The Home for Wayward Men

I remember the moment well: I was lounging in bed on a Saturday night, drinking red wine and reading some escapist nonfiction, when the telephone rang.

It was a young friend, a guy half my age, and he was in crisis.

He and his girlfriend had moved in with her parents to save money. He was calling to report that they’d just broken up.

“Damn, dude,” I said. “Where are you right now?”

He was still in the room with her. There was nowhere else to go.

“You can’t stay there,” I said. “Come to my place.”

He was just one of the wards to take up residence in the suburban rehab facility of penance and partying I call the Home for Wayward Men.

Many check in, serve their time, and move on. Some return for more deeply-seated therapy, higher dosages of medication.

Others drop in regularly while on business trips. One blows in once a year like a disheveled desert tumble weed rolling down Interstate-15.

Most are younger than me, one older. Sometimes they arrive in twos.

What they all have in common is that they need a place to go, to escape crumbling relationships or just the suck of everyday life.

The door is always open.

I live alone, my wife resides in another state. I have time and space to lend my ailing droogies a helping hand.

I have no clue what they do in their room once the door is closed. One is like a messy teenager, leaving the place a disaster zone of plastic swizzle sticks, hairballs and oily orphaned socks each time he leaves.

No matter. I just hazmat the joint and await the next checkin.

Meanwhile, I keep two chairs in the living room, one facing the other. One guest and I refer to them as the Sultan’s Chairs.

One Friday night, we were smoking a joint after a long week, both describing some moment of aggravation when I took a hit, passed it over.

“Man, none of this shit matters," I said. "We’re flying high on a magic carpet, sitting in two Sultan’s chairs. We're above it all.”

It’s like I’d said, “Dude, this rug really ties the room together, does it not?”

It was just an abiding, light another cigarette in the bowling alley observation.

The image stuck.

Another repeat HWM inmate sees my living room as his therapist’s office.

He’ll call and ask: “Is the doctor in?”

For awhile, this older inmate demanded most of my focus.

His marriage was crumbling. He didn’t want to go home. I’d call him some nights and ask where he was.

“I’m here at the office with my friend Jack,” he’d say. 

Jack Daniels.

He once confessed that he kept an emergency kit in the trunk of his car so that once the pressure became unbearable, he could just disappear.

It seemed like a desperate measure.

One summer, before leaving on a trip to China, I asked if he wanted to house sit.

Boy, did he.

When I got back, he was a changed man. He’d had time to think. And he’d decided he couldn’t go home.

He finally knew what it was like to, you know, just relax. Even if it meant drinking beer and watching TV in your underwear.

He moved in full time. He hung his clothes in the closet and tried out his new life. 

He liked it. 

He’d been with his wife since they were kids. Now he was this old lion on the African plains, chasing prey.

He quickly met a woman, a Judy Garland-like siren, and fell flat on his face in love.

We talked about it in therapy.

I told him to go slow, that this was a rebound relationship. He had the untested heart of a 16-year-old beating inside the chest of a much-older man.

He listened. Then he moved in with the new flame.

Several months later, he was back.

We went back to our chairs.

My friend went slower the second time. Now he’s found his perfect soul mate.

I don’t think he’ll be back.

I view many wards at the HWM as younger versions of myself.

I’m old enough to be their father, but buhlieve me, I’m no parental figure. I’m more of a wild, depraved uncle. We hang out, share stories. I’ve suffered many of the same personal potholes, just many years ago. I call them on their bullshit, and they mine.

Like prison therapy, it all happens in the Home for Wayward Men.

I certainly do not have all the answers on the male id and ego, but I’ve been around the block, had my heart stomped. And it’s easier to untangle someone’s else’s knots.

One ward was a troubled teen. His father called asking me to pick him from a local psych-op facility and give him a place to air out. 

I like the kid. For once, I was going to play the knowing adult figure.

My plan didn’t last long. I picked him up and said “Let’s get a beer."

One patient has done several stints at the HWM when he’s in town on business. He has his own key and checks in whether I’m there or not.

He’d pop in during the fall and find me sprawled on the couch watching Dodger baseball. Let me tell you, two beers snapping open between friends during the MLB playoffs is the music of the gods.

Months before his wedding, we discussed commitment and the longevity of marriage.

My advice: “Shut up and do as you’re told and you’ll be fine.”

But I get as good as I give.

Over coffee one morning, he questioned my strategy on reaching out to new clients as a freelance writer. I was being too lazy, too thin-skinned, he said.

And he was right.

But my best advice from a ward I did not heed.

It was January and the wildest HWM inhabitant was wrapping up a prolonged stay. 

At the time I’d quit drinking wine for a few months. But I had my leftover stash of 1.5-liter bottles of Kirkland Signature Cabernet Sauvignon.

Before I went to bed at night, with the mad artist and mountain man still in front of the living room TV, I’d leave another open schooner out for him.

Many mornings when I woke up, the bottle was empty.

“What’s with that,” he asked one day, pointing at the empty vessel. “It’s like the never-ending bottle of wine.”

By February, he woke up every morning fretting.

“This virus,” he said, “is coming.”

He said I needed to stock up now on rice and beans like I was headed into some long northern Alaska winter. I waved him off. I had stories to write.

When he bought some stock in medical masks and made a profit, I began calling him the Merchant of Death.

Before he left, he sort of freaked out. He bought a shotgun and headed toward home north of the border. He’s safe now, up in the woods.

When we talk, I remind him of his unheeded virus advice and he laughs.

At the HWM, the doctor can become the unwilling patient.

Sometimes, the young wards check in with their wives and girlfriends.

One women was disgusted by my grimy coffee pot. She cleaned it and even bought me a French press as a gift. But I’m an old coot married to his Mr. Coffee. 

Anyway, after that pot scouring my coffee tasted better.

Another repeat ward stayed for a few months with his girl while they looked for a permanent place. There were actually three of them.

They had a dog named Spunky, a Boston Terrier-French Bulldog mix.

He crapped in the side yard and my ward didn’t always get to them quickly.

I’d remind him.

“The Spunkster,” I’d say, “did his thing in the yard again.”

“Oh yeah?” he say.

I started calling them little candies. He got better at finding them.

We’ve all learned some lessons at the Home for Wayward Men.

Rolling papers aren’t always on hand when you need them. The wine bottle never empties. Residents don’t always heed one another’s advice. Sometimes the doctor has to take his own medicine.

These days, while I'm out of state during the pandemic, the place is occupied by a young couple waiting for a flight home to Beijing. 

For now, I’m calling the joint the Home for Wayward Chinese.

In the end, this post is for all of the fellas, these wayward men.

Remember that both in good times and in bad, the door is always open.

The Sultan’s Chairs are waiting.

The doctor is in.