Monkeys, Channel Locks, and Vicodin

A decade or so ago, I worked at the San Diego Zoo for four years as a primate keeper. My area was off-exhibit, up the hill in the back of the zoo, above the hippo enclosure, below the research building and the zoo hospital. I cared for about forty to fifty monkeys, most of them Lion-Tailed Macaques. My workday started early--6am--usually just as the sun was coming up. But depending on the time of year, it was often still dark when I walked down the hill to my area to unlock the first door leading into what was affectionately known as The Primate Pad.

I had this very precise routine I followed every morning when I arrived to work. It had to be precise. It had to be a routine. When you care for 25lb monkeys with incisors the size of raptor claws, you need to be on your toes, especially at 6am, and especially if it's dark. It's not that they were vicious, but they got moody just like anybody else. If one of my monkeys was having a bad day, it was important for me to know that sooner rather than later.

There were two locked doors leading into my area which was entirely enclosed in wire mesh. Picture forty individual cages of various sizes surrounded by one big giant cage. That way, if an animal got out, it was still enclosed. Some of the monkeys were housed by themselves while others were housed in groups. The males, about a dozen, were in individual walk-in cages with steel slide-locks. As most of you probably know, monkeys are geniuses at figuring stuff out. Stuff like how to unslide steel slide-locks. As a result, I was always double-checking the locks to make sure they were secured. Every time an animal was moved into or out of the cage, I made sure the lock was secured. But of course........every once in a while I got side-tracked or distracted and forgot to secure the lock, which is why I was constantly checking the locks--first thing in the morning, throughout the day, and before I left to go home. That way, if I DID forget to secure a lock, I usually (hopefully) caught it first, before the monkey did. Usually.

So back to my morning routine. From the moment I walked up to unlock the first door, I made a point of noticing any change, any unusual-ness, any detail that was out of its normal order. It could be a thing, a sound, even a smell. Anything that just wasn't quite right.

One morning I arrived, walked down the hill, unlocked the first door, and it was right after I got through the second door that I noticed it--something was different. Something was......off. I walked into the area, locked the door behind me, and then, because I knew something was "off", I immediately proceeded with my morning rounds, checking each cage, each lock, each animal. Sure enough, one of the cage doors was open, and worse, it was vacant. Turned out, one of the males, Wally, had escaped and was loose in the area--outside the individual cages, but still inside the giant cage. I quickly found him walking casually down one of the other rows. Wally was pretty lackadaisical about the whole thing. It was almost like he knew he was busted. With a little bit of coaxing, he quite agreeably walked right back into his enclosure. This time I made sure the lock was secured.

Another morning, when I walked into the area, I noticed the visual picture was "off." I looked down the center row of enclosures and there was just something that wasn't quite right. Usually when I walked in first thing in the morning, all the monkeys would immediately come right up to their enclosure doors and sit, pressed against the wire mesh, looking up the aisle at me. Like they were trying to.....I'm not sure what.....observe me, assess my mood? They would sit there, each of them, right AT the door, their black fur tufting through the holes in the mesh. As I looked down the row, I could see the hair of each individual poking through the cage. Except....on this one particular morning, one of the males, Tulsi, wasn't there. So I walked down to his cage to see where he might be--I figured maybe he was resting in another corner, maybe he was playing with a bug on one of the shelves--kind of unusual first thing in the morning but not unheard of.

I was completely unprepared for what I saw. When I got to his enclosure I found him lying on the floor, on his side. Dead. I'll never forget that morning. I have this vivid memory of me carrying Tulsi's lifeless body up to the hill to the zoo hospital, the sun not even up yet. I kept getting this crazy thought, "What if he's really faking it and he's going to jump out of my arms any second and escape to freedom in Balboa Park?" The vets thought that maybe Tulsi lost his balance and fell. Tulsi was profoundly deaf and so it made sense that he may have had balance problems too. They speculated that maybe he slipped in the night, fell, knocked his head. Who knows.

Anyway......so here's the connection to Mom and Dad.

So when I come home at night it's almost always very late. I generally leave in the afternoon, about every other day, once I finish work and I know Mom and Dad are settled and stable. I go to my house in Port Townsend, run errands, visit friends, whatever. A sanity break. By the time I get back it's late. It's long after Mom and Dad have gone to bed. The house is quiet, only a few lights are on. But this is what's weird. Every single time I come home, from the moment I pull my car into the garage, my brain goes into this sort of "keeper mode," like when I was working at the zoo--scanning the area for details that aren't right, assessing the environment, looking for things that are out of order. I walk into the house from the garage and I can tell my senses are in overdrive, scanning the air, looking, listening, smelling, feeling for anything that isn't what it usually is. Almost always, everything exactly as it should be, and so I go to bed.

Anyway.........I come home last night. It's about 1am. I pull into the garage and the first thing I notice is that the red toolbox Dad keeps in the garage on the shelf above the trash cans, is pulled off the shelf and is now setting on top of one of the trash cans.

And I'm thinking, "Uh oh, why is the toolbox pulled off the shelf?"

Then I notice the old DirecTV DVR that WAS on TOP of one of the trash cans (to go to the recycle center) is now on its side on the ground NEXT to the trash can. Ya know, like "somebody" pushed it OFF the trash can. Like "somebody" might do if "somebody" was frantic and went to pull the toolbox off the shelf and set it on the trash can, but the DirecTV DVR was in the way so it was just shoved OFF the trash can and onto the ground. (Cuz.....ya see........before Dad mellowed out, he used to be really big on just knocking stuff out of his way--furniture, toys, us. He used to have a pretty short fuse. When we sensed Dad was in a bad mood, we made sure his path was clear. Now at ninety-three, Dad hardly ever gets pissy and tosses stuff around like he used to. Except when somebody moves the ICan'tBelieveIt'sNotButter or the Ranch dressing to where he can't see it in the fridge.)

So now I'm thinking, "Uh oh, something must've broke, which stressed Dad out, so he came out to the garage to get his toolbox off the shelf, but the DVR was in the way, so he just shoved the DVR aside, and it fell on the ground." And now I'm like a detective trying to image what I'm going to find when I finally get into the house. A broken faucet? A broken coffee-maker? A broken walker? Two broken walkers?

I open the door and walk in. It's dark so I turn on the kitchen light. My eyes immediately go to the kitchen counter. There are tools spread out all over it. Screwdrivers, pliers, hammers, and a channel lock. A channel lock?

Now I'm thinking, "Shit. He took out every tool we own! What the heck happened here? Why did he need a channel lock?"

So I walk down the hall toward Mom and Dad's bedrooms. I can hear them both snoring away. Okay. That's good.

I peek into each room. Each walker is in one piece. Good.

I check each bathroom. Faucets intact. Toilets intact. Nothing overflowed. Good.

Next I check the living room. TV intact. Phones intact. Hydraulic chair intact. Check. Check. Check. So, but now I'm a little perplexed. Something tool-worthy happened here tonight, but I have no idea what it was. I go to bed with my curiosity piqued. I wouldn't find out what happened until morning.

Cut to this morning.

As soon as Dad is up, I go in to find out what happened. We exchange "Good morning" greetings, then I ask him, "So what's with all the tools in the kitchen?"

Dad: "What? OHHH yeah, I was looking for a channel lock." And he says it as if this sort of thing happens all the time. But before I can ask about the channel lock, he says, " And I found it! But I needed a second channel lock, and I looked everywhere for one, but I couldn't find one."

Me: "Channel lock? Did something break?"

Dad: "No, no.........it was about midnight.......your mom...." Then he gives me one of his your-mom-had-one-of-her-moments looks. "She couldn't get her Vicodin opened and she panicked (Mom is addicted to prescription meds. Has been for years. Vicodin is one of them.) and was calling for me to help her. But hell if I couldn't open it either! So....I went out to the garage to see if there was another channel lock in the tool box. I was going to use two of them to open the container but I could only find one and so... well I ended up finally getting it open anyway, but by then I was so exhausted I just left all the tools out on the kitchen counter and went to bed."

Me: "Whoa. I mean, wow. What a night!"

Dad: "Yeah" Then he sort of laughs and shrugs his shoulders like he does when a Mom-Moment happens and it's one of those things we all just sort of accept because, well, because it is what it is.

I nod. "Yep." I head back into the kitchen and put all the tools back, especially the channel lock. And I can't help thinking, what's going to be that different thing that I first sense when Mom or Dad die? Will it be something I hear, or see, or smell? Or will it be something I just sense? Will I sense it before it actually happens? Just as it happens? Or long after it happens?