All Right, Already. Manson.

I crack up every time you guys talk about Manson.

Oh, if only Manson knew how popular his ass is on the interweb.

It would, I'm sure, trigger an episode of paranoid ramblings, complete with crumpled grubby lists and squinting at every traffic helicopter while talking of a government conspiracy to earn money by telling his life story. Screwing him out of his identity or his inheritance or WHATEVERthefuck.

Anyway.

I love you guys for 1) remembering about Manson and for 2) loving on the Crazy.  Though I hate to say it, this might be the last, full-length Manson Story to be had.  There are a finite number of these gems, really, as I don't live there anymore (whoo hoo!) 

So, if you haven't ever heard of Manson, and you have absolutely no effing clue what I'm talking about, you should probably read to catch up.  (There are three separate links there. You're welcome.) Otherwise, I'll go ahead and tell you of the time that Manson turned his ENTIRE DOWNSTAIRS INTO A DOG KENNEL. FOR BREEDING DOGS.

Yes, yes, my friends. Yes he did.

But we'll back up and talk a little bit about Manson's dog.  His [little fuckwad of a yapper] dog was a Boston Terrier.  It liked to [torment the shit out of my dog] run up and down the length of the fence, barking a hearty 'HALLO!' to anyone, anyone at all. For hours on end.

[Bonus TFS in a story: One time, Manson left pictures of his dog in our mailbox. I've looked for them, but I can't find them. One of the views was the back of the dog's head, hanging out the driver's side window, as Mason took a picture of the FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. One other time, Manson left his dog in his car when he went inside to get [high] something and just, er, forgot to come back out. It was hot as balls and The Man and I did a little Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who was going to have to go and knock on the door, so that little fucker wouldn't roast to death. I lost. Damned rock.]

Anyway.

Manson approached the fence one day, gripping the squirming pooch in his hands.  He had a couple [guys just out of rehab] friends over, lugging cinder-blocks into his downstairs and mixing cement in the driveway. I didn't think too much of this, as there were always cinder-blocks and rehab guys around and, well, let's be honest: I didn't really want to know.

He launched into one of his famous 'discussions.'  These generally started half-way through whatever the hell was running on and on through his head, and so it took me a few minutes to jump in mid-stream and figure out what he was trying to say.

'Do you like bulldogs?' he asked.

'Um. Yeah. Sure. I like bulldogs,' I said (while the inside-my-head voice was all eye-rolling and heavy-sighing, 'Whaaaat?  What'sThisNow?!')

'I'm making a kennel! I'm going to breed bulldogs!'

'Uhhh. Oh--uhhhm..'

'And Boston Terriers! (Lifts the dog up for emphasis.) I just ordered all the puppies and I'm making a kennel!'

I should say at this point, that the houses in my neighborhood had no basements. Manson's house was just like mine, only with a monster addition on the back/top, which gave his house a second floor.  The year before, [the rehab guys] his friends had sectioned off the front of his house and made it into an apartment that he used to rent out. So, the area in which the guys were working was like, The Kitchen and The Laundry Room.

???

'Sooooo,' I hazard a guess, 'you're turning your kitchen? and your laundry room? Into a...kennel?'

'YEAH! It's gonna be great! State of the art!'

???

So, a couple weeks go by and you can hear the yipping and the yapping and you can, every once in a while, see some puppies frolicking in the backyard.  I don't need to describe the smell of urine, right? If I tell you that it smelled like The Vet outside my house, you'd know what I'm saying, yes?  So, it would appear that Manson made good on his [insane] plan and is living above, his, um, dog kennel.  The sliding glass door was always covered and so, I had no idea what it actually LOOKED like in there.

Me and my other next-door neighbor [Gladys Kravitz] were DYING to know what's going on in there. How has a guy turned his Kitchen? And his Laundry Room? Into a...kennel?

And then, one day out of the blue, Manson sees me in the back yard and asks me if I want to come inside to see the kennel.

I'm going to give you a minute, so you can let that shit sink in.

Go ahead and take your time. I'll wait.

Yes. Yeeessss.

He asked me if I wanted to GO INSIDE his house and LOOK AT HIS DOG KENNEL. That was IN HIS KITCHEN.

I was thoroughly and completely torn.

On one hand, I NEEDED to go inside there to see a Kitchen Dog Kennel, first hand. But on the other hand, [as I looked and looked for another living soul who could witness me walking into Manson's house, in case I never came out] I was, er, a little skerrd. I mean, really, there were no Potential Witnesses to my disappearance. Manson lived with a [boyish looking heroin addict] his [air-quote] cousin, who was a tall, quiet [creepy fucking lurker] guy, who had nearly given me cardiac arrest, several times, when he suddenly spoke to me after minutes of standing stock-still, unnoticed.

Anyway.

You know my nosy ass wasn't going to turn down his invitation, just on account of the crazy. And so, although my dog was less than thrilled with the idea, I left the sanctity of my yard and entered The Kennel Kitchen.

The first thing I noticed was how...authentic...the smell of the urine/veterinarian's office was up close. Along with the yipping and yapping, it felt like I was walking through the SPCA. Seriously. I looked around and saw...kennels. They were built of the cinder-block and each had a gate for a door. The linoleum had been stripped and the dogs were kept in a room on a cement slab (with blankets/bedding for each dog.) If you didn't look at the sides of the room, you might have believed that you were in an actual kennel.

But that impression, friends, came to a screeching fucking halt the second you looked at the perimeter of the room. For the perimeter of the room was more or less, intact.  There were shelves and then, you know, the kitchen. A stove and a fridge and the door to the upstairs, all streaked and rusty looking and smelling very strongly of puppy pee. As I was walking through, I was completely preoccupied with two things. The first was the 29475084573 puppies who, free from their cages, came to mob me and for some reason were, ALL of them, trying to chew the bows off my slippers and the second was that every single inch (every. single. inch. EVERYSINGLEINCH) of available surface--wall or otherwise--was filled with a cheap, dollar store nick-knacks. Of a bulldog. Or a Boston Terrier. There were HUNDREDS of little figurines, bobble-heads, cups, ashtrays, plaques, doo-dads, you name it. They were e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

I was completely visually overwhelmed and as I wandered through the living/laundry room kennel, disoriented, into the kitchen kennel, the [creepy fucking lurker] cousin materialized out of nowhere and was leaning against the door-jam, standing there mute. Watching me. It was like a dash of cold water to the face and I was roused from my dream-like overwhelm state and tried to pick up the pace, wading through puppies, to get to the side door and out into the [real world] yard. It was like trying to run with your shoelaces tied together. Through six inches of peanut butter.

Anyway. (You still here?)

I was still a little shaken when I crossed into my yard. I was accosted by my own dog, who was hyper-smelling me all over, like, 'What the fuck is all this I'm smelling?! You were only gone a few minutes, jeeezuz!'

I went into my own back door, awash in relief that I made it back out into the light, hooked off both slippers, stepped into my own kitchen and dumped them, unceremoniously, directly into the trash can.

The End.

 

Comments

[PrincessHippopotamus]

FANTASTIC! I'm so glad we could get another Manson story out of you!

[Laura]

OOOHHH I do love me some MANSON...he never disappoints! I lost my shit at this point: 'What the fuck is all this I'm smelling?! You were only gone a few minutes, jeeezuz!'

[Sam]

Dude. I missed Manson so much. I thought about emailing you to request more stories. I'm glad someone actually followed through with my brain thinkings. I feel complete now. Thank you.

[The New Girl]

Sorry, Nil Zed, here's the link:

http://thenewgirl.typepad.com/the_new_girl/2008/05/stories-from-th.html

[Nil zed]

Aaaaaaah! The beginning of the rooster story is not there. But OMG not sure if coiled take anymore. And he's gone now? Thank jeebus. But what did the new owners do to the cattery/ poultry house / dog kennel / multi unit dwelling? Burnt it to the ground sounds reasonable.

[kayla]

OH MY GAH!!!!! If I knew you, I would be calling you this moment and all you would hear would be my laughter.. HOLY SHIT that was awesome.. I love MANSON.. I so wish you had a picture.. I mean I love that he left the picture of the back of his dogs head in YOUR mailbox.. I mean did you like get it and then stop to look around to see if you were being watched!!! I agree with the other poster, I wish you had MANY more encounters...

AND the way you discribed his house - with the clutter and the crazy and the smell.. it was almost like you entered Buffalo Bills house in Silence of the Lambs.. and SADLY - I also thought that was funny.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

[The Domestic Goddess]

What. The. Hell.

Puppies? Kennel? OH MY GAH.

[a]

Wow. I have weird neighbors, but they're not at all entertaining. I don't wish I had a Manson, but I can hope that you had many more encounters with him!

[The New Girl]

@ Cherie: The puppies all looked insanely happy to me. I don't know about the rest of it--whether or not he kept them/still has them. I don't think he would've drowned them, though. He took that fucking rooster to the Buddhist Monks, because they were vegetarian, so...

[annettek]

Ah, vintage TNG and crazy mofo neighbor. Love.

[Cherie Beyond]

Because I am me, I am so irrationally over-concerned with those puppies and their welfare. Was he feeding them enough? Did they get enough exercise? Was he petting them and giving them love and cuddles and PLEASE tell me the puppies didn't all get drowned in a lake when he moved on to other projects?

And, oh yeah, sorry about your slippers and the smell and your near-death-via-serial-killer experience and all that *waves hand* stuff.

But, yeah, the puppies. Were the puppies okay?

[The New Girl]

@ Stimey: You remember that he used to buy the same things for US, right? He used to leave them on my outside window sills? My kid found the last remaining one (we collected them and they filled THREE grocery story bags.) LOL.

One Yellow Labrador Bobble Head is all that remains.

::Nods like yeah::

[Amy Jo]

All I can say is THANK YOU!

[Stimey]

Manson. How I love Manson. How I also love that you aren't living next to Manson anymore. I love that he had knick knacks galore of his dogs. That's a little bit endearing. You know, endearing in the *I*-don't-have-to-live-next-door-to-someone-who-gives-me-photos-of-the-front-of-my-house way.