THIS IS A STORY OF TWO SMELLS
Hello stankness, my old friend
THIS IS A STORY OF TWO SMELLS
I.
My kids take swim lessons through a program at the L.A. Fitness in West Seattle. When you walk into the facility from the parking garage elevator there is a big front desk, staffed often with two or three young people who are usually sometimes perky and attractive. You are supposed to scan your phone into their system while they fold towels and look at you, but I always walk right by, and nobody ever says anything or tries to stop me.
Once past the front desk you enter a large area that is full of many different forms of people who are in various states of undress and skimp and most are making strange movements on stranger machines. Others are just standing around and looking. Most appear to be looking to see if anyone else is looking at them. No one appears to be outright gawking which is odd as there is usually quite a lot to gawk.
There is a long mat on the floor along the left side of the room that has the people who are doing the strangest movements at. These movements mostly involve lying down and making sweaty, grimacing scowls. These people appear to take the greatest amount of pride in their activities and the greatest offense at the presence of others who are not partaking in their assorted contortions and the picking up and putting down of heavy balls. They are also glad to meet you eye to eye with a wet face and half-open mouth that all but challenges you to just fuckin’ say something.
Past this gauntlet, turn left, and you have arrived: the men’s locker room. Sauna, showers, sinks, toilets, towels, lockers, urinals, usually a garden hose stretching down a long, wet hallway. Many doors going to places that shall remain forever unknown to me, and of course, assorted dongs and butts.
When you enter the locker room you will notice a significant increase in temperature and a shockingly high amount of humidity. Also, the air is yellow somehow. In here, there is a stink. This stink is like a solid wall of acid vapor. It is heavy and sticky and pervasive. It is a stink so acrid and pungent that it makes your nose run and your eyes blur the instant you encounter it. If you inhale too deeply, you will smell it for hours afterwards. It becomes part of you. It is raw and it is ferocious and its power will change and humiliate you. It is not a stink that makes you merely nauseous or disoriented, it is a stink that punishes you for being alive.
II.
I’m pretty sure they clean the men’s bathroom at the Safeway that I go to with a solution made of urine and homeless people’s feet, cause I don’t know how else you could make anything smell like that.
