Nurse the Hate: The Charles Manson Expert

He was an expert in the Manson Family.  It was well known that if you needed any question regarding Charles Manson or any of the extended Manson Family answered, he was your go-to source.  His resources included dozens of books, documents, video cassettes, and one framed flannel shirt worn by Charles himself which hung ominously in the hallway entryway.  He had made it “his thing” years ago, and he clung to it stubbornly even as the public fascination with the mass killings faded.  He had spent countless hours researching every detail of the cult killers under the guise of doing a book he knew he would never even begin to write.  He had been doing it too long to change now.  It was “his thing” after all.

He lived in a small bungalow in a lower middle class suburb in a Midwestern mid-sized city.  It was completely unremarkable.  The house was like any other and blended in chameleon like to its surroundings.  Two bedrooms.  A small kitchen.  A modest living room.  There was a small fenced in yard which used to be patrolled by “Scout”, his chocolate lab.  Scout left three years ago, with Denise, his second and presumably last wife.  Denise had taken up with her passive aggressive yoga instructor Ryan, as had Scout by all appearances.  He had seen the three of them in the dog-friendly vegan restaurant patio in the neighborhood when he walked by with his takeout pizza.  Oddly he felt more betrayed by Scout’s indifferent gaze at him than by Denise’s fake grimace of a smile.

Denise was the fifth woman he had fallen in love with in his life.  He was a numbers guy.  Based on national averages, this would be his last love.  Although he had first felt a sense of despair in that knowledge, he had nestled into a steady acceptance of it.  He did feel a sense of schadenfreude at knowing that he was the third love of Denise’s life and therefore Ryan and his stupid yoga shorts would be heartbroken in the not too distant future, perhaps twice.  He could picture the scene when she and Scout would pull the rug out from under Ryan and move on to new accommodations.  He felt a certain sense of superiority when he walked past them assured in this version of the future.  A small smile would peak from the corners of his mouth when he thought about it.

Weeknights he would return from his job at the Transportation Department and watch documentaries on Netflix.  He preferred True Crime subject matter.  During baseball season, he would watch the game.  It appealed to his sense of statistical certainty.  A hitter taking a strike on a 2-1 count had reduced his batting average from .351 to .181.  Why didn’t more people know that?  He would watch TV until 11pm when he would retire to his bedroom to sleep.  He would sleep for seven and one half hours a night.  He had read the research.  Sleeping less than six hours a night made you 12% more likely to die prematurely. 

He would wake up at 6:30 am.  He would have a bowl of oatmeal, three strawberries, and one mug of Folger’s brand coffee before climbing into his 2008 Toyota Corolla.  The Corolla had a dent in the driver’s side quarter panel from which he had received a check from State Farm Insurance to repair.  He kept the check and put it in his savings.  He had planned to buy himself “something special” instead of repairing the car.  He couldn’t figure out what was special enough to deserve a splurge, so he didn’t buy anything.  He eventually got used to the dent.  Whenever he mentioned the car he would include the phrase “well, it’s paid off, so…” as a defense mechanism.   He hated the car. 

At 12:15pm he would sit in his car and eat his lunch.  He would eat a turkey sandwich and an apple which he had brought in a brown bag from home.  He kept the bag in the communal refrigerator at work until he was ready to eat.  The downside was storing it that way it made the sandwich cold.  The upside was it made the apple cold.  It was an acceptable bargain.  He would then carefully fold up the garbage so as to not spread any breadcrumbs on the upholstery of the car seats.  He never turned on the car radio.  Ever.  He preferred to eat by himself and take 45 minutes to have some solitude to read.  He was deep into a biography focused on Squeaky Fromme, the Manson Family would-be assassin.  He made small notes in the margins.  It was “his thing” after all.