Crazy in Love

Look, I can’t speak for every long term couple, even if Mark and I have been married long enough for the hideous ‘90s fashion we were wearing during our courtship to come back around again. 

But I’ve known enough paired-up people to know that at some point, whether it’s over politics or how to cook eggs correctly or an insistence of never throwing away those baggy old Structure blazers with huge shoulder pads that are clogging up the hall closet because they might become stylish again, you are going to accuse each other of being crazy.

As ‘90s Southern icon Jesco The Dancing Outlaw—who went viral the old school way, i.e. bootlegged VHS tapes—sagely observed, “Marriage is a wonderful thing…there’s love in it, there's happiness in it…there's also sorrow, hatred and madness in it.”

I think most wedded folks would agree that a little dash of insanity is what helps keep the flames of passion stoked through the decades. We also all know couples for whom the lunacy levels can approach the roaring chaos of a wildfire tearing through a nuclear reactor, hopefully mitigated by couples’ therapy or separate vacations or ayahuasca, sometimes all at the same time. 

I’d say the last couple of years around here—between quarantine and car crashes and major surgeries and an emptying nest—has fueled a steady blaze of cute kookiness with occasional flares of total derangement from both parties. 

Which is why last week I went shopping for a straitjacket. 

It’s not easy to find an original Valentine’s Day present year after year, OK? The best ones end up as a gift to us both, like the massage table, or the heart-shaped lazy susan from a craft fair that’s perfect for Scrabble. A hot tub would be grand, someday. I figured for now a buckled restraint was hilarious and also could come in handy, depending on whose whackass behavior or bad attitude warranted it most. 

**Let me say here that mental illness is no joke, and I mean no offense to anyone suffering from its systemic impacts and often inadequate treatments. I come from a long line of sick people who deal with dark times by taking delight in absurdity and making fun of our own mishegoss.** 

Y’all know I shop local, and fortuitously—perhaps obviously?—some of the finest bespoke straitjackets on the planet are made right here in Savannah. 

In their home workshop off Ogeechee Road, Tara and Trick Kelly have been designing and manufacturing custom straitjackets under the moniker Monkey Dungeon ever since Trick’s first one wore out and Tara made him a new one over 20 years ago. Let me clarify that Trick’s need for a straitjacket and Tara’s ability to create one have nothing to do with their mental stability, though I contend that you have to be a leeeetle bit crazy to work with your spouse. 

Originally from a “one-blinking stoplight” town in Louisiana, the high school sweethearts bonded as teen performers, he as a juggler and escape artist and she as a competitive ice skater. After Trick’s graduation from Ringling Bros. Clown College, they both went on to earn theater degrees at the University of New Orleans while raising three kids and busking for tourists in their free time. Money was always tight, and when the belted canvas prop Trick used in his act split its seams, Tara put her costume design education to work. 

“We realized pretty quickly that there was a market for other performers, and they started selling on eBay as fast as we could make them,” recalls Tara, who estimates she’s sewn thousands of custom orders that then Trick affixes with buckles and other hardware. “We’ve done a lot of refining over the years.”

Young clowns in love

Their company’s name came from Trick’s early SEO prescience, and Monkey Dungeon has kept busy supplying straitjackets to magicians and other entertainers as well as big show biz productions, including the teen melodrama Riverdale, the comically fabulist Gotham, the stabby slashfest Scream Queens, a recent tour of the metalcore band Disturbed, and on Leslie Jones in that weird Saturday Night Live David S. Pumpkins elevator skit with Tom Hanks. 

When the kids were still toddlers, the crafty troubadours brought their clown show to Savannah, where Trick’s unicycle, stilt walking, and of course, straitjacket escape talents entertained the masses on River Street.

“I really had to clean up my act here, the language, especially,” remembers Trick with a chuckle. “New Orleans audiences were a lot rougher, I was used to that.”

They bought property at the edge of the unincorporated Chatham County in 2003, homeschooling the kids and focusing on Monkey Dungeon business. Trick’s mom helped keep up with demand on three industrial sewing machines in the front room; Trick added a glow forge, laser cutter, and other shop machines out back to craft wooden signs, resin-coated paddles, and leather accessories.

“Paddles? For fraternities and stuff? Or like, for a canoe?” I asked, admiring a pink oar that looked much too small to propel a boat.

Tara and Trick blinked at me. 

“Oh, and y’all sell dog collars, too! Cool!” I exclaimed, picking up a diamond-studded choker emblazoned with “Daddy’s Girl.”

“Um…” said Trick.

I looked around at the bolts of leather, vinyl, and mesh, taking in the drawers of different-sized rivets and racks of suede-lined handcuffs. “Ohhhhhh…”

Tara gently explained that in addition to selling custom clown wigs to entertainers, giant angel wings for cosplayers, and themed apparel to TV shows, a significant chunk of their business caters to the BDSM community, which appreciates such high-quality paraphernalia to the tune of an estimated billion-dollar-a-year industry. 

I almost slapped my head with a leather riding crop. Call me vanilla, but it had not occurred to me at all that in addition to a joke or a costume or a legitimate necessity, some folks might see straightjackets as just straight-up sexy. No kink shaming here, y’all get down with your consensual adulting selves! 

It’s a bit ridiculous that I’ve known Trick and Tara for years and had no idea the titillating nature of their business—I guess I’ve been too busy admiring them as successful independent artisans as well board game enthusiasts, co-owners of the Odd Lot Improv Troupe, and the awesome parents of Destiny, recently married and the head of her own maker venture Death Wish Dice; Harmony, an artistic animator and the studio manager at Savannah Glamour; and Skyler, a talented musician and coder who runs the Savannah Chess Club.

While running Monkey Dungeon hasn’t been without its unexpected, well, kinks—Ebay recently suspended their account without warning, forcing them to pivot to Etsy and other platforms—Trick and Tara remain solid. After 35 years together upping their street hustle into a thriving, sustainable venture, I’d say they’ve got Jesco’s happiness/madness ratio down to an art.

Not bad for a couple of clowns!

In the end, I decided against the straitjacket. It’s not our particular fetish, though I don’t deny that everyone needs a spanking once in a while. I figure I’ll put the money into the future hot tub fund.

Besides, there’s no room to keep it in the hall closet, with Mark’s old blazers bought at the Oglethorpe Mall in its heyday—which the kids are now fighting over to pair with their Doc Martens. 

So, yeah, he may be right. And we may be crazy. But I guess we just might be the lunatics we’re looking for.