I Don't Smell Anything

Did you know that you can sneak into the Safeway warehouse at Tillicum Mall? Well, you can. It's very easy, you walk right in through the loading bay. I've been doing that lately. It's something to do. I walk in, steal a few bananas, and head up the secret stairway to the roof so I can spy on the parking lot people.


There is a man who goes to Safeway every Saturday morning at 8am to buy a shrimp ring. His name is Mr. Jacobi. He is so cute, he pulls his socks over his pants and saunters in and out of the store like he just doesn't give a fuck. Then he drives his 1974 Buick home and sits with the shrimp ring on his lap in his recliner and watches cartoons on YTV. The shrimp are still frozen and he sucks the ice off of them and then chews them each slowly. Mr. Jacobi has a dog named Poof, one of those little white ones with the goop in the eyes. He named her Poof because she showed up on the day his wife disappeared into thin air while weeding her clamflowers on the front lawn. Poof, she was gone, and Poof, there was Poof in her place, wagging her tail. You think people don't just disappear? They do. They just vanish, now you see them, now you don't. Cars go careening off bridges because the drivers disappear while changing gears. It could happen to anyone.

You know that mildew smell that festers in washing machines when you leave the clothes in for too long? Well, that's what Mr. Jacobi's wife's wig smelled like on the day she disappeared. Mr. Jacobi was really grossed out by that. He liked his wife's natural hair and like he always said, he wished she'd just leave it alone and keep it natural, even though it had thinned in patches. At least they were her hairs, not some chemical nest of fakes. The real hair, the patchy stuff, the same hair he'd tugged and buried his face in when she was young and everything around her smelled like lilacs. Before the cancer crept into her left breast in 1977, her hair had been thick and full of waves. But after the treatment it was ruined, it looked and smelled like it had been burnt, which is why she bought the wig. The last few words Mr. Jacobi said to Mrs. Jacobi before she disappeared in the front yard: "Jesus Christ, Beverly, your wig smells like the dickens." Mrs. Jacobi had touched it sheepishly and rushed over to the mirror in the foyer to fix it. "I don't smell anything, Robert, but it's looking awfully tired," she had said.