run away to some place quiet! But no– so with my angriest angry glare I decided to humor them, damnit, and finally look down! Just to get them off my back!
And then…
OH NO…
I saw it.
It was something… something down at the bottom of Gizmo’s door.
A little stub of… shit! Gizmo’s tail, just the tip of it, protruding out from under the door!
Oh. My. God! What had I done?!
Of course what I had done was accidentally slam the door on… poor little Gizmo’s tail!No wonder he…
I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t want to believe it, damn me all to hell!
I immediately yanked the door open a couple of inches. The tip of the tail zipped right inside, out of view. And likewise immediately… the pain-wracked caterwauling mercifully ceased!
I was instantly consumed with shame and self-hatred. It had been done accidentally, of course, but try to explain that to the baby Capuchin with the sore tail!
I looked to him and found his eyes boring two holes into mine. Standing there on two hind legs shoulder-width apart, and holding the tip of the assaulted tail up in his left fist at head height, like one might hold a torch, he was confronting me with the evidence, the evidence of my betrayal. Because surely, that must have been what it had to be feeling like to him.
Oh yes, oh yes oh yes! What in God’s name had I done!? I was having all I could do to keep from collapsing in anguish. I mean, the last thing in the world I’d ever wanted to ever do was…
“Oh Gizmo, I’m so sorry, so sorry, so sorry!” I blurted out, on the edge of tears. How could I ever make him trust me again?
Yeah. Way to go, Tom. Way to totally destroy an otherwise wonderfully perfect evening. Or week…
I had no doubts whatsoever that it wouldn’t be me putting the little man to bed tomorrow night. Or perhaps any night. No. I definitely got it that he’d never allow himself to get anywhere near both me and the tail-trap door at the same time any time soon, not even with a ten-foot pole.
Throughout my life, I’ve been one of those guys to whom things just seem to… happen. I mean, right out of the blue. Unxpected things. And sometimes even rather outlandish things. Why? Because Life is The Joker, the Grand Comedian. Because Life seems to find it fun, having its way with me. Today, I’m hell-bent on sharing with you a sample of of one of those things…
CHAPTER ONE: WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE
I was still in pretty good shape at 43. Big into push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, running, and even doing a little weight-lifting. This was back in ’89.
(And so man oh man, when and why did I ever let myself go like I have?)
Anyway, ’89 was the year my wife, Phyllis, and I got memberships to the Y and added a daily morning swim to our routines. I remember getting up so damn early, long before breakfast, and doing those laps: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. A somewhat boring regimen, sure, but it did feel great in the long run, pushing the envelope by adding on a couple of extra laps every week or two. Plus, it seemed to be having a pretty positive effect on my attitude and general outlook. And that was great.
Ah, to be young again…
(Oh wait— yeah, now I remember why! I was forgetting about the ‘GETTING OLD’ part. I’m 77 now. It must’ve been somewhere between 43 and 77 that I let it happen. So I guess maybe I can lay at least part of the blame for my slacking off on all the arthritis, surgeries, and all that other geriatric medical yadda yadda yadda.)
But I digress. So anyway, we’d show up at the Y half-asleep, zombie-shuffling in, barely aware of our surroundings. Speaking for myself at least, I know I was pretty much flying on autopilot those mornings, barely alert enough to swap the nominal good-mornings with the friendly staff on our way to the locker rooms. Basically sleep walking. That’s just the way it always was. So yeah, no wonder I was taken totally by surprise when…
wait for it…
A MONKEY literally (notfiguratively) crash-landed down onto my head like a little sandbag?
I mean, who wouldn’t be?! I was like, I dunno, did somebody slip me an LSD mickey when I wasn’t looking? I didn’t have clue-number-one what the hell the thing even was. I mean come on, it was the Y! Not the frickin’ jungle!
So I went a little berserk, didn’t I. And by berserk, I’m talking about emitting one long, not-so-very-macho wail; pirouetting round and round; and all the while, clawing and batting away at the very alive Davy Crockett coonskin cap I thought was trying to burrow into my brain! I mean you know, I had seen Alien with all those creepy giant eggs just waiting to hatch one of those flying face-huggers at you! But a flying monkey?! Shades of The Wizard of Oz!
Mercifully, I was rescued by one of the staff ladies who leapt out of her chair, stopped me mid-spin, and carefully began extricating the four little limbs and long tail of what turned out to be an eight-month-old, baby Capuchin monkey! What the hell was a monkey doing at the Y?
Turns out what the monkey was doing at the Y was this:
The staff lady, Sandy, was keeping him with her during her workdays because reliable monkey-sitters were impossible to find. He, Gizmo, was totally under her care. Not as a pet per se, but as part of the national non-profit foundation, Monkey Helpers for the Disabled, Inc. (now known as Envisioning Access). Their motto: “Meet a monkey. Adopt a monkey.” So Sandy had “adopted” a monkey. Gizmo.
The “adoption” wouldn’t be permanent, however. It would only last for three years, after which he would be returned to the foundation to begin his actual training which would last many years. Sandy’s job, in the meantime, was to give him a home, bring him up from babyhood, and train him to be not only accustomed to people but be safe and people-friendly (think user-friendly).
I hadn’t noticed it at the time but when I came to, there it was, standing tall right there in front of me in the Y office like some huge, wooden, open-faced armoire. But I guess “kennel” would be a more accurate term for it. It was huge and roomy, seven-feet tall and at least five-feet wide— and so much more than just a simple “cage’” even though of course a cage it was. It was obviously Gizmo’s living quarters/play pen. Inside there were roped rings hanging down for swinging on, soft bedding, an assortment of toys, and what I came later to call his soft security pillows, one looking like Garfield and the other looking like a mother hen.
Turned out Gizmo was only seven months old, a baby. And after my fear-induced adrenalin rush had worn off, I began to see him as the cutest little head-hugger I could ever imagine laying eyes on. He was undeniably adorable.
And after a few minutes of getting to ‘know” him, I have to admit it was practically a case of love at first sight for me. (And it wasn’t just me. As I was soon to find out, everybody who came into contact with the little guy fell head over heels in love with him too.) But admit it. What child at some point hasn’t wanted a monkey? They always look like such fun, in the movies and on television. And OK, granted, I was no longer a child. But of course I’d fantasized about having one as a kid.
And isn’t there always a little inner-self kid left over somewhere inside each of us after we’ve aged? So I was a child at heart.
So guess what. I swam a lot fewer laps in the pool that morning. Seems Gizmo had taken to me as much as I had taken to him. And that felt so special. (Of course, Gizmo simply loved people. All of us, in fact. Of course I just preferred to think that what he and I were building was an extra-special relationship. But…)
So yeah, it took me about twenty minutes to pull myself away from him and trudge myself off to the pool.
Next morning went exactly the same way. And ditto for the morning after. Not swimming was suddenly threatening to put a dent in my physical regimen. But as far as I was concerned, who cared? Not me. The joy that I was getting playing with hat little rascal was so addictive.
Then, some mornings I didn’t swim at all. Hell, some mornings I didn’t even bother to bring my swimming trunks. What a loser I was becoming. But what a happy loser. Because just like they appear on TV and in the movies, monkeys really are a lot of fun.
OK. So let’s do the long-story-short thing:
Gizmo’s and my rapport seemed to really be pleasing Sandy. To the point where she took me aside one morning and offered me a proposition that would (temporarily at least) change my life. It seems she had to attend a conference in California for a week, and was at a loss as to what she was going to do about Gizmo.
So yeah, you can probably see where this was going. Soon I was running like a 43-year old little kid to Phyllis, my darling wife, begging “Please, please, PLEASE! Can I? Huh? Come on, huh? I’ll feed’im, I’ll change his diapers… why, you won’t hafta do a thing! I PROMISE!”
(Stay tuned for Chapter 2: “TWEETER AND THE MONKEYMAN”)
NEARING THE END OF THE LINE 