I can smell sin. It's an odd stench… scratch that… It's a pleasant odour. Acquired, yes, but pleasant all the same. I think my late mom could smell it too. I saw it on her face when we rode the bus or took the train—oh, especially when we took the train. The smell in the train was particularly bad because Mom would strap on heaps of face masks and position her scarf well over her nose, and yet I'd still see that she was grimacing underneath it all, still affected by the sinful whiff.
I wore the masks but not the scarf, and that was Mom's first mistake among a plethora—a plethora!—of them. Mom never would have thought her daughter could smell sin like her. And worse, she'd rather hang herself from the ceiling fan than believe her daughter would grow to love the smell of sin.
Well, she hung herself from the ceiling fan anyway, so there's that.
I work with kids. They smell of sin too. However, kids, unlike adults, have a more dynamic, say, transitional smell. It's a weird thing, isn't it? Smelling sin on kids… I don't even think Mom could do that. I don't think she ever gave it a chance. She was rather fond of kids.
A very random fact about me is that I was in active law enforcement for about two years before finding my place as a teacher… *Alright, I'm rolling my eyes*… It's not a very random fact. Why else would someone who could smell sin want to join law enforcement?
I'd wanted to do some good, unlike Mom. (Bear with me, but I have the unhealthiness of comparing myself to Mom. A lot.) I'd wanted to smell away all the sin from my town. You can guess how that went, but I'll still summarize: people died. (I promise you, I'm not a monster.)
There are so many many things to know about smelling sin, and I intend to spill it all. For now, I am at a department meeting. I teach English at school and, heaven help me, there must be something about English departments and needlessly elaborate meetings.
What's really pressing for me though is not the meeting, but the smell coming from Gary. It's not sin. No. It's grease. And it's the kind of grease I know all too well. From a blue and white canister—Ol' Monsta. It's sticky and the smell doesn't come off easy. Ol' Monsta was the kind of grease you knew was black by touch alone. Highly pungent.
There's no cleaning your way out of that one.
But guys… I think this means Gary is stalking me.
Hold on. Hold on. I'll explain.
Gary Abermann drives a mauve Silas, and two weeks ago, I spotted his vehicle—down to the exact plate number—two car-washes too close to where I live. And two weeks before that, I saw him at the local club: Dershey's. Really? What is a middle-aged English teacher looking for at a local club at midnight on a Thursday? Yes. Definitely stalking.
And if you are wondering what I, an almost middle-aged English teacher, was doing at Dershey's at midnight on a Thursday? I already told you—I love the smell of sin.
Nevertheless, Gary is still reeking of that Ol' Monsta grease, and this is the definite proof I need to confirm that he is a stalker. Just down the alley, across from where I live, there are some knuckleheads that siphon grease from… I don't know where; I am not implicating myself… but let's just say it's not for very legal purposes. There's a black market for reselling used grease, I know that much.
Gary Abermann is not siphoning grease! The only reason he would be near where they are, is if he is stalking me! Come on! My apartment is just across the road from there.
"Miss Kat. Miss Kat…" Someone is calling my name. It's the head of our department, Frerna. Her grey eyes are on mine and I snap out of my speculation that Gary is a stalker. No longer a speculation, but you understand.
"Are you okay?" Frerna asks me.
I nod and resist looking at Gary who is just sitting across from Frerna.
"I was asking you about the middle-school kids. Any difficulty with them?"
I shake my head.
"Any teaching material you are lacking?"
I shake my head again. I can feel Gary's gaze on me.
"Alright then," Frerna says. "I expect a progress report by the end of the week. Gary you are two weeks behind on your report. I hope that is not going to be the case this week. You've been slacking behind lately."
"I'll have everything by your desk tomorrow," Gary promises.
Frerna looks at her wristwatch. "Meeting over then."
The school bell rings in the distance; I can hear students pouring in for Monday. I wash my face in the loo before leaving my office. There's a rush of sin in the air. The weekends are for sinning after all.
Throughout the day, I see Gary here and there. He seems skittish, but that's just how Mondays are. He doesn't look my way whenever we pass by each other. But I see through all the pretense. I will confront him by the end of the day.
***
The bell rings for students to leave. It's three o'clock. I am waiting in the office, looking as if I am busy, sorting through files on my desk.
It's three thirty and Gary still isn't here. Maybe I'll confront him tomorrow before school starts. He might be stuck up, helping a student out or something. I pick my bag and as I am about to turn towards the door, I smell Gary's sin. He is coming. I rush back to my table and put on my thick-rimmed glasses, behaving as though I am mulling over a student's assignment paper.
Gary walks in. He's sweating averagely. I can see the outline of his wife-beater from the pattern his soaked shirt makes as it sticks to his body. It's not really hot so I wonder why he is sweating. He pays me no attention still and as I am about to say something he pauses so suddenly that I forget what I am about to say.
"Oh fuck," he mutters under his breath and rushes out of the office.
I miss my chance. Mom wouldn't have hesitated to confront a stalker. There was a phase when people thought Mom was a clairvoyant and would send her letters and a money token asking about their dead relatives or whether their spouse was cheating.
Mom and I had to relocate over a hundred and one times but I always picked those letters and kept those tokens and wrote back, 'Your husband is a serial cheater,' 'Your aunt won't survive the cancer, but you won't keep the house either. It's been willed to your younger brother instead.'
I wasn't a stereotypical good child. But I was good.
Mom didn't notice those times when I was good, but I was good. I was so good.
***
I am in the house of a murderer. He doesn't know I know that he knows that I know he's a murderer. Was a murderer. The last time he killed someone was more than five decades ago. He was never caught but he… changed?
But truly, when you smell sin, you understand that nothing, in the normal sense, changes. Things turn, as though showing you another side of themselves. But change…change is a heavy word. Perhaps, the only change I know is if one can forget one's self. (Mom's smell changed once, and even then, I am not so sure. I was still young and new to this thing of smelling sin.)
"You are thinking to yourself again?" Holden tells me.
"Is it possible to think to any other thing?" I say.
He kisses his teeth, a little annoyed. He's easily annoyed.
"You know what I meant." He grabs a paper on the table beside him and begins to read it.
I'd grabbed the paper for him before coming in. Holden doesn't go outside. He's sickly, can't stay on his feet for very long. I think he has arthritis. I don't know the specific type; I know there are hundreds of them. He also breathes from an oxygen tank. He tells me he smoked a lot when he was younger and survived lung cancer. (Mom smoked. I don't. But I might.)
"You did not do anything since Saturday," I tell Holden as my eyes scan the rug. Bottles and CDs and cassettes are all over. I turn my head towards the direction of the kitchen and see the plates unwashed. The pizza box of the pizza I got him on Saturday was still sitting on the counter, uneaten crusts with flies perching on them. There's also milk that he spilled, carton of which he didn't bother to pick up.
"You really didn't do anything since Saturday," I mutter, more to myself this time.
I look for gloves in a cabinet and begin with the kitchen, scrubbing ketchup and whatever dried food remained on the plates. Holden is still reading his paper while I vacuum the rug and clear out the milk carton and pizza box. The vacuum is rickety and makes too much noise but Holden doesn't mind. I also go into his room to pick his dirty clothes. I will wash them at home and bring them back the next day.
"Geridan is going bankrupt. It's fucking high time." Holden coughs.
"Really?" I ask, putting his dirty clothes on a couch and sitting on the arm.
Holden is wearing something like those hospital gowns that are tied with ropes at the back. If he stands up and turns around, I will be able to see his behind. He says normal clothes are a nuisance when he has to use the toilet.
"Geridan is entering receivership?" I ask, subtly correcting him but with respectful curiosity in my tone. (Mom was a policyholder at Geridan. I got no life insurance payout after her suicide. They'd said it was due to some technicalities around eligibility.)
"Thieves. All thieves in that company," Holden said, recovering from his coughing bout. "They covered eleven dollars on my surgery. Eleven fucking dollars. Lucky I did not take them to court."
Holden's TV stopped working since before I knew him. So, to pass the time, I usually do school work or, if there is none, read a magazine with wire headphones on, playing some forgotten sonata.
I am with Holden till nine at night. He'd fallen asleep some three hours back. I put a blanket over him, pick his dirty clothes from the couch and turn to go.
As I open the door, he croaks sleepily, "Stay some more."
It's indeed tempting to stay. The smell of sin on Holden is just so great. One of the most potent I have ever come across. I want to smell more of it. But I smile, "Tomorrow's another day."
Then, I remember something very important that I almost curse myself for ever forgetting. I step back inside and shut the door behind me. "Holden, do you have a gun?"
Holden is a tad more awake. "Hmm?"
"I have a stalker problem," I tell him.