"When We Were Monkeys" by Sylvia Keepers

When We Were Monkeys

When I was about five years old my parents and I went on the train from our home in west Texas to see my father’s mother in Chicago. Since my dad was with us, and not in uniform, the war must already have ended, which would make it 1945. Later our family had a car and drove cross country, but in those days we went by train.
The train was more than a means of transportation. It was an adventure, an entertainment, and a rare chance for me to spend time with my father, who had just returned home after being stationed in Hawaii for two years. In fact, I can point to that trip, along with the two or three years around it, and say, “We were friends then. He loved me then.” 
I’ve read a few pieces of fond nostalgia written by daughters about their fathers, and in a way this is similar. With one big exception. Bipolar depression runs in my family, and my father suffered from it miserably. One of the few times he was free of his demons was when he was traveling. I guessed that this was the reason he traveled so much, but it wasn’t until he was in his 80s that he confirmed my guess. I asked him then why he and my mother continued to travel when just getting out of the house was such an ordeal. He answered that it was his way of staying one step ahead of the monsters.    
I think the few years at the end of the war were the some of the clearest and happiest for my father. After that, the dark cloud of depression and occasional bouts of madness overtook him. But on that particular trip, he and I were friends in a way we rarely were again. I missed it terribly the rest of my life, and I think he did, too.
I loved the clacking and clanking of the train, the sway, the stink of hot oil, and the odd whistles and moans that came from the steam engine. Standing on the platform beside my father, I was terrified by the roar and screech of the train as it pulled to a stop right next to us. It was so loud I was certain it had whipped the hair off my head and blasted my body to bits. It was surprising how quickly all my parts fell back into place once the train came to a stop. People usually avoid the things they’re afraid of, right? But not then, not me. I loved that train and wanted more.    
On board, my father and I walked up and down the aisles and from one end of the train to another. Going from one car to the next involved holding onto a handrail and actually going outside (at that time the connections were not covered), walking over a pitching metal plate above the couplings, and then shoving through a heavy door into the next car. The couplings, which I could see if I dared to look down, were like nothing so much as iron crocodiles waiting to swallow a child careless enough to slip. 
I liked eating on the train, or at least I liked the dining car. I liked the heavy silver platters and the way the water swayed in the glasses, though I must not have had much interest in the food because I have no memory of it. 
That was typical for me. I was small for my age to start with and not much interested in anything that took time away from playing — food included. Three years after this, when I was eight, I lived with my grandparents in Laredo, Texas, and my grandfather insisted on weighing me every day in the scale he had set up in the garage to measure his hunting dogs. Either I was really underweight or else my grandparents were obsessive, or both. Every day after lunch the three of us went out to the garage and I submitted to being hung in a little hammock suspended from the ceiling. Then I would be told if I had been eating enough. I suppose it sounds humiliating, but I didn’t mind. I could see that my grandfather adored his dogs and I liked getting the same treatment they did.      
Now came the best part of the train trip. A porter came into our compartment and somehow turned the scratchy seats into beds with smooth white sheets. There was also the tiniest sink you could imagine, with the train tracks racing by underneath. I thought I could see the blur of them when I pushed the button to empty the drain. And when I brushed my teeth, I imagined toothpaste dribbling all across Texas. 
The seats folded into bunk beds, and I always got the top because you had to have the top if you were going to be a monkey, which was really the whole point of the trip. There was even a web of straps that snapped around the top bunk. I don’t think I knew it was a safety net until later. As far as I was concerned, it was simply an essential prop for the monkey game. That was when my father and I communicated our kinship and love for each other by hooting and chest pounding and chittering like the splendid monkeys we were, though somehow the spell only worked on the train. 
My father, who was illegitimate, and had been raised under a cloud of disgrace by isolated foster parents, hadn’t quite got the hang of a lot of human interactions, especially ones involving family, so being fatherly in a traditional way would have been difficult for him. The monkey game was kind of a stand-in.
I’d jump around in the top bunk, reach through the bars and chatter. My father would smile with pride and egg me on. He’d caper around and wave his arms and call out, “Look at the little monkey! Nice monkey. Hoo, hoo, hoo!” He would bring his face next to mine, reach through the mesh bars and pat my head. 
I looked to see how my mother was reacting. She gave a slight, sideways smile, and pulled herself out of the way. Was she alarmed by our rowdy play, wishing my father would act his age? Or was she feeling left out? I never knew.    
Maybe it was easier having a monkey than a daughter. Less to navigate. As little as it was, for a good part of my childhood I wanted to get back the joy and pride I felt at being that monkey — his monkey. His anything would have sufficed. And maybe, too, it would have been different if my father hadn’t turned mean soon afterward. 

Sylvia Keepers

Sylvia Keepers is an 85-year-old woman who writes and teaches in Boulder, Colorado. She wrote and self-published a 450-page book on how to help teens read better and think more clearly. Fortunately, the current piece is as short and to the point as that book was discursive. In Sylvia's opinion, the last three years of her life have been the happiest. She has her health (more or less), her work as a private reading tutor, and a new relationship with a funny, loving, 96-year-old man she met on a hiking trail. She says they're in it for the long haul.

Headshot: Sylvia Keepers

Photo Credit: Staff