The same holds true of being neurotic! Wasn’t that just another way of saying a person’s behavior is few standard deviations from what is considered normal, healthy or well-adjusted? Rich people were neurotic. Poor people were weirdos, screw-ups and misfits. I was from the wrong side of town to be considered neurotic. I wanted to tell Rick to toss a few more choices in his hat and pick something that sounded better, but I just sat back and played the game with him because I knew this world doesn’t really care about depressed neurotics like me. When I asked him for his definition of "depressed neurotic," he smiled as he coyly confessed I was a “sad nut.” Almost 2 years later during the road trip into Maine's wilderness to deposit me at my new home, I wondered what my problem actually was. Why did I do the things that I do? And is my life always going be this way? So chaotic? Without a purpose or a plan? Socrates once said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." The question staring me in the face was my life a life worth examining? And could Kinsman Hall really help me?
When I arrived back at Hallowell after “my great escape,” a committee consisting of Mick Slick (the social worker), my favorite teacher (Mrs. Presley), the head Hun (Mrs. Stumpfield) and a few of the lesser Huns from my “dormitory” decided the program at Hallowell couldn’t rehabilitate me. In fact, they felt I needed extensive therapy in order to give me the best chance of turning my life around. Wasn’t that noble and kind of them to admit they couldn‘t help me? My trusty cynicism reaffirmed that Kinsman Hall was just a convenient way to help rid Stevens of a huge unpleasant problem instead of attempting to take the difficult path by helping me themselves. As an alternative to Hallowell, the committee felt I should go live in the woods at what I imagined to be a large commune filled with hippies working and living together. Far out! Imagine that! There is a God after all and she was alive and well in Jackman, Maine. Where do I sign up? And how fast can I get there?
I was intrigued and amused with the thought that they actually believed this was going to be a punishment for me. Did they know something I didn’t know? If I decided to go, I would be probated to Kinsman Hall from the State of Maine until the completion of the program. I never even asked how long the program was as they laid out their proposal to me. In fact, the only question I did ask was where Kinsman Hall was located. The details about everything else just didn’t seem important. I didn’t even need the few days they gave me to mull it over and decide what I felt was best for me like I really had an option. I could read between the lines and I could see the writing all over the wall. It spelled out "YOU HAVE NO OPTION!" That same afternoon, I sent word back to Mrs. Stumpfield, the director of Hallowell (previously referred to as “the head Hun”) that I had decided to try Kinsman Hall. And then the church bells rang, the heavens opened and the angels sang, "Hallelujah!"
Regardless of what I tried outwardly to portray to everyone around me, I was worn out from living on the streets. At this point my flimsy facade had started to crumble. The last year had drained me both physically and mentally. I needed time to get healthy and to put my life back on track and to join the land of the living once again. The streets had changed me in ways I never had thought possible. What little bit of fear that did filter through in my decision to leave Hallowell was probably what ultimately guided me into doing the most logical thing I had done in years. As I quickly consented to be their "guinea pig," I thought drug rehab would be a walk in the park compared to what I had been through and I definitely felt nowhere could be as bad as this Hallowell hellhole.
What I didn't know was that the world I was about to step into was a world very different from anything I had ever experienced. It was a world created by a man who had a vision. What he created was a haven for the misfits and outcasts of my generation. His vision was of a self-contained therapeutic community in which people lived sheltered from the outside world while they presumably changed their negative behaviors and stopped doing drugs. His vision even came equipped with its own lingo. Everyone who lived in that community was governed by a set of rules set in place to mold the residents into responsible human beings, but in many cases what it created were people ill-equipped to deal with the realities of life in the outside world. Many left the program only to return to a life of drug abuse or worse and many died horrible deaths.
As I look back on it now, Kinsman Hall appeared more like a cult than anything else. The townspeople of the small rural community in which it was located looked at us like we were freaks. But how could they look at us as anything but freaks? We were freaks! Everything about us was weird and mysterious. We lived off the beaten path and kept to ourselves. The only direct contact Kinsman Hall had with Jackman was through the business dealings staff members had with the local businesses, the occasional baseball game some of the male residents and male staff members had with a team in Jackman, the medical services provided by the local hospital as people needed it and the visits family members had with residents at the Sky Lodge or other local establishments. Until the day Kinsman Hall burned down and reopened a few months later in Florida under the name Southern Oasis, Inc., it remained cloaked by a blanket of mystery. A huge question mark was kept firmly in place as if it were Kinsman Hall's logo for all the world to see.
A few days before Christmas I left Hallowell. My departure this time did not cause the same type of uproar that my last departure caused. Of course, each person wished me well, but I felt deep down they were relieved because they were finally getting rid of me forever. Their well wishes didn't strike me as being sincere. In fact, it felt more like a thing each matron had been programmed to do. A few of the girls gave me a hug. Mrs. Presley cried and Mick Slick was no where to be found. As I got into the state car to be transported to my new home, I envisioned all the matrons doing a little happy dance behind closed doors. That thought made me smile as we left the premises.
During our drive north on Interstate 95 and then up Highway 201 into the Maine wilderness, the lifeless landscape I viewed from the backseat of the State car at first had a tranquil effect upon me. With each mile the various lifeless shades of winter grays and whites lulled me deeper and deeper into thought until I almost began to know how those drab winter colors felt. The sun glistened upon fields draped with virgin snow, yet the landscape exuded no warmth. The densely wooded forests seemed dark and inviting, yet their appeal was deceptive. On the driver’s side, the Kennebec River seductively hugged the two-lane highway winding North. Massive stone walls scaled the hillsides where the highway had been built long ago. Everything around me was as cold as I felt inside making the natural beauty of the landscape seem like just another prison to me. During that three plus-hour ride to my new home, I tried to anticipate what my next year or so might be like, but every image that came to mind quickly disappeared upon my arrival. The reality of the moment slapped me in the face as I viewed my new home for the very first time.
became a perpetual work in progress with remodeling and construction projects galore. The sign on the front of the house should have read “Enter at your own risk” to warn people to think twice before walking inside and asking for help. Years later, when The Eagles song, Hotel California became popular, I always thought of Kinsman Hall when they sang the words “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” Truer words were never written and the same song reminds us “we are all just prisoners here of our own device.” My device had dragged me down a dirt road in the dead of winter deep in Northern Maine and deposited me at the front door of this menacing fortress.
As I arrived, I immediately sensed the hustle and bustle of the youthful community. Everyone seemed focused on their jobs and paid no particular attention to my arrival. I thought that was odd because I had imagined a new person should be worthy of everyone’s attention or at least a friendly welcome. For the next several hours the same question resonated in my head. Shouldn’t a new person at least be an object of curiosity? Why did I feel so invisible? Hey look! The guinea pig has arrived!
As I arrived, I immediately sensed the hustle and bustle of the youthful community. Everyone seemed focused on their jobs and paid no particular attention to my arrival. I thought that was odd because I had imagined a new person should be worthy of everyone’s attention or at least a friendly welcome. For the next several hours the same question resonated in my head. Shouldn’t a new person at least be an object of curiosity? Why did I feel so invisible? Hey look! The guinea pig has arrived!