Listen to Robert Eccles read "Stink" by C.M. Marcum
Something smelled bad. An odor snaked around the room, holding to the corners, hiding under the chairs, waiting for someone to fan it out. Nervous feet puffed it up in dusty clouds. The smell clung to the inside of his leather jacket, powdered the cuffs of his jeans, and oiled the bandana on his head. He chewed his fingernails, biting down on the pink nubs until blood bubbled out in bright red dots. There was something exquisitely painful and satisfying about opening the crusty scabs. And not for the first time, he wondered if he, himself, was the source of the unpleasant aroma. He hadn't had a bath or a rinse or a shave since before he arrived here. Some of the smell was probably coming from him, but not all of it. He was sure of that.
Harry wanted to tell everyone to sit perfectly still, but he couldn't. He didn't even know these people, and there were too many of them — hundreds of them. Easy bet that if he complained someone would surely object, and with his luck that someone would turn out to be big, mean, ugly and already pissed-off about something. Not that he minded a good fight, but none of his motorcycle buddies had shown up yet, and he didn't like the odds of fighting solo.
He tried to console himself with the plusses: it was a large room, open-aired like a coliseum, but CCR wasn't going to show up and sing "Bad Moon Rising." No one spoke to him, so he didn't have to deal with repetitive chitchat; everyone who came here pretty much knew the deal. There were lots of chairs, some of them even kind of cushy.
Wouldn't be so bad, he told himself, if a little breeze passed by to clear the air, but Hell no, there wasn't a breeze. In fact, it was hot. Campfires burned at all four corners, just outside of the auditorium, and the air smelt like wood soaked in turpentine, slowly roasting over an open pit.
He jerked his fingers out of his mouth and crumpled the job resume into a ball, for all the good it would do him. As soon as he released his grip, the extra soft paper sprang back, undamaged, unwrinkled and softer than ever. Maybe it was made out of leather or silk or Kevlar; he couldn't tell. Once, he tried to ditch the resume. He stuffed the perpetual paper into a chair, wedging it deep into the gap between the cushion and the frame, and then he quickly changed seats. But the smooth, cheesy paper magically reappeared neatly folded and tucked inside his pocket, right next to his heart. There was no getting rid of the resume; it followed him like a homeless dog.
A little old lady in the far right corner stood up. Blue stick legs and dirty pink house shoes inched by him. Was she new? He didn't recognize her, but then all old people looked just the same to him. Dust swirled around her, and he held his breath until he could hold it no longer. Her docile plodding was maddeningly slow. He breathed with his nostrils pinched tight and watched her with contempt. The surprising aroma of chocolate chip cookies trailed after her. He inhaled again, this time savoring the smell. The scent of melted chocolate — wafting around the old hag like a victory banner — faded quickly and the revolting stink returned.
People smiled at the scraggly goat. She mounted the steps, talked to the Gatekeeper for a few moments and promptly disappeared.
She got a job! Lucky bitch. He grumbled under his breath, convinced of a conspiracy, some sort of religious cabal. She probably had connections on the other side, but what could he do about it? Nothing.
In the left corner, a dude in a business suit chatted up a fat guy in a white toga. They shared a joke, and Monkey-Suit taught Toga how to shake hands. Some guys would crack-a-deal anywhere.
"Lame," Harry said out loud. What could toga-man do for suit-guy? Nothing. Obviously, toga-man had been here for a long, long time.
Sometimes cliques formed, and sometimes job seekers sat quietly, pondering their resumes, writing furiously. Harry preferred the quiet times; cliques made him nervous.
Harry had never introduced himself to any of the other job seekers, so he didn't know their names, but he'd been here long enough to christen a few of them — some of the more colorful ones: Crack-Ho, Po-Po, Maniac, Preacher, Roly-Poly, The Crier and Turban Man.
Crack-Ho hardly ever moved, which made her seem all the more surreal. Her painted face looked at everything and nothing. An empty syringe dangled from her arm, two cc's of blood edging back up the plastic cylinder. Po-Po, so snappy looking in his pressed blue suit, always looked startled, always had his hand on the butt of his gun. Maniac amused himself by carving his name in the marble columns. Preacher strutted back and forth. Thankfully, Preacher suffered from some form of laryngitis every time he tried to sermonize. Roly-Poly had a bottomless bag of goodies, and he never shared. The Crier . . . well, cried. Non-stop. A funny, soundless weeping, as if someone had pressed the mute button on her. Turban Man had a pineapple hand-grenade glued to his belly. The belly decoration terrified Turban Man more than anybody else. Then there were a whole slew of old folks — definitely the majority — that Harry collectively called Geezers.
Harry looked up, sensing that something was wrong. Preacher glared at him, made eye conta
ct, which Harry considered extremely rude. Harry turned in his seat and looked down at his resume as if he had suddenly remembered something important to write. He brought out his pen and clicked it. Usually no one bothered a job seeker when they were writing on their resume, but the ploy didn't work for Harry this time. Preacher strode across the floor, coat tails flying, swooping in for the kill. He plopped down in the seat next to Harry, and his narrow butt hit the chair with a wet, sucking smack. The old fart reeked of moldy fish.
"Dude, you're soaking wet," Harry said. "Can't you sit somewhere'z else?"
"The tears of my flock," Preacher whispered, as if that explained his besoaked and putrid condition.
Harry glared at him. Long nose, cleft chin, and green shit clinging to scraggly, damp hair. The old parson was a sight in his ratty black, elongated coat tails and dusty, brimless hat. He stank, really stank. He smelt worse than the campfires, worse than Harry, worse than a dead mackerel screwed to a whorehouse septic tank.
"Two hundred and twenty-two years I have waited for my reward," Preacher said, his voice a gravely croak that made Harry wince. "Why do I rot here, in this awful place?"
"Maybe you weren't such a good preacher," Harry said.
"I kept my flock from Hellfire and damnation."
"Maybe you kept them from Hell, but did you teach them how to get into Heaven?"
Their eyes met, gunslinger-style, as the Preacher recoiled, like a green cobra, ready to spew out a venomous retort. Harry lurched to the right, tipping his chair over and glaring at the slimy old fart. Of all the people in the coliseum, Preacher unnerved him the most. Religious zealots could not be trusted under any circumstances. Perhaps this black specter was a spy. Harry's fist curled, and then something strange happened.
Preacher collapsed, folding over wet-noodle style. His forehead hit his knees with a loud ka-whack. Narrow shoulder blades erupted through the rotting thread on the back of Preacher's jacket. The skin on his back was so white and tight that Harry mistook the bleached skin for bare bone. Harry yelped and jumped away. Hundreds of eyes turned to stare at them. Even Crack-Ho stirred from her catatonia, her head rotating in their direction. The room had grown so quiet that Harry could hear the panicked puffing of his own breath competing with the crackle of burning poles. Slowly, in a distant corner, a spurt of chatter returned and the bug-eyed gawkers looked away.
The lights flickered, a rolling mist circled the floor and, at last, a cool breeze ruffled Harry's hair. Chimes echoed off the marble columns. Everyone froze. Even Maniac stopped etching his name in the rippled pillars long enough to look at the wide steps and the misty dais.
"Harry Holman," the Gatekeeper said. "Bring your resume."
"Holy shit! That's me. I'm up," Harry said. "Maybe I'll get paroled . . . I mean, maybe I'll get a job." His boots clattered across the floor. He didn't know what kind of job they had for him, but he would do anything to get out of this place.
The Preacher ribbeted after him — something unintelligible and frog-like. Harry didn't bother responding. He plowed through the fog, up the steps, and hungrily licked the dew off his lips. Then he knelt at the Gatekeeper's feet. He wasn't sure if this was the proper etiquette for meeting the Big G, but it couldn't hurt to be as subservient as possible. At least, it would prove to the Big G that Harry's attitude had improved since their last meeting — which didn't go so well, not so well at all.
"So, Harry, it's been a long time," the Gatekeeper said.
"You ain't shitting," Harry said.
The Gatekeeper laughed, pulled up his robes and sat down on the vanilla steps — a chitchat gesture that made Harry's heart leap. "Have you written anything new on your resume?"
"Yeah, yeah," Harry said, nearly breathless. "There was this one time in High School, when the jocks were picking on this little nerdy guy — name of Joey Mantanza. I punched out the quarterback, and I took little Joey under my wing. Nobody ever bothered Joe again."
"Ah yes," the Gatekeeper said, looking out over the coliseum and thumping his chin, as if he had been there, in the tiled halls of Calhoun High, and he remembered the event himself. "But didn't you also give Joey his first syringe of heroin? Didn't Joey die of an overdose in his senior year?"
"Yeah, I did that," Harry said. There was no use in lying. Lies only made the Big G shake his head and walk away. Lying always ended the interview; everyone knew that.
"Little Joey's death sort of cancels out any good that you might have done for him, doesn't it?" The Gatekeeper stroked his beard and looked out over the floor, surveying the other job seekers. He curled Harry's resume into a thin roll and tapped it against his leg, as if he'd lost interest in it before even looking at the careful composed words.
Slump-shouldered, Harry looked up. "Yeah. That definitely sucked. So . . . then, why did you call me up here?"
"Because of what you said to Preacher. You helped him. You made him understand something that he did not understand before." Big G smiled. "The universe changes, Harry. Perpetual change. We can rely on that. If the universe can change, so can you."
Harry blinked stupidly; his mouth formed an O. The Gatekeeper stood, swishing his robes around him. He smelt of wet dirt and cold snow and chimney soot. Big G's image became fainter and fainter, and then he was gone — back to some mystical angel breakroom for a cup of coffee and a long smoke.
Harry didn't go back to his chair. He didn't want to move; he had to figure this thing out before action cancelled out his thoughts. He wasn't a fast thinker, but sometimes insight came to him.
Hundreds of people lined the coliseum, but who was the saddest creature of all? The Crier. Yes, The Crier. She held a wadded-up blanket — but there was no baby in the blanket — and she cried, dredging up tears from an artesian well.
He couldn't deal with The Crier — not yet, anyway.
Maybe Crack-Ho. They shared a little in common; they had both died from an overdose. Harry sat down next to her and rubbed the sweat off his hands and onto his jeans. He looked at her. Well . . . sort of looked at her. She wasn't wearing too many clothes, just a bra and a shred of skirt. Her body, wasted by years of drug abuse, fascinated and repulsed him at the same time. He kept his head up and his eyes glued to her raccoon orbs.
"Hi," he said. "My name is Harry. What's your name?"
