I’d like to welcome my guest Kenneth Weene. Having studied economics at Princeton, Ken trained as a psychologist at Adelphi University’s Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies. He has also become an ordained minister and has worked as an educator, pastoral counselor, and psychotherapist. Most of that work was in New York where he was employed in a state hospital, for a county mental health clinic, for a pastoral counseling agency, and in private practice. Ken has been writing for over twenty years and has two novels published by All Things That Matter Press. Memoirs From the Asylum is his second novel. His poetry and short stories can be found on the web and in print.
Kenneth has quite a fascinating 25 years ago memory to share. I’m sure you will be as riveted to the story as I was.
KENNETH: Twenty-five years, a lifetime ago. We were living on Long Island, just close enough to Manhattan to enjoy and just far enough away to feel suburban. My wife was a painter, our son was in high school, and I was making a living as a not-very-garden variety shrink.
I worked with kids and with a lot of teenagers. My approach was active; we did stuff, fun stuff. We went to off-off-Broadway plays, we had meals in way-out ethnic restaurants, we went camping and whitewater rafting. We played paintball. We, means not the family but those kids and, if I could get them to, their families. It was all about building trust and attachment so that when I talked about the important stuff, those kids would figure I knew what life was about and I wanted them to be happy. Some of them are still in my life, keeping in touch, from time to time using me as a sounding board and advisor.
One girl, I’ll call her Maryanne, hasn’t kept touch, which is too bad since I really liked her. She was also the source of one of the weird things I remember from my life as a psychologist. One day she showed up at my office with a pipe bomb. A kid at school had slipped it into her pocketbook just before the assistant principal had grabbed him for something. Maryanne didn’t know what to do with it, so she brought it to her favorite shrink.
I locked it in a steel file cabinet and waited two days to call the police; I wasn’t going to tell them who had given it to me, and I didn’t want them knowing on what day that person came to my office – just a little precautionary paranoia.
When I had some free time – I knew there would be questions – I called the precinct. Two uniforms show up. Meanwhile, I’ve moved the bomb downstairs and outside. We had a well-insulated box we used for mail. In a previous life, it had been for milk deliveries, which meant it was well-made. I tell the cops where it is. They decide to call the bomb squad, which makes sense. Then these two bozos stand in my garden playing catch – with the pipe bomb.
My wife is making gasping sounds and herding our dogs into a room far from the potential blast. I go out and suggest to these guys that playing catch with a bomb that had been made by some kid might not be the smartest activity. I refrained from saying it might be their last; they figured that out themselves and put the bomb back.
Two hours later, when the bomb guys had taken it away, I get a call from the newspaper. They want to do a story. Last thing I want. “Pipe Bomb Found at Local Psychologist’s Office:” just the thing to bring in new clients. “Can’t you just ignore it?” I asked.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“If it explodes or not. Tomorrow morning they’ll take it to the range. If it explodes, it’s news. If not, the hell with it.”
“How will I know?”
“Read the paper the next day. If it blows you’re on page three.”
I guess I should add I was on page three. Maryanne saw the article and asked how I had kept her out of it.
“Thanks,” she said. “By the way, that boy says he likes me. Do you think I should go on a date?”
Now the question some people have asked me: “How did being a shrink affect your writing?”
The answer: It helped me to appreciate the absurdity of human behavior, the wonderful illogic of life. There is a part of us that pushes us into the danger zones, that urges us to play catch with the explosive and to date the irrational. That skirting with danger can lead to growth and disaster. It can certainly make for good writing.
Find out more about Kenneth’s work on his web site. http://www.authorkenweene.com. Check out his book on Amazon.
What is it like to work inside a state hospital or to be a patient in such a hospital? What is it like to live inside the mind of such a patient? This tragi-comedic novel takes the reader inside the asylum, inside the worlds of three central characters: a narrator who has taken refuge from his fears of the world, a psychiatrist whose own life has been damaged by his father’s depression, and a catatonic schizophrenic whose world is trapped inside a crack in the wall opposite her bed.
