You’ll Smell Me Coming
The only friend I have, Jasper Millseed used to ask me all the damn time how I could stand it.
“How can you work in that stench? The fucking pain and suffering of those bastards K-Rock- how can you see that shit all day, every day?” He would ask.
Now Jasper’s about as bright as a glow stick running outa juice and he don’t smell all that good himself. Not that regular bathing is a real priority for most of the people living in this shit storm of peeling paint and crack heads they call “Low Income Housing” but more often than not Jasper smelt like open ass in the sun. Why he thought a few dozen burn victims would be that offensive I have no idea.
He was my boy though; helped me out with a ride and he’d listen to my shit from time to time and he kept his mouth shut. So one day I took him with me. Thought maybe it would interesting for him or something. So I picked him up on the corner at eight a.m. sharp and off we went to the hospital.
He lasted all of an hour. It was a bad day though, worst than most. A three alarm had went down that night and we had 4 brand new “crispers” on the ward floor. That’s what we called the really bad ones; the ones that were at least 60 percent third degree fried up on their bodies and had maybe 20 percent chance or so of lasting the next few days. We couldn’t really do anything for them the first day. The doc’s and nurses of course would keep them off by themselves, monitor their little bleeps and drips on the machines and of course keep them as morphed up as possible so they don’t go crazy with the pain. At least when they’re fresh like that they’re on ventilators so it keeps the screaming down.
But the cleaners like me couldn’t do shit with them yet so I was working on Mrs. Langer in room three. I was changing her dressings, going as easy as I could too and talking to her about random things; her little daughters school and how pretty her little girl was, how much I liked Pecan pie (Mrs. Langer liked baking), how she’d be as good as new before she knew it. Shit like that. I didn’t want to hurt her but it’s impossible not to. Her pus filled burnt skin would come peeling off right with those old bandages and whoosh! The stink came off with it.
The smell of decay and re-growth at the same time, the stench of, well of I don’t know what, I ain’t no writer but I guess the stench of something that’ll never be right again. No matter how bad you want it.
Now it doesn’t even register with me of course but Jasper starts gagging and coughing as he stood next to me in the scrubs I had gotten from Nurse Fowler that morning and then poor Mrs. Langer crying slowly and silently through closed eyes. It wasn’t from the pain either, that she was used to.
I put one hand on her forehead and whispered something nice in her ear and got up and pulled that dumb fuck outta that room by his arm.
“What the hell is wrong with you.” I said low as I pulled him down the cold white hall.
“Jesus K- I… I didn’t know it was gonna stink like that!”
I wanted to knock his block off but then I heard nurse Fowler say behind me.
“Kevin, what is the problem? Mrs. Langer is crying and unattended… and, her injuries are not properly cared for.”
Now I was really pissed. I liked Nurse Fowler. She’s the only one that worked in this whole hospital I did like. She smelled like peaches and always said good morning and good night and she’d let me, against normal rules and all, bring this dumb fuck of a friend I have into the ward with me. I’d told her he was my younger cousin and he was doing a school paper on burn victims.
“I’m sorry ma’am,” I said with eyes burning a hole in Jaspers face, “my cousin was having…trouble in the room and I didn’t want to upset the patient.”
“Well I’m sorry Kevin, but the patient is upset and your cousin I think just needs to go and get his information from the library like everyone else.” She looked at Jasper then and said, “Young man, if you have any specific questions you can call me here at the hospital and I’ll answer them for you. But I’m sorry you need to go so your cousin can perform his duties correctly… these are people who need specific attention.”
Jasper mumbled some half ass apology and I didn’t even watch him walk away, I just hollered after him to return the scrubs to the nurses’ station before he left.
“Kevin, please get back to Mrs. Langer right now.” She looked at me kindly on account of she liked me pretty well. “I should not have allowed your cousin in here.” She added,
“This isn’t a place for the unfamiliar…you have potential, please don’t put me in an awkward position again.”
Then she was gone in a starched white wind and I went back to room three feeling like shit. That’s another reason I liked Nurse Fowler; she was always telling me I had potential. She was wrong of course, dead wrong but it’s still nice to hear once in awhile.
I went back and finished cleaning Mrs. Langer, put new dressings and all on, and said she would be ok. They were doing her first “debriding” that afternoon- which is a technical term they use around here- but sounds to me about as pleasant as slowly getting turned inside out. Then she was getting the first round of grafts started, mostly from cadavers, the following day. She was freaking out in the quiet way that she did and spending a few extra minutes with her wouldn’t kill me. So I did and by the time I brought her back to her bed I didn’t feel so pissed off at Jasper anymore.
He was my boy after all, only one I had and knew shit about me, shit I’d never told anyone else; unless I had to.
The smell and the screaming patients and all the gross wiping and wrapping didn’t bother me and he knew that, he even thought he knew why but he didn’t. I’d never gotten used to the smell, never had to, it’s been with me for along while now. It’s been on my skin and in my nose ever since I sat wrapped in that blanket staring at the house shooting flames and sparks into the night with the scent of my parents, charred and dead, all around me as the paramedics brought me water and the police asked how I got out of that inferno without a scratch. Dumb fuckers never could figure it out. It’s part of me. Like the stink of a dead tooth rotting away in your mouth. Like the smell of dirt on a farmer even after he takes a shower and puts on fresh clothes.
That’s how my dad had smelled. He always smelled like dirt. I’d smell it when he came home from the fields and listen for the way he closed the door, trying to figure if he was pissed or just tired. I’d smell it while we all sat in fearful silence at the dinner table and I’d smell it when he beat my ass.
I was thinking about this when I went to the laundry to get some clean sheets and gown for Mr. Blaylock. He needed a sponge bath, new wraps, bedding- the full treatment- and when I was gathering up the linens I started thinking about my mom. God damn bleach always did that. She never smelled like dirt, just bleach. That shit’ll clean just about anything, get the dirt out like it was never even there. Smells like nothing I guess. I’d smell it on her as she did the dishes, and I’d smell it on her after she came home from bingo when she’d stumble in the door, dress and hair all fucked up and reckless. I’d smell it on her when she’d holler from the kitchen all soft and useless, “Jim…Jim… please, that’s enough. You’re going to hurt him.”
We all have a smell I guess. Mine happens to be something a lot of people can’t manage and after I’d finished up with Mr. Blaylock I stopped by Mrs. Langer’s bed to say goodnight. I was still feeling shitty about before. I just stuck my head in real quick and said goodnight and good luck tomorrow and she blinked real slow, twice like we had talked about, so I knew she was feeling better. Then I dumped my scrubs off at the nurses station, got me one final smell of peaches from nurse Fowler as she filled out charts- she said goodnight- I said goodnight- and I walked out through the schwoosh of the hospital doors with the thought maybe me and Jasper could go out and see what kind of trouble we could get into.
Tags: burn victims, death, Fiction, flash fiction, writing
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.