Henry: [mouthing off about coves.]
Me: “Boring.”
Henry: “You know, maybe you would learn something if you actually listened to me.”
Yeah, but that won’t happen as long as Jonny Craig’s voice is coming out of the speakers.

*********
Still haven’t seen any bears. Not even after the 5,000 mile car ride through the national park which Henry forced us to take this morning. Oh my god, it was so boring. By the time we actually got to our destination, Henry turned around and started driving back, what the fuck. (First we stopped in some small information center where Chooch got chastised by some old park ranger within 5 seconds for TOUCHING A BOOK. Either old people in Tennessee are just all assholes, or they have the ability to see Chooch’s inner Satan.)

Nature never fails to make Henry and I fight, so it was a pretty miserable drive back to the resort. Mostly because I was convinced he took us out there specifically to sabotage my plans for Christ in the Smokies, which I had been yearning for since JUNE.

Bill came down around 1:30 and we finally embarked for downtown Gatlinburg. Henry was definitely not pleased about this page of the intinerary but Bill and I were super fired-up.

I immediately had an uncomfortable, slightly-tense run-in with one of the museum…curators? Does wearing a Christ in the Smokies polo qualify him with that status? I’m not sure, but he was very exasperated that I bought our tickets online but was unable to print them out. This caused us to have to interact longer than I would have liked, and he was also clearly chagrined by this.

“Southern hospitality must not apply in Tennessee,” I complained to Henry, recounting all the situations I’ve had so far which called for scrutiny.

“They’re probably just used to dealing with ignorant assholes,” Henry said, and I KNOW he wasn’t directing that at me.

We had time to scope the gift shop before our tour started and I was extremely dismayed with the lack of kitsch. I mean, yeah—-all Jesus shit is hokey, but this was all your typical hokey shit that you’d find anywhere. Very few items boasted the Christ in the Smokies insignia, so I had to make due with a tiny lamb-handled bell and a $2 souvenir program which I only bought because it came with 2 post cards, which were unavailable for separate purchase. (I’ll send them to the first two to call dibs.) Totally lame and unacceptable. I was fully prepared to spend most of my souvenir savings there, just so they know.

(I had my heart set on something scary to add to my bathroom collection. Gory bleeding hearts and weeping Marys, even a crown of thorns toilet paper holder would have sufficed.)

There was no one else there so it ended up being just the four of us touring the museum, which is great because we never know how Chooch is going to act in these things. Also because I was even more free to be inappropriate and feign respect. After the annoyed guide explained the rules (PHOTOGRAPHY IS PROHIBITED INSIDE THE EXHIBIT) we started off watching a short DVD presentation about how Jesus is the best and then the doors opened to the diorama portion of the tour, which started with the Nativity scene. Chooch was excited because this included a chicken.

“Mommy, that guy said NO PICTURES!” Chooch is such a little bitch-ass tattle-tale. But he was surprisingly—-pardon the pun—-a little angel in there. There were moments when he would mumble, “Bor-ING” but for the most part, he sat quietly in each room on the pews and asked appropriate questions.

“Get used to it kid,” I said. “This shit is your next eight years.” Oh, Catholic school. I should have told his kindergarten teacher that THIS is why he’s missing his first week of school. She probably would have said to take TWO weeks, in that case.

Henry was completely against this yet he seemed curiously enrapt by each display.

(We’ll probably have to start going to church now, plan backfired.) You just can’t tell in this picture because he was too busy reprimanding me for taking pictures while simultaneously picking his hemorrhoids.

Chooch made comments here and there like, “That looks like Luke Skywalker!” and then argued that Jesus as a young boy was really a girl until we finally acquiesced and said, “Yes you’re right, it’s a girl.”

“Oh, I’m gonna pay attention to THIS one!” Chooch cried out after walking into another room. Of course, it was a scene depicting Satan tempting Jesus. Satan was standing at the entrance of a cave which had Hellish red lights emanating from within, like a biblical bordello.

It was my favorite one, too.

Bill liked the one with Jesus hanging out in town, talking to children, because there was some shirtless body-builder hanging out on the periphery. “Look at the abs on that guy!” he sighed a little too lustfully.

This same scene also had mannequins commingling with the wax figures.

I guess Christ in the Smokies was tight on money.

So, I started the tour as a snickering heathen, but by the time I got to the crucifixion scene, Catholic guilt had me by the tits and I was all, “OMG JESUS I LOVE YOU JESUS!” I’m a sucker for this shit.

“Heaven is made from the inside of couches?!?!” Chooch exclaimed in shock upon inspecting the ascension scene (which actually did involve Jesus rising up to the ceiling in an epic, gear-turning fashion; props to Christ in the Smokies).

Yes, Chooch. That’s exactly what heaven is made from. (Thank you, cats, for showing him what the inside of the couch looks like in the first place.)

After listening to a lilting rendition of the Hallelujah chorus, the doors burst open to the “gardens,” which was actually just a small enclosed area filled with moist air and the stench of a greenhouse. At the center was a sculpture of Jesus’s face, with creepy eyes that stared at us no matter where we stood. (Corey actually bought me a smaller version of this a few years ago for my birthday and it remains one of my prized possessions.)

Get stoked for Christ!

The last part housed a small collection of currency from Jesus-times and a random collection of Jesus movie memorabilia. Although the gardens were underwhelming at best, the rest of the place was everything I could wanted. I mean, a myriad of wax Bible scenes—how can you go wrong with that?

If my hour spent at Christ in the Smokies did anything at all, it confirmed what I had been contemplating for years: I should totally start dressing like Mary Magdalene.

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Neon ketchup bottles, the Warhol Museum, monuments for Mister Rogers, Mount Washington, inclines, and enough Steelers memorabilia to make any visiting eyeballs hemorrhage black and gold – all pretty standard tourism fare for Pittsburgh. Where’s a person to go if they have a penchant for human remains in jars, taxidermy mash-ups, and enough antique murder weapons to arm a small colony?

Trundle Manor, Pittsburgh’s own little Wunderkammer.

Thank god for Roadside America for alerting me to such a wondrous haven in my own town. My fingers had barely given my eyes a chance to  jog over the description of “House of Oddities” before they were impatiently clicking over to the website.

Four seconds later, I was already trying to figure out when I was going and with whom. I texted my brother Corey the link and he immediately replied with a confident “Ya I’ll go.” We planned for Sunday, September 26th, since he would be in town that day from college. The website says to call or text Mr. ARM for an appointment. I was glad for the texting option.

“Um, I’m gonna guess it’s that house,” Corey said as we stood cluelessly in the middle of Juniata Street in Swissvale; he pointed to a house with an eerie green spotlight on top of a small hill. There was a definite sense of apprehension. Trundle Manor is an actual residence, not a for-profit museum. And since it was relatively late on a Sunday night, something told me we wouldn’t be taking a tour of the place huddled safely in the center of a traveling group of fanny-packed septuagenarians.

A coffin leaning against the house was the first thing we saw after climbing the steps to the porch.

I rang the doorbell (or maybe I knocked; I know these details matter to you) and we waited. Not knowing what we were walking into gave me the same bladder-molesting apprehension that occurs while waiting in line for a haunted house; I half-expected something to spring forth from that coffin. But nothing ever did, because Trundle Manor isn’t some dime a dozen haunted attraction.

It’s much better than that.

Before we could change our minds and flee from the house like two school children attempting to corral their lost ball from the neighborhood witch’s back yard, the heavy wooden door pulled open and we were greeted by a pretty, corseted blond in heels. She introduced herself as Rachel and explained that Mr. ARM would be out momentarily. We stood nervously in the foyer, which Rachel said is also known as the game room.

“Because there’s a dart board on the back of the door,” she explained, closing the door behind us. And it was officially too late to back out.

Rachel led us into the dining room, where Mr. ARM emerged with a flourish from the back side of red velvet curtains. He passed off one of the two rock glasses in his hand to Rachel and apologized for not greeting us at the door. “You can’t stop in the middle of mixing a good drink,” he explained, and Corey and I laughed nervously. And the tour commenced.

The dining room had cabinets displaying old medical mementos – scalpels, syringes, barbaric relics of dentistry which Rachel joked could be impregnating us with cancer at that very moment. There was a mannequin fitted with a vintage mourning jacket, and Mr. ARM gave us a brief history lesson on professional mourners, which sounds like something my funeral will definitely need.

Mr. ARM, who has lived in Pittsburgh his whole life and has a lot to say to the haters, has been collecting these oddities since he was seven. In addition to residing in a veritable Arcadia of artifacts, Mr. ARM is a talented steampunk artist with a remarkable moustache. (He keeps his first moustache framed in the foyer.) And Rachel is no schlep -in addition to being Mr. ARM’s muse, she’s also a talented artist with a flair for costumery.

Mr. ARM’s talking Lilliputian.

Back in the foyer (and next to the framed moustache), Mr. ARM revealed what I considered to be the pièce de résistance of the house: Olivia’s Tumor. It’s a real tumor gifted to Mr. ARM by his bellydancer friend Olivia, straight from her uterus. (I mean, it may have been fondled by some doctors first, but that’s besides the point.) Olivia said he could have it only if he gave it a proper display case. At this point in the story, Mr. ARM whipped the cover off the dome to reveal the tumor, and music began playing from the two little horns. It was sensational.

(The tumor was benign and Olivia is OK, which made me feel less of an asshole for enjoying the sight of a singing neoplasm.)

The final leg of the tour was held in the parlor, which had low, ambient lighting, an antique organ and a cornucopia of suspended death in jars. Antlers jutted from the walls and a zebra-striped rug covered the center of the floor.

And there was a jackalope.

“That’s everyone’s favorite piece,” Mr. ARM noted, referring to a taxidermied duckling perched atop a turtle; placed on a tall table in the middle of the room, they served as the parlor’s focal point. “The tagline is ‘All I did was drill a hole in a turtle?'” Mr. ARM said with a shrug. For some reason I didn’t get the punchline until later that night, at which point I laughed out loud.

The atmosphere of Trundle Manor was full of minutia which pandered perfectly to each one of the senses: the music of Henry Hall wafting from the rafters was accentuated by the clinking of ice swirling in properly mixed drinks; a musky aroma filled the room each time Mr. ARM puffed on his cigar, the smoke of which undulated around his impeccably coiffed hair. It was easy to forget that the year was 2010 not 1920.

Corey and I sat on a couch while Rachel and Mr. ARM wowed us with stories of their collections and future projects they’re planning.

“He asked me if I wanted to cut up squirrels,” Rachel said, recalling how she won the title of Mr. ARM’s muse. “So that’s what we did for our first date.” All I can say is thank god she said yes, because they’re a creative force to be reckoned with and, on top of curating a house of oddities, they’re also afficionadoes of the art of villainy.

Rachel dug out a photo of them from last year’s Zombie Fest in which Mr. ARM was the villain and she was the girl tied to the railroad tracks. I think that might have been the point where I blurted out, “You guys are my heroes.”

Hanging along the bottom of a cabinet was a row of old, rusty, and quite well-used cleavers. “This one is  my favorite,” Mr. ARM said, taking one off  and passing it over to us. It was heavy and misshapen; I had immediate red-tinged visions of using it.

“I always say, anything that can fit down my pants is free to take,” Mr. ARM said, after admitting to stealing some of the cleavers.

“What’s in that up there?” Corey asked, pointing to a large jug half-full of murky, sanguine fluid.

“Squirrels,” Rachel answered. “We had so many squirrels in the freezer that I couldn’t fit in any groceries, so I made him move them,” she explained with nonchalance. (It should be noted that Rachel and Mr. ARM do not harm living animals.)

Despite the sensory overload on the eyeballs, my favorite part of the night was – honestly – just sitting around with the ingenious Trundle Manor residents, talking about Pittsburgh and listening to their ideas and philosophies. They seemed genuinely interested in learning about Corey and me, as well, so we felt less lame about ourselves. (“Jesus Christ, I walked in there wearing a DC hoodie and Nikes,” Corey laughed on the way home, after I commented on how plain and boring we look on the outside.) There is not a single drop of pretentiousness in their blood; they’re down to Earth eccentrics with a willingness to share their work with the public and I left their abode feeling intellectually fulfilled. They even invited us back for their Victorian Sideshow Circus Halloween party, which I tried to tell Henry about when I came home that night, but I’m not sure he was able to decipher that from all my high-pitched squealing.

Visiting Trundle Manor was perhaps one of the best ideas I’ve had in awhile. If you’re ever passing through Pittsburgh and want to spend an hour or so examining creepy artifacts and perhaps even stepping outside of your comfort zone, I urge you to check it out. Just don’t forget to bring a dime if you want to see the 10 Cent Attraction.

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