Something-something Allston Street

(October 16, 2005)

How bad does it have to smell inside a house before the stench hits the sidewalk?

I walk by this house every day, twice a day, on my way to work and back. I don't know if it's a multi-family house or not, because I never see anyone going in or coming out. Though sometimes there's a teenaged girl sitting on the side porch, with a large bird of some kind. Something about her feels like she's disconnected from the front of the house, though, so maybe it's a duplex and that side porch is her domain while the front belongs to someone else. A landlady, perhaps. It's the front that's perplexing. It's ugly and it smells. It smells like a pot of death. It smells like a pot of death boiled over on the back burner.

The vaguely blue siding is the color of water in a vase after the flowers die. The screen door is pocked and gray and the front porch is well-weathered. The yard couldn't be called a "lawn" by any stretch, just two squares of dirt divided down the middle by the walkway. A chain link fence separates each half of the yard, and provides a barrier to the street. Thank god, because the enormous Rotweiler that sometimes skulks around in there usually lunges at passersby, rattling the fence with his bulk. He doesn't bark, per se. He just lunges. But he can't make it over the fence. At least, he hasn't yet.

Sometimes the Rotweiler isn't alone but has, inexplicably, five or six scrappy little Lhasa Apsos or Pekingese or Pomeranians or some other dinky bug-eyed troll-doll dog. The dirt yard has a few blackened dog toys that, in the dusk, I sometimes think are cats or possums crouching. But they're just dog toys.

This house is so weird.

And boy does it STINK. There were days during the sweltering, dense, airless days of summer that I walked another route so as not to have to pass the place. I would just hold my breath but it starts to smell from about a block away and I can't hold it that long.

If it's that rank outside, what in the holy name of all that's funky must it be like INside?

And WHAT smells, exactly? I don't know if it's the dirt yard itself infused with old pee and poop particles, or the dogs, or the birds that I can hear twittering and thrashing inside. Birds can smell pretty bad, people don't realize.

The worst part is, the house on the other side of this hellhole is a nicely turned-out duplex with a neatly trimmed lawn and flower boxes. Those guys take care of their property; I bet they want to just firebomb the Stinktons and get some relief.

Vague thoughts of "calling someone" pass thru my consciousness. But there doesn't seem to be any living thing in actual trouble. The dogs, though dusty (especially the ones that are bred to look like dust brooms) look well-fed and happy. The birds seem to be singing. There's no visible piles of poop in the yard, which is, yes, dirt, but looks swept. I mean...you can't really alert some authority because a neighbor is a piss-poor housekeeper, can you?

Still, I feel like one day there will be news vans and reporters swarming the place, some Ed Gein-like tale of horror is going to come spewing forth. Will anyone who lives in the vicinity really be surprised? I can't be the only one who thinks this place is creepy.

Instead of the usual "Well now, I am simply shocked that this could happen in our neighborhood," I, for one, will be on camera saying, "I KNEW IT!"