Turkey shit perfumes the wind gusting from the east, an odorous sign that simply means rain. The birds live across the road from us in a long, hot shed until big, compartmented trucks arrive to haul them away. Scattered feathers on the black road leave white shadows as the semis drive towards the processing plants. I could look down at the asphalt and probably find some blood, but it doesn't matter, really, since the white will turn completely red in only awhile longer, when the birds are finally slaughtered. I like that it won't smell for the few days before the next batch of chicks arrive and then when the smell returns, it'll be different, although not quite new.
I take milk from a goat—Lucinda—that has never had a baby. The milk's sadly maternal scent clings to me and sometimes nauseates me. Tying her up, squeezing her tits, I finally understand what Sethe meant.
I never looked the pigs in the eye because that's where they show their intelligence, and I didn't want to see that because I knew we'd be killing them in a few weeks. The last pig fell about the time I wanted the guns to stop, convenient, I thought, as it convulsed unalive before me, leeching blood from the line across its neck. Two hours later, the only remnant of the slaughter was some blood-soaked grass. If you've ever tasted your own blood that was the smell the grass took on—iron-y and sour and not completely unappealing. Each rain dulled the scent more and more until suddenly the smell emerged in the faintest of ways in the sausage popping on the stove three weeks later.
His cigarillos' smoke made me nostalgic for friends and music and dark nights. That was until the rape. Now I smell smoke and I think about him and I think about the girl. Did the hay dig into her back? Did his dog watch? Did he look her in the eyes or was there too much intelligence going on in there to stand doing that? There are no bad people in the world, just people doing bad things. That mantra creeps into my head whenever I smell a cigarette. Maybe one day I will truly believe it.
Back in the city, away from the country, I can't smell anything. Sometimes I bring my palm to my nose and search for the shit or the milk or the blood or the blood. I found them once while I sat outside in the growing blackness thinking of nothing except the smells but I ripped my hand away because they'd say it wasn't right. Too long for sadness and violence and evil, I mean. Even when what I truly wished to find was the possibility that goodness lurked in each scent too.