The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Nick Hornby, �A Long Way Down�

Started August 22 � Finished August 25, 2005; 334 pages. Posted 22 November 2005

Hornby�s latest novel was recently nominated for the Whitebread � Whoops, sorry... Whitbread Best Novel prize. He still hasn�t acknowledged or apologized for stealing my schtick, by the way.

With this novel, dealing with four people who want to kill themselves but instead form a tentative alliance which builds to friendship, my path crosses with Hornby once again. At least this time I can say that the idea came to him first.

I�ve already mentioned how my father, after growing frustrated with a shoulder injury that refused to heal, talked casually about suicide and walking peacefully into the ocean here in Hawaii, thinking that would be the end of it.

I�m not qualified to offer this guy advice. After all, I ignored everything both my parents told me or tried to warn me about when I was growing up, so why the hell should they listen to me? But I figured coming here and giving him some company might remind him that he actually likes people in general, he�s just out of practice and now it seems like he has no options.

See, the guy used to love being around people. He�d make a show of it. He was so enthusiastic that it made both my sister and me reluctant to bring friends over, as he might break into some sort of boisterous showtune-style introduction.

Me: �Dad, this is Chris. We have class together.�
Dad (singing and waving his arms like a Muppet on amphetamines): �Hey, Chris! How ya doin�? The birds are all singin� and the sun is all shining � YAY!�
Me: �Dad, stop. Stop right now.�

That happened when I was around 11 years old. A few years later, I was on the mainland and found things like skateboarding, shouldertapping, and girls. Contact with my father fell by the wayside. I never meant for it to happen, as I liked my father, but eventually seven years passed with no contact whatsoever. It always seemed like when I got the idea to write, I would realize that I was in the middle of some project, either with writing or my band. I simply figured I would put off the long-overdue letter a little longer until whatever I was working on was finished, so I could include it as a gift. Without fail, when the project was finished I was too busy to write that letter. The cycle repeated.

When I did finally break the habit of not writing, I found he had kept himself busy. He was all set to re-marry, and was caretaker of a clubhouse located four houses away from a beach on the North Shore. Soon after, the wedding was off and he had a fistfight with somebody he had petitioned the landowners to let move in. In short, he was tired of dancing and singing for people, and moved to Kauai for some solitude.

And he got that in spades. I�m a letter-writing kind of guy, so my sister took over phone duties and reported back that he could sometimes barely speak because he hadn�t said a word to anybody in weeks. After the hiking injury that screwed up his arm, he was ready to move back to the more-populated island of Oahu. Partly because he needed more advanced medical attention, and partly because he seemed ready to once again socialize with the general public.

Neither really happened. He kept expecting the doctors to perform some miracle cure, and as someone who broke their collarbone back in April, I know that just doesn�t happen with broken bones. His complaints about the constant pain made him difficult to be around and now he found himself alone, but this time not by choice. I got here shortly after his offhand comment about suicide, and tried to remind him that at one time he actually liked people.

�And now,� I said to him, �you�ve become set in your ways about not socializing, when I think you actually wouldn�t mind being around people. You don�t seem angry with those other people anymore, so it�s just a matter of breaking bad habits. And really, it�s a habit you should break, because all you�re doing is staring out the window, and the only other life forms that do that are cats and old people.�

That seemed to work. Reminding him that there are plenty of older broads hanging around so-called churches like the Unity and Unitarian organizations that are plentiful around the island, I convinced him to buy a bicycle. I even persuaded him to purchase a new model, which wasn�t easy considering the guy thinks it�s decadent to spend more than ten dollars in one place. Or one month.

It didn�t go well at first, with him saying one place was too busy talking about �Jesus this� and �Jesus that� when he was just looking for some cruising action. At another church, he ran into his ex-fianc�e, which didn�t help matters. He did ride up to another church and seemed enthusiastic about it, though not about the hook-up factor. Rather, he was excited that they gave a free breakfast social after the service, and if there are two things that my dad loves, it�s �free� mixed with �food.�

I�m the same way. I offered to meet him there the following week.

I made arrangements to meet him. I pulled up just as he was about to ride away. �Aw, they stopped having the free food after the service,� he told me after I asked where he was going. �Now they want you to give them a dollar.� As broke as I�ve been, I told him I was pretty sure I could spring for the both of us, but he declined.

C�mon ladies, you can�t say this man isn�t desirable.

In any case, it didn�t matter. Soon after that meeting, he had a stroke. Or something like a stroke, anyway. This was a rare form of a debilitating disease that involves the blood cells in your brain and spine swelling and finally bursting. Then the stroke-like symptoms occur. He had paralysis in half his body, and as a crueler joke, the side affected was his good arm. He also had severe loss of memory, and difficulty in keeping present thoughts straight. I assume it was this which made him forget to mention to me that he hadn�t urinated since the incident, five days previous. When he finally decided to mention it, he sounded very sickly and asked if I could take him to the hospital, which I did. They inserted a catheter, draining nearly two liters of urine from his bladder.

�Well,� I said. �Now I suppose you�re only full of vinegar.�

The catheter stayed in, and the bicycle I had convinced him to buy in an attempt to make him more active was now useless. In whatever amount of time it takes for your blood vessels to swell and burst, all the effort I had put into getting him active, which was working, had dissipated. His depression returned, as did the mentions of ending his life.

Around the same time, a social worker came to visit, checking into the possibility of relocating him. During the interview process, he mentioned his thoughts of suicide.

Bad move, dad.

I got the call shortly after that meeting ended with the social worker essentially asking me to sign the necessary papers to forcibly commit my father, so that the hospital shrinks could ascertain whether he posed a legitimate threat to himself or others. I should state that neither my sister nor I feel he�s in a headspace where he would do something drastic � he simply has a romantic notion of slipping away peacefully.

But now, it was out of our hands. He had gone outside the family.

�Hey dad, do you remember when you were going though all that schooling in college in psychotherapy?� I asked him after getting off the phone with the social worker. �You remember them talking about requirements and procedures you had to follow if a patient mentioned thoughts of suicide?�

�Oh, I think there was something about that,� he said, �but I never followed those requirements. They seemed unnecessary to me.�

�Well, I know this might come as a shock, but some people paid attention to those requirements, and the person you just met with is one of those. I just got off the phone with her, and she wants me to sign you off to one of those emergency psychiatric care wards. The kind you can�t leave.�

�Oh, I don�t want to do that.�

�Yeah, I figured.�

My sister and I doubled up to show that we were taking the threat seriously. Numerous trips back and forth to the hospital were coordinated with me as the driver, all while I was working four jobs and still managing to go to all my classes. Finally, after one 20-hour workday, I didn�t wake up when he called, needing to go back to the hospital because of the unwillingness of his body to expel urine. He, assuming I was working, walked to the hospital with a bladder full of urine and then back again, this time with another catheter attached. He told me later, after I asked why he didn�t call an ambulance, or for fuck�s sake, a taxi, that those options seemed �too extravagant.�

I know people are bracing themselves with this entry, thinking there will be some awful conclusion. There isn�t. But, with all that�s happened and the guilt I felt from sleeping through his call when he needed me, I know I can�t keep up the pace with the four jobs, and school, and taking care of him. This is one of the reasons why I haven�t updated in a while. There are others, but hey � this is long enough, don�t you think?

Tomorrow, I go into the job at The Company, and tomorrow will be when I tell them I quit. Not that I can afford to quit as of yet, but hey. In the meantime, anybody who wants to send me cigarettes and whiskey money is encouraged to do so.

Actually, my old boss told me it would take about $66,000 to start up a used bookstore from scratch. Anybody want to send me that?
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There are probably numerous copyediting errors in this entry. I�m tired. Go ahead and tell me, and I�ll change them and erase your comment so I seem smarter than I am.


Rating: Worth used.

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