I know not what it was.
Last night, Fargo and I went for an evening amble. It’s been hot here, so we’ve been going after dark, but I was pleased with myself, because last night I timed it such that the pavement’d had a good hour to cool down and the sky was still rosy. She was pleased with me as well. She’d been quietly woofing at me for most of an hour. With purpose.
The sky was rosy, and the clouds were rosy, and the red brick building down the street—lofts now, but maybe it used to be a warehouse, but then again maybe it’s just a condo building built to look like it used to be a warehouse (you take what you can get in a town this young)—burned like the rocks outside Moab. I looked at the black iron of the balcony railings, straight and clear and strong, and I looked at the edge of the building, rich and sharp and rugged, and I looked at what my mom’s grandma used to call a buttermilk sky, a soft, golden, speckled pink against a soft, golden, speckled blue. Fargo tip-toed the the shit-strewn patch of dead grass outside the schoolyard and took a piss.
The night before last, in the dark, Fargo licked something. Or she at least licked her lips, perhaps having sniffed something deeply. Evidently she’d discovered it that morning. What it was? Well, that’s what I don’t know. None of us know, save perhaps for Fargo, and I’d venture she doesn’t really know. Considering the identity of a thing is of little concern to a dog, I believe. Things serve purposes to a dog, and this thing served the purpose of being sniffed. At least, one would hope that was the only purpose.
It was at the base of a big metal flowerpot, and it’s goofy to call it a flowerpot but that’s the only word I can manage. There are a couple of them there in front of the office building with the goofy lights they flash right after sunset. Across the sidewalk from the little astroturf patch with the grill. They’re big and they’re square and I believe they hold trees, and this one had a glistening streak of some sort down its side and something at the bottom of great interest to a one-and-a-half-year-old bernedoodle.
I forgot all about it after the lip-licking.
I will never forget it again.
Last night, in her return to the scene of interest, Fargo grabbed something from the base of the flowerpot. What was it? I still don’t know. But God, oh God, did it smell wretched. God, oh God, does it smell wretched. Eight handwashings and one shower and a dozen Clorox wipes later, there’s still a hint of it on my fingertips, because as a rule, anything that goes in Fargo’s mouth must go on my fingertips after I notice her jolt upright, clamp her jaw shut, and start hurrying forward as though she’s going to get away from the man who is holding her on a well-fastened leash. I pried the jaws open. Something which may have just been mulch fell out. I tilted her head forward. A little more mulch. I reached into her mouth and felt around, excavating. A little more mulch. She tried to pick back up the main piece of whatever it was as we walked away (this is the piece I can’t decide the identity of), but I know her tricks. The leash was yanked and we went on to greet the excitable middle-aged tourists coming out of the brewery on the corner. Few appreciate a one-and-a-half-year-old bernedoodle more than excitable middle-aged tourists exiting a brewery. Until she jumps on them, that is, but hey, that’s a problem for my shoulder, not you.
The stench was overpowering, and as we walked away, it did not go away. It lingered in the air around us. I’ve gone back and smelled my shirt, thinking some must have gotten on there, but there is no smell on the shirt. I’ve checked my shoes, but there is no smell on the shoes. I’ve checked my shorts, and I’ve checked Fargo’s fur, and I’ve even checked Fargo’s breath, and while Fargo’s breath is certainly the breath of a dog, that particular scent is absent. It only persists on my hand. My stinky, stinky hand.
It smells the way nursing homes smell, but a bit worse, and with a potency I’ve never encountered from any other smell in my life. It’s this potency and this persistence that are so concerning. The scent will not leave me. It haunts me. I woke in the night and the smell was there with me, in my sheets, beneath my pillow, twisting itself into my nostrils once more. This is to say that it’s not a straight-up poop smell. It’s worse than that, somehow. A hand flecked in poop is nothing new to a man with a dog with an oft-malfunctioning colon. This? This was worse. Much worse.
I do think, based on horrified Googling, that the compound nonenal was at least involved, if not the sole scent. It’s that unmistakable whiff of the elderly, but here distilled upon my digits. It’s possible trimethylamine was also involved, but I’d have to do some smell testing to confirm. Whatever it is, good God. I’ve half a mind to walk down there this afternoon and investigate, sans pup. Could it just be mulch? Could it be something else? Was the mulch marinated in something else over multiple days in the Texas heat?
The possibilities are numerous, and I’m not sure it’s man’s place to know. I sure wish it hadn’t been dog’s place to know. My hand smells worse than shit.
