pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger he exhaled letting go and blew sharp bursts

resonate piqued sounds  but not too hard                 

                                  not as if he sought to empty his nose into either of the handkerchiefs he kept in the back pockets of his jeans(handkerchiefs he tantalised and confounded Minneapolis homosexuals unintentionally with who tried to decode their meaning* when they had no meaning other than he really liked big colourful handkerchiefs)

he walked in the open air under a crisp blue sky upstart salt breezes coming in off the ocean like wet-ended towels snapped in gym class

he wrinkled his nose

asked himself absently  Why am I smelling urine bouts of urine like the smell that emanates out of either end

of Bubble Gum alley

he was concerned  

he pursued his curiosity and read medical tracts accounts of certain smells which indeed were associated with disease

however they were usually detailed as persistent smells

not the occasional whiff he caught Here                

then There

the smell of ammonia was associated with kidney disease

the sufferer smelling it

this scent of warm urine the smell of ammonia hed experienced in the past 

though it had nothing to do with ailments

rather it concurred with dinner                                                                                                

as a boy arriving home for lunchtime from school he found his mother preparing that evenings dinner  

occasionally she was literally boiling the piss out of beef kidneys in an open pot or dutch oven on top the stove

no one who was part of an immigrant family would have considered it untoward or awkward that he salivated anticipating their dinner of kidneys in a creamy horseradish sauce over fresh-made egg noodles

but This wasnt That

This smell was an occasional leak that daubed his olfactory like a broken capsule of smelling salts woven inside their sleek clinical wraps

nasal suppositories guaranteed to capture your imagination every bit and inch as much as anal suppositories

so it was neither

Here 

There

This 

nor

That

Jesus

      he felt like a forlorn bug swirling on the fast water at the edge of a drains vortex whipping past again and again the golden ring past those thoughts assembling and hinting that he should know why he smelled urine

it antagonised him

because he knew the answer would be its simplest reason    

and him not knowing suggested he either wasnt simple enough or was too developed and his common sense a wreckage and wasting behind him

Im done he admitted

it was a mystery to him

coming into his parents house in the foyer he took his sloughy Alaskan beanie off and laid it on the seat of the hall stand

if someone entered their home and did not remove their hat they took insult  

it suggested overt indiscretion and that the misanthrope was apparently raised poorly 

in their house they were disinclined to suffer anyones lack of courtesy or civility  it was not tolerated or allowed fallow

Hello Where is everyone he cried as he walked towards the rear of the house where the kitchen was  it was the common room where family had always cloistered and communed in

food and family and conversation        

there wasnt a better place to commingle

there they were surrounded by an ample larder pantry and a refrigerator/freezer a bounty of refreshments and either foodstuff or beverages were diuretics that produced their casual speak of little or no consequence or bombastic visceral arguments

Hello  a distant chorus greeted him from the rear of the house

as his footfall faded the foyer became deathly still

out of the fold in his beanie emerged a shy jetblack beetle a darkling or pinacate beetle or better known stinkbug for its wellknown malodorous secretion

a stink of ammonia

moving awkwardly it tumbled off the fabricked seat of the hall stand and bounced soundlessly on the tiled floor

soundlessly to human hearing

yet not so soundless to opportunistic mammalian hearing

the darkling responded to the approaching skitter of nails huffing pink nose and whiskers by bending deep at its forelegs headstanding raising its abdomen high its scent gland readied to spurt

the mouse as a matter of fact clobbered it on its mandible and sent it spinning toppling into the deep pile of livingroom carpet 

there it jammed its behind into the pile and ate it quickly head first with scarcely any stench emitted

uninitiated
          someone might conclude the mouse had a better meal that evening it was less offensive than when the family enjoyed their occasional beef kidneys and noodles

 

1111,  Friday,  10  6. 16

* Gay Hanky Codes: https://user.xmission.com/~trevin/hanky.html