A forgotten scent

Mike Herring, my good tall friend, had no sense of smell. Technically I mean. He couldn't smell anything. This inability was a kind of ghost in his life, and we'd talk often about it.

One of the few services I could provide him was describing smells that he might not know existed. He knew about the obvious, perfumy ones. He could sometimes almost taste them. That was why he was a big fan of the stinking cheeses and leathery tobaccos that most of us flee. He could almost smell them.

Once, while we were walking down High Street on a swollen Summer day in Columbus, we passed a woman wearing a load of makeup. "Hey Mike, that woman we just passed, her makeup's frying. It smelled like burning tires." Or another time, some change included silver coin. I told him how silver has a acrid greasy smell when humans handle it. He always liked hearing about these glimpses into a world that he was locked out of.

I remembered Michael in conversation on Thursday and was reminded by laundry on Friday. As I was sloting quarters (yes, for the first time in memory, I don't have in-apartment w/d), I spotted an off-colored slug. Blame Canada, I figured. No, a 1958 silver jobbie, my birth year to boot.

The 1958 quarter is now sitting on my work/dining table. I like to ting it and hear the different music it makes compared to the dull coin of the realm. It seems like a vending machine to me. It stops me when I spot it and I get a toy or a candy or a mystery just by peering inside.

It took me back to my youth and trying to fill one of those useless cardboard penny hotels with Lincolns dating back to 1909. (Copper smells funny too, like how blood tastes in your mouth.) I was fascinated with old coins. Amazed that they weren't all locked up in museums. Amazed that I could touch an object that was like a mini time machine. A penny from 1929 saw hard times. That was the penny that you'd hope to save.

So on that laundry day, I had my little Proustian scent moment, all so quick. Michael's often around me but his quirky power has diminished for me over the years. I looked our late correspondence, when he and I wrote a ton each month. His writing was like a ton of bricks (mine like a ton of feathers, I suspect).

On reading some of the letters, I was amazed at his devotion to process and detail. His mind loved the grain of sand as much as the beach. If he had time, I suspect that he would have enjoyed looking into how each grain of sand got to its place on the beach. Worthwhile sure, but he probably would have been just as pleased to hear about the coconut fog that surrounded sunbathers as they roasted.