Cruel Poodle
I haven’t seen my neighbor and her Satanic poodle in 48 hours. These are 48 hours that God has given me for never having had the desire to go to Burning Man. It is my blessing. My gift. My neighbor is an elderly woman who is accidentally steampunk, with latex gloves and protective goggles, ostensibly to shield her from COVID or whatever else is slowly killing us all. She also is the owner of a dark grey poodle. I don’t believe any dog is bad in nature, even the scary ones. But I do believe in the deepest part of my spiritual marrow that this poodle is evil.
The poodle snarls and barks and scratches at any other dog, any other person. Other neighbors have complained to building management about the dog; they’ve advised us to avoid times when my neighbor and poodle head through the lobby to take their walks. I’ve resorted to slowly peeking around corners and picking Mango up and holding him in the elevator in anticipation. Elevator attacks are the most common; the doors will open and there the poodle will be, shrieking and growling as Mango vibrates in my arms, ready to defend.
This poodle seeks to punish. The poodle hates. And it hates my dog most of all. You see my dog is in fact perfect. He is an alien who came to this rotting earth to teach me and my husband about humility, or something. I’m not sure. But he is divine.
And the poodle knows that, which is why the first time it ever laid eyes on Mango, it lunged at him, barely restrained by its owner, and wanted to obliterate him. Stamp out the good. Where there is light, there is darkness, and this poodle is darkness. Now, whenever they are near each other—even when we are driving past it in a car—Mango is possessed with revenge. He will only know true peace when this poodle is destroyed. Their feud feels cosmic, like they’ve encountered each other before. I know my neighbor feels this, too. She plays dumb with me and laughs it off. She has no choice. She knows the poodle is bad. She knows it is low vibrational. She is its prisoner. She is Stockholm’d. She’s even tried to convince me before that it was Mango that attacked first, which I respect. I respect her gaslighting. She has to do what she has to do. I want to tell her that I know the truth, and that it’s not her fault.
“Don’t blame yourself” I would tell her. “You just have a terrible poodle.”
But I won’t say anything. I’ll continue to keep watch. This is a cold war. There is no winning, just surviving.
***
Los Angeles has no business being so incredibly September this early on in the month. It is September; we can all agree on that. It’s cloudy and cool out. People are already back to work, except for Hollywood. But that’s true of the industry, even when there’s not a historic two-union strike happening. It doesn’t matter if it was just summer, the people who run Hollywood begin winding down for the winter holidays in September. The Great Wind Down has already begun. There’s a week or so of activity—an avalanche of deals, announcements, attachments, and then by October, the year is done. Come Thanksgiving, it’s time to pack up your things into a little bindle, and hitch a ride on the next freight train out to the desert, where the only thing left for you to do is dig a hole, crawl into it and bury yourself. Then wait till the cold January sand retreats in a winter gust and unearths you. There, you can grab your hobo stick and walk back to Tinseltown, and get ready for an employment window that only lasts till April, before the pre-Great Wind Down wind down starts in May.
On your way back to LA, take a detour into Nevada, and check in on the people who will most likely still be trapped at Burning Man in 2024. The rains have stopped, and most have gotten out by now. Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks the whole thing was a Liberal hoax, and other people think there’s an Ebola outbreak. But a lot of Burners are still there, without Internet, or running water, just vibing and gatekeeping and coming down from hard drugs inside a Port-A-Potty that doesn’t work. Next year they should hold Burning Man on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I would go to that.