Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse (2 page)

He’s obviously got an obsessive-compulsive disorder of some kind. I don’t know exactly what kind because I’m not a nurse, like his previous assistant, Sharona, who left him abruptly to remarry her ex-husband (who, I hear, wasn’t such a great guy, but after working with Monk for a short time, I understand why that wouldn’t really matter. If I had an ex-husband I could return to, I would).

I have no professional qualifications whatsoever. My last job before this one was bartending, but I’ve also worked as a waitress, yoga instructor, house sitter, and blackjack dealer, among other things. But I know from talking to Stottlemeyer that Monk wasn’t always so bad. Monk’s condition became a lot worse after his wife was murdered a few years ago.

I can truly sympathize with that. My husband, Mitch, a fighter pilot, was killed in Kosovo, and I went kind of nuts for a long time myself. Not Monk nuts, of course—
normal
nuts.

Maybe that’s why Monk and I get along better than anybody (particularly me) ever thought we would. Sure, he irritates me, but I know a lot of his peculiarities come from a deep and unrelenting heartbreak that nobody, and I mean
nobody
, should ever have to go through.

So I cut him a lot of slack, but even I have my limits.

Which brings me back to finding a hotel room for Monk. To begin with, we could look only at four-star hotels, because four is an even number, and a place with only two stars couldn’t possibly meet Monk’s standard of cleanliness. He wouldn’t put his dog in a two-star hotel—if he had a dog, which he doesn’t, and never would, because dogs are animals who lick themselves and drink out of toilets.

The first place we went to on that rainy Friday was the Belmont in Union Square, one of the finest hotels in San Francisco.

Monk insisted on visiting every vacant room the grand old Belmont had before deciding which one to occupy. He looked only at even-numbered rooms on even-numbered floors, of course. Although the rooms were identically furnished and laid out the same way on every floor, he found something wrong with each one. For instance, one room didn’t feel symmetrical enough. Another room was too symmetrical. One had no symmetry at all.

All the bathrooms were decorated with some expensive floral wallpaper from Italy. But if the strips of wallpaper didn’t line up just right, if the flowers and their stems didn’t match up exactly on either side of the cut, Monk declared the room uninhabitable.

By the tenth room, the hotel manager was guzzling little bottles of vodka from the minibar, and I was tempted to join him. Monk was on his knees, examining the wallpaper under the bathroom counter, wallpaper that nobody would ever see unless they were on their knees under the bathroom counter, and pointing out “a critical mismatch,” and that’s when I cracked. I couldn’t take it anymore, and I did something I never would have done if I hadn’t been under extreme emotional and mental duress.

I told Monk he could stay with us.

I said it just to end my immediate suffering, not realizing in that instant of profound weakness the full, horrific ramifications of my actions. But before I could take it back, Monk immediately accepted my invitation, and the hotel manager nearly kissed me in gratitude.

“But I don’t want to hear any complaints about how my house is arranged or how dirty you think it is or how many ‘critical mismatches’ there are,” I said to Monk as we started down the stairs to the lobby.

“I’m sure it’s perfect,” Monk said.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Mr. Monk. You’re starting already.”

He looked at me blankly. “All I said was that I’m sure it’s perfect. Most people would take that as the sincere compliment it was meant to be.”

“But most people don’t mean ‘perfect’ when they say ‘perfect.’ ”

“Of course they do,” Monk said.

“No, they mean pleasant, or nice, or comfortable. They don’t actually mean perfect in the sense that everything will be, well,
perfect
. You do.”

“Give me some credit.” Monk shook his head.

I gaped at him in disbelief.

“You wouldn’t stay in that hotel room we just saw because the floral pattern of the wallpaper didn’t match under the sink.”

“That’s different,” he said. “That was a safety issue.”

“How could that possibly be a safety issue?” I said.

“It reveals shoddy craftsmanship. If they were that haphazard with wallpaper, imagine what the rest of the construction work was like,” Monk said. “I bet a mild earthquake is all it would take to bring this entire building down.”

“The building is going to fall because the wallpaper doesn’t match up?”

“This place should be condemned.”

We reached the lobby and Monk stopped in his tracks.

“What?” I said.

“We should warn the others,” Monk said.

“What others?” I asked.

“The hotel guests,” Monk said. “They should be informed of the situation.”

“That the wallpaper doesn’t match,” I said.

“It’s a safety issue,” he said. “I’ll call them later.” I didn’t bother arguing with him. Frankly I was just relieved to get out of the hotel without stumbling over a dead body. I know that sounds ridiculous, but when you’re with Adrian Monk, corpses have a way of turning up all over the place. But, as I would soon find out, it was only a temporary reprieve.

 

Monk lived in a Deco-style apartment building on Pine, a twilight zone of affordability that straddled the northernmost edge of the Western District, with its upper-middle-class families, and the southwest corner of Pacific Heights, with its old money, elaborately ornate Victorians, and lush gardens high above the city.

On this sunny Saturday morning, Monk was waiting for me on the rain-slicked sidewalk, watching the uniformed nannies from Pacific Heights and Juicy Coutured housewives from the Western District pushing babies in Peg Perego strollers up and down the hill to Alta Plaza Park and its views of the marina, the bay, and the Golden Gate.

Monk stood with two large, identical suitcases, one on either side of him, a forlorn expression on his face. He wore his brown, four-button overcoat, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets, which made him seem smaller somehow.

There was something touching about the way he looked, like a sad, lonely kid going off to camp for the first time. I wanted to hug him, but fortunately for both of us, the feeling passed quickly.

Parking is impossible on a weekend in that neighborhood, so I double-parked in front of his building, which was so streamlined that it looked more aerodynamic than my car.

I got out and gestured toward his two suitcases. “You’re only staying for a few days, Mr. Monk.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I packed light.”

I opened the back of my Cherokee and then reached for one of his suitcases. I nearly dislocated my shoulder. “What do you have in here, gold bricks?”

“Eight pairs of shoes,” he said.

“You brought enough shoes to wear one pair a day for over a week.”

“I’m roughing it,” Monk said.

“That can’t be all you have in here.” I wrestled his suitcase into the back of my car. “It’s too heavy.”

“I’ve also packed fourteen pairs of socks, fourteen shirts, fourteen pairs of pants, fourteen—”

“Fourteen?” I asked. “Why fourteen?”

“I know it’s playing close to the edge, but that’s who I am. A man who lives on the edge. It’s exciting,” Monk said. “Do you think I packed enough clothes?”

“You have plenty,” I said.

“Maybe I should get more.”

“You’re fine,” I said.

“Maybe just two more pairs.”

“Of what?”

“Everything,” he said.

“I thought you were a man who lives on the edge,” I said.

“What if the edge moves?”

“It won’t,” I said.

“If you say so,” Monk said. “But if it does, we’ll rue this day.”

I was ruing it already. And I wasn’t even sure what “ruing” meant.

Monk stood there, his other suitcase beside him. I motioned to it.

“Aren’t you going to stick that in the car, Mr. Monk, or were you planning to leave it here?”

“You’re saying you want me to put the suitcase in your car?”

“You thought I was going to do it for you?”

“It’s your car,” he said.

“So?”

He shrugged. “I thought you had a system.” “My system is that you put your own stuff in my car.”

“But you took one of my suitcases and loaded it in the car,” he said.

“I was being polite,” I said. “I wasn’t indicating a preference for loading the car myself.”

“That’s good to know.” Monk picked up his suitcase and slid it in beside the other one. “I was respecting your space.”

I think he was just being lazy, but you never know for sure with Monk. Even if he were, I wouldn’t call him on it, because he’s my boss and I want to keep my job. Besides, it gave me the opening I was waiting for to address a touchy subject.

“Of course you were, Mr. Monk, and that’s really great. I appreciate that, because Julie and I have our own way of doing things that’s not exactly the same as yours.”

“Like what?”

Oh, my God,
I thought.
Where to begin?
“Well, for one thing, we don’t boil our toothbrushes each day after we use them.”

His eyes went wide. “That’s
so
wrong.”

“After we wash our hands, we don’t always use a fresh, sterile towel to dry them.” “Didn’t your parents teach you
anything
about personal hygiene?”

“The point is, Mr. Monk, I hope that while you stay with us you’ll be able to respect our differences and accept us for who we are.”

“Hippies,” he said.

There was a word I hadn’t heard in decades and that certainly never applied to me. I let it pass.

“All I want is for the three of us to get along,” I said.

“You don’t smoke pot, do you?”

“No, of course not. What kind of person do you think I am? Wait—don’t answer that. What I’m trying to say, Mr. Monk, is that in my house, I’m the boss.”

“As long as I don’t have to smoke any weed.”

“You don’t,” I said.

“Groovy.”

And with that, he got into my car and buckled his seat belt.

 

 

 

 

I live in Noe Valley. It’s south of the much more colorful and well-known Castro District, with its energetic gay community, and to the west of the multiethnic Mission District, which is surely next in line to be conquered by the unstoppable forces of gentrification, Williams-Sonoma catalogs gripped in their fists.

Noe Valley feels like a small town, far away from the urban hustle and chaos of San Francisco, when, in reality, the bustling Civic Center, overrun with politicians and vagrants, is only about twenty blocks away, on the north side of a very steep hill.

When Mitch and I bought our place, Noe Valley was still a working-class neighborhood. Everybody seemed to drive a Volkswagen Rabbit, and all the houses were slightly neglected, in need of a fresh coat of paint and a little loving attention.

Now everybody is driving a minivan or SUV, there’s scaffolding up in front of every other house, and Twenty-fourth Street—a shopping district that was once lined with bakeries, diners, and barbershops—is overrun with patisseries, bistros, and stylists. But the neighborhood hasn’t gone completely upscale. There remain lots of homes in need of care (like mine), and enough little gift shops, secondhand bookstores, and mom-and-pop pizza places that Noe has managed to hold on to its quirky, Bohemian character (equal parts of which are now authentic and manufactured). It’s still very much a bedroom community, filled with young, struggling families and comfortable retirees with nary a tourist in sight.

On the drive down Divisadero to my house, Monk asked me to adjust my seat so it was even with his. I explained to him that if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to reach important things like the gas pedal, the brakes, and the steering wheel. When I suggested instead that he move his seat, he ignored me and began fiddling with the passenger’s-side mirror so it was tilted at the same angle as the mirror on the driver’s side, which I’m sure he figured would compensate for the natural imbalance created by the uneven seats.

I don’t get the logic either. That’s why I keep a bottle of Advil in my glove compartment at all times. Not for him, of course. For me.

When we got to my little Victorian row house, I let Monk get his own suitcases out of the car while I rushed inside for one last look around for things that might set him off. It’s not like he hadn’t visited my place before, but this was the first time he was staying there for more than an hour or two. Little things that he might have been able to summon the willpower to overlook before might become intolerable now.

Standing there in my open doorway, looking at my small living room, I realized my house was a Monk minefield. The decor is what I like to call thrift-shop chic, the furniture and lamps an eclectic mix of styles and eras. There is some Art Deco here and a little seventies chintz there, because I bought whatever happened to catch my eye and meet my meager budget. My approach to interior design was to have no approach at all.

In other words, my entire house, and my entire life, was the antithesis of Adrian Monk. There was nothing I could do to change that now. All I could do was open the door wide, welcome him in, and brace myself for the worst.

So that’s exactly what I did. He stepped in, surveyed the house as if for the first time, and smiled contentedly.

“We made the right decision,” he said. “This is much better than a hotel.”

It was the last thing I ever expected him to say. “Really? Why?”

“It feels lived-in,” he said.

“I thought you didn’t like things that were lived-in,” I said.