Dreaming on the Floor: A Day in the Life of Jesus Manson
"i knew a man once... who said 'fuck all them religious books.' he said 'gimme 10 minutes and i'll tell you all you need to know about the world... about life.'"
he spoke slowly to imitate the southern style, but if i listened closely i could hear the mangled remains of a new york accent. occasionally he looked in the general direction of my face but never made direct eye contact with me, or anyone as far as i know. and in between every phrase he let out a loud gust of air through his nose to make room for the next recollection which resided near the threshold of oblivion. he'd already downed a few beers (the only reason he was talking to me) when he asked me if i believed in god, and i told him that i kinda did, but not at all in the biblical sense. he agreed with this vague "religion" of mine and explained to me why he thought the bible was bullshit. it wasn't because of all the bullshit allegories, psalms, and revelations that canonize complex issues into a righteous extra-value menu and make happy meals out of life's unknowables. and it wasn't even because the book is like thousands of years old. i'm pretty sure he just thought it was too damn long.
to half the inmates at the prison he stayed at he was known as jesus because of his quiet, introverted nature and physical appearance: a slender frame, long face, brown hair and transparent eyes that at times seemed to bear the burden of mankind's sins. to the other half he was known as manson, partly because he told them he was there for murder, and partly because if you took a second look at him you'd see through his scraggly beard that his face was pock-marked to shit (from chronic acne), his nose was crooked as if it had been broken at some point and never fixed (or perhaps was broken again), and, if he looked you at you (he wouldn't, but if he did), you'd see he had crossed-eyes that had seen all, and even partook in some, of mankind's sins. so to make things easier for everyone there he became known as jesus manson. my sisters and i, however, knew him as uncle chris, though when i spent a week with him in tennessee last year, he requested i call him "brother" chris, but not out of a fraternal bond so much as the title of "uncle" just made him feel uncomfortable.
while i was there in the valley of trailers, dusty pick-ups, stray dogs, and locusts letting out a deafening buzz to end their loneliness, the local newspaper had reported about some meth labs that were busted in their county. his response came between drags of an ever present cigarette, "gimme the alcohol and the weed 'cause i don't fuck with that methamphetamine crack cocaine shit." no one would deny that he always took the high ground, as in everyday after he got dropped off from work, he got really high off the alcohol and the weed and listened to frank zappa, talked to his 3 "pooches," watched reruns of cheers, and eventually passed out on the bed of dirt and dog hair that covered his coveted reclinable chair in the den part of his parent's trailer. at some point in the night he'd awake from his self-induced stupor and walk 10 paces (15 or more if staggering) to his room where he masturbated himself to sleep. (i only know because i could hear the bed creak rhythmically from my spot on the sofa next to that chair.)
the sound of the alarm clock every morning must have been absolutely horrible, but not as bad as the patter of rain pounding away on the thin tinny roof, because that meant he'd either have to work in it, or worse, not work and miss out on his 50 bucks for the day, as was the case this morning. he hobbled around tenderly looking for his cigarettes and mumbling something about "'nother day in the life." the rain had abated and he was awaiting word from my other uncle, his boss, to find out whether or not they would be installing doors and putting up siding that day. after a couple cups of coffee and a few cigarettes, work was finally called off in expectation of a heavy downpour. later that morning, my mother left to go visit my grandmother in the hospital, but he didn't want to go with her. he said that the lawn needed to be mowed, which it did and it wasn't yet raining, so she left without her baby brother.
i'm not sure if he was drunk before he mowed the lawn, but after he finished and came back inside the trailer from his shed-turned-shrine-to-getting-shitfaced, i could tell from the degree of eye-crossage that he definitely was. so i probably shouldn't have said "sure" when he asked me if i wanted to go shoot his gun, but i was really bored and this seemed to be one of those cultural experiences everyone needs to have when they travel to the outskirts of civilization. i followed him to the shed where he kept the gun my aunt cindy had given him as a birthday gift, and in the countless disputes since then had advised him to kill himself with it. he insisted on almost a daily basis that he wasn't afraid of dying, repeating several times that old cliche about how "y'ain't ready to live, 'nless yer willin' to die." in fact he told me more than once that when my grandmother died he'd put a bullet in his head because he "ain't got nothin' to live for." so it struck me as odd when he walked cautiously up to the shed and checked underneath the ramp before entering it. i asked him what he was doing and he said he was checking for copperheads. the self-proclaimed "dead man walking" (though "staggering" would be more appropriate) actually had a deep-seeded fear of poisonous snakes.
he emerged with the little 5-shooter and some empty beer cans that he set up on a fence post behind the shed. i became concerned once he started waving the gun around with the safety off trying to shoo the dogs away, but it passed quickly when i saw how bad his aim was. wait did i say pass quickly or rose sharply? either way, when he handed me the gun i took a few shots, reloaded once or twice, and then put it down before i killed anymore microbes floating in the air surrounding the general vicinity of that bulletproof can. he mumbled something about the gun being a piece of shit and offered me a beer as we went inside the shed to sit, talk, and listen to the zap.
at this point i knew the day was a waste and he was levels above me so i asked him if he smoked weed which he of course did, though he said he wouldn't buy anymore after this because it made him stupid. it turned out to be crap weed but it got me stupid as promised. i asked him all kinds of questions about his life and he answered every single one with the shameless honesty of a man on deathrow but without the dignity. i pointed to the lump of pused-up skin protruding about an inch from his neck and asked him what it was. he didn't say anything - just took out his pocket knife and said, "go ahead, cut it." i declined, and that was the end of that. my mom later told me that he had had it for a while and had to cut it sometimes to drain it, but it always grew back. no one really knew exactly what it was.
we were still high when we ran outta beer. so i probably shouldn't have said "sure" when he asked if i wanted to go with him to pick up more, especially because it'd just started to downpour, and i knew that the reason he had served time all those years ago was because he had had a head-on collision with a young black guy who, according to legend, was just as drunk as he was at the time but "knew some people," or perhaps just simply knew people. after that, he couldn't get a driver's license or say that he worked because all his money would've gone to the "nigger boy," so he relied on my aunt cindy's husband to provide him with work and drive him everywhere.
unless he needed beer, in which case he just hopped in the beat up oldsmobile parked on the front lawn and drove 10 minutes to the general store. the car stumbled down the twisty road as he swerved through the sheet of rain, announcing our arrival to the old men sitting on the porch by letting the car come to a stop on the curb. i don't remember what happened after we got back to the trailer. just that at one point he stood up, swayed unsteadily for a moment, and then fell over, taking out a pot of flowers and a chair on his way down. i came to his side to see if he was ok, but he was already snoring so i just left him there... well, until i heard the sound of my mother's car pull up a few hours later. i jumped up from the sofa and nudged him with my foot trying to get him up but he was still dead asleep so i ran back to the sofa before my mom walked in, and did my best i-don't-know-what-happened-because-i-just-woke-up face when she saw him and asked me how long he'd been there like that.
i let him lay there, collapsed, at peace dreaming on the floor because i knew that's how he preferred it. "i'ma masochist," he once slurred through a mutter. "i know pain... but i won't hurt anyone else." he had tried to create a self-containing bubble of lament to avoid having any obligations to anyone though everyone could see the bloody mutilation of his self-inflicted torture. he felt that when he fucked up he was only fucking himself up, and was utterly unapologetic to the effect his meaningless waste of a life had on the few others that cared about him. when my mother helped him up and brought him to his room i'm certain he didn't give a single thought about her concern for him because he didn't even muster a simple "thank you" for the pizza she brought home for us to eat. and actually, the real reason he stayed home that day was because he said he hated hospitals, especially when someone he cared about was in one and, according to him, he cared more about his mother than anyone else in the world including himself. so the last place he wanted to be was by her side in her time of need. yeah, he was the kind of delusional pauper that can deny pleading for pity while uncontrollably shaking an empty coffee cup at you; and can profess to have love for another without really sacrificing any bit of his love for himself; and proclaim to have a meaningless life without being able to pull the trigger.
but i'm not at all passing judgment on him. to be fair, he was dealt a shitty hand. lifetimes ago he'd had a fiancee who one day up and left him, and he never recovered from it. i remember her being dumb but sweet, complete with a lazy southern drawl. my mother told me she had been abused by her father when she was young, and was drawn to chris by his gentle nature before she left him for an old boyfriend. when we were talking about girls (the closest we came to broaching the topic of love) he declared, "i like'em short and skinny... and ugly. that way if they leave me... my heart ain't broken." he told me he'd "dicked all kinds of girls" in his life, mostly when he was a teenager, though he said he had since found out he was sterile and hadn't been laid in 10 years. to help him overcome the shame and embarrasment of his shortcomings, he had perfected a caustically self-deprecating sense of humor. he said, talking about the acne that covered his whole body, "my back smells like bad pussy. i smell worse after taking a shower than i do... going in." and he said that if he ever won the lottery, an opportunity to achieve any lifelong dream, he would simply go to a "titty bar in hawaii."
his default decision was to do nothing to better his life, only to make it tolerable, and witnessing the consequences of this attitude left a lasting impression on me. and when i left, i knew that would be the last time i'd ever see him, though i didn't expect him to go out the way he did. he stopped working a few months ago due to an illness that left him bedridden yet unmotivated to see a doctor until just a couple of weeks ago. his doctor told him the reason he had been feeling like shit for the past few months was because his body was ravaged by cancer. he was told he had 2 weeks to live, but he didn't tell anyone. the doctor's estimate was right, and he died on the morning of my mother's 50th birthday. because he requested to be cremated immediately my mother and father bought a plane ticket and left the following day to join the three other people who were planning to attend the service.
i was curious as to how a man could condense an eternal lifetime of knowledge into 10 minutes. so i said, "sounds like a bargain. what did he say?"
"i dunno," he replied taking a sip from a can of bud. "i never had 10 minutes."
of the two, i was the only one laughing. unaware of the irony, he gazed downwards searching for the relevant bit of information to complete his unintentially humorous anecdote, and for a moment i felt alone.
he finally added, "don't live far from here neither. been meaning to pay him a visit... when i have the time."
posted by mat @ 1:14 PM
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