The Smell of Snow
I am old enough to be my own father,
and yet the green tongue of spring
stirs me like a child.
…
Why must I be father and son,
hating and loving across years?
I want to take my own hand,
and in a still place in the wind,
be what I become.
-John Woods
“Looking Both Ways Before Crossing”
John Berger met him while Chocolate was peeing on a fire hydrant. It was about six o’clock, and in New York City the streets darken early; dirty snow huddled in a few corners of the curb. It was below zero, and John was cursing the dog for having to pee in the snow at six o’clock, instead of letting him relax in his goddamn brother-in-law’s apartment. When John saw the figure approach, he thought he was the kind of man who would own twenty pairs of spectacles. But John was soon distracted by the thought of Cathy sipping wine from a goddamn crystal glass.
“Good evening,” said the stranger. He had come up in front of John, long black overcoat, wireframes glinting in the neon from the deli on the corner.
“Hello,” John said. “Some weather, huh?”
“Looks alright to me,” the man said. John couldn’t tell how old the guy was, but he seemed to be old. He had that sort of careful walk, that sort of dried-up voice. “But then, I miss the snow.” He sniffed the air. “Even smells like snow, but it just isn’t there.”
“There’s enough of it in Central Park,” John said. “I walked through it this afternoon.”
“Really?” the stranger said. He seemed distantly incurious.
Chocolate was now sniffing the short fence that stuck up around a small dead tree. “Well, I should take the dog back up,” John said. The conversation seemed to have hit a dead end, and good old Cathy had warned him not to talk to strangers in the big city anyway.
For the first time the shaky-shouldered man seemed to take an interest. “Miniature poodle. Is he your dog?”
“No, my brother-in-law’s. I’m staying with him for the holidays. He lives…” John realized he could not point to the window from here, so he made a vague gesture towards the building behind him. “He lives in here somewhere.”
“I see.”
John turned to go, pulling Chocolate’s leash and ignoring the choking noises it made. It wasn’t half-trained. As he walked to the lobby of the building, he said “Nice meeting you,” over his shoulder. The old man was still standing beside the dead tree. A flake or two of snow was beginning to drift down from somewhere above the skyscrapers. As John rang the buzzer to be let into the building, he heard the stranger yelling out, “My name’s Chester, Chester Glory.” John waved acknowledgment, then tried to kick the dog into the lobby, where it was warm.
When he turned around, inside the lobby, he could see the silhouette of the stranger walking off towards the deli, perhaps to buy genuine Peruvian soft drinks or a German sausage.
Once back at the apartment, it took him five minutes just to shed his clothes. Chocolate bounded all over the place, jumping on top of the table where dinner was now set, hiding behind the Tiffany crystal set on shelves all over the walls, finally settling down perched on Walter’s shoulder, like some parrot on a pirate. Walter was sitting at one end of the tiny table, and Cathy getting up from the other, from that rocking chair that incongruously fit by the table and banged his shins every time he walked by it. All the junk at Walter’s house was actually the only thing that John liked about the place, but it also meant that there was no room to walk. Or have a decently sized table.
“How did walking the dog go, dear?” said Cathy from the kitchen. The kitchen was about the size of their bedroom closet.
“Fine,” he said. How many ways can you walk a dog?
“Well, dinner’s ready. Homemade spaghetti.” She came out of the kitchen, holding a plate heaped high with the steaming stuff, and handed it to him. “Walter knows how to make pasta, and he’s got a spaghetti machine. We made it while you were napping, and started cooking when you woke up.”
“A spaghetti machine?”
“Hell, I don’t know what else to call it,” Cathy said.
“Its proper name is pasta maker,” Walter said behind them. When John turned, Chocolate was climbing down Walter’s ample belly to sniff at the spaghetti. “You put the pasta dough in at one end and turn the handle, and out it comes, just like worms.” Chocolate scooted back up to Walter’s shoulder, and stared balefully at the plate.
“Like worms,” John said. “I see.” He took his plate and went to sit on the cushions in front of the TV. The TV was on, of course, but the volume was off. Instead, some strange piping noises were coming from the stereo. John sat with his plate on his knees and watched as silent TV newscasters told him about places getting blown up. The spaghetti was steaming up his glasses.
Walter was gay. It didn’t bother John very much. It bothered him more that Walter was a small-time college professor, made more than John did in a year, had about a hundred thousand dollars worth of crystal on his walls, who-knows how much in rare books, wrote bad poetry that circulated in mimeographed chapbooks, was incredibly pretentious, and always bragged about getting away with tax evasion.
Chocolate came sniffing around after John’s plate, so he extended it out to the dog. After a few exploratory snuffles, the dog tilted its head inquiringly at John as if to say, “What is this shit?” and ambled away to go sit in the aquarium that had no fish in it.
John took one forkful and put the plate aside. He had hoped it would taste awful, but no- Walter was also a fucking gourmet cook.
“I met a man on the street,” he said suddenly, loudly. Cathy and Walter stopped talking about the political situation in Nicaragua and turned to face him suddenly. “He was very interested in your dog.”
“Oh my God, you didn’t tell him where I live, did you?” Walter said, starting up out of his chair.
“John, you do know dognapping’s a big business…” Cathy said.
“No, I didn’t tell him anything.”
Walter sank back down into his chair. “Thank God,” he said. “After losing Scottie, I don’t think that I could handle another loss.”
“Whatever happened to Scottie?” Cathy asked.
“Old age,” Walter said mournfully. “Every dog has his day, and his was done.”
Cathy sympathized.
“He said his name was Chester Glory,” John interrupted. “He wore a long black overcoat and glasses. Wireframe glasses.”
Walter began to look interested. “Oh, I know who he is. He lives up the street a bit. You can see his window from here. It’s the one without curtains. I’ve watched it quite a bit. He has odd habits.”
“Oh Walter,” Cathy said waggling her finger at him, “you’re terrible. Do you still use that telescope?”
Walter just grinned, then looked at John. “What did you think of him?”
John thought about it a bit. “He was strange. Sort of lost-looking. He…” A sudden flash of inspiration struck him. “He was the kind of man who would own twenty pairs of spectacles.”
Cathy’s eyes widened. “Bravo,” shouted Walter, pounding on the table. “Perfect! We’ll make a writer out of you yet! Which reminds me, Catherine, have I given you my latest book of poetry yet?”
Of course, John thought, Walter just happened to have the typescript at the table with him, xeroxed and stapled.
“He really was strange,” John said.
“Hmmf?”
“The man on the street. Chester Glory. He was strange.”
“He sounded like it.”
She turned a page.
“I wonder…”
“Look, are you going to talk about this guy all night, or are you going to go to sleep?” she said, turning suddenly.
“Well, you were reading…”
“Do you want to go to sleep or not?” she demanded.
“I guess,” he said. He could remember how some time ago he would have taken her in his arms and whispered, It’s OK, calm down, breathe deep, but lately he hadn’t bothered. She seemed to enjoy it more this way anyway, right? Probably felt safer. Cleaner.
She flicked off the light. “Goodnight John,” she spat out.
Her back was turned to him, like a warm but impassable wall. John waited a few minutes, staring at the dim shadows in the depth of the ceiling mirror. Then he said, tentatively, “Do you have cramps or something?”
She turned over. “What?”
“I said, do you have cramps? You seem upset…”
“Jesus Christ, John. Cramps? You hate my brother and you think I’m upset over cramps? What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“But…”
“Shut up, John.” She turned her back on him again.
John just thought about temperature drops. It seemed to him that snowflakes should have started falling from the mirror.
“Do you remember,” he started, slowly, quietly, “do you remember when we spent the summer in Connecticut? We drove around the nearby states, visited the middle of Massachusetts that has nothing in it, and all that. It was nice. We spent a few days with those hippie friends of yours in that house with no air conditioning. And we swam in that lake, that lake that had an island in it. And there was a nice dog that followed us around, well-trained dog,” and he paused to emphasize that. “We had fun. Why do we have to come to visit Walter, and feel lousy when we had fun like that, Cathy? Why do I have to walk this goddamn stupid poodle, and walk nine miles in the snow so we can walk into every goddamn museum along Central Park? Why do we have to do this, Cathy? You yourself have said you don’t like him. Why are we here?”
She didn’t say anything, just sort of pulled some blankets away from him and inched further to the edge of the bed. Eventually she started to snore, and that was when John got up, put on his bathrobe, grabbed his glasses, and went upstairs.
“Still awake?” Walter said softly. He was pouring himself some milk in the kitchen. Only the light from the refrigerator illuminated the apartment.
“Couldn’t sleep.” John watched as Walter tiptoed back out of the kitchen, bumping his huge ass against shelves, nearly toppling vases that were worth hundreds. “Why are you up?”
“Same,” Walter said. “I figured that you’d be up anyway. Cathy was in a foul mood.”
“Yeah. I don’t know why.”
“Who cares? Would you like some milk?”
“No, thanks.”
They sat on the cushions in front of the TV. Chocolate was asleep in the aquarium.
“I don’t like you very much, John,” said Walter. John shot a quick look at him, surprised, then faced the TV set again. “I don’t like you at all, actually,” Walter continued. “I think you are a prissy, stuck-up, selfish, cold little WASP brat, and I wish you had never married my sister. I have to admit you’ve done her worlds of good, but I wish you hadn’t married her. I wish you’d just had an affair.”
John thought about his for a little bit, while Walter sipped his milk. Then he said, “Glad to know you feel that way.”
Walter laughed. “I know you hate me. I don’t care. And you know why I don’t care? Because I have a life, I have money, and you will never have anything in your life but a bitchy wife who likes plants, and maybe some brats.” He heaved his bulk up from the cushions and went over to the window. A little potted plant sat precariously perched on the sill. There was a ceramic pot next to it. Walter opened the pot. “Want a joint? Homegrown.”
“No, thanks,” John said. “I suppose that growing pot on their windowsill is something everyone in New York does?”
Walter looked surprised. “It is, actually.” He chuckled again, and then pointed out the window. The sky wasn’t very dark. John noticed it was never very dark in New York. “You see that,” Walter said. “That light in the window? That’s where your strange man lives.”
John got up and went to stand beside Walter, resisting the urge to kick Chocolate as he walked by. The window was one building down, across the street, and there were no shades or curtains. He could see a figure moving about.
Walter thrust something into his hand. “Here,” he said, “take a look.”
It was a telescope, an old burnished bronze one. John stared at it for a while, and then lifted it to his eye. It took a while to find the right window, but once he did it leaped into sharp focus. Chester Glory was standing there, and he looked like he was ten feet away.
“He lives all alone, you know,” Walter said, narrating like Rod Serling for some Twilight Zone episode. “He lives all alone in that apartment, and receives only one visitor a week. He also only goes out once a week. You were lucky to catch him.”
Chester was undressing. The bed was bare, only had a sheet on it, and John could only make out the corner of it. He felt like he was intruding, but he kept on looking anyway. There was another shadow in the background, and he wanted to see who it was.
“She always carries an overnight bag. I asked the doorman once,” Walter said, “and he said that she was Glory’s daughter.”
It was a woman, in her twenties, naked, body shimmering and tan in the light, standing framed in the window. Her hair looked wind-blown, tossed carelessly around her head like wild creepers. She approached Glory in his boxers and t-shirt, and pulled him towards the bed. John yanked the telescope from his eye and dropped it. Chocolate woke with a snarl.
“Charming, isn’t it?” Walter said, smiling. “An old guy like that, and so much life in him.”
“That’s disgusting!” John choked out. “His…?”
“Well, John, you know she probably isn’t his daughter.” Walter peered at him condescendingly. “She’s just discreet.”
John wandered back to the cushions, and plopped down. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Because you seemed curious about him.” Walter said.
John got up from the cushions, kicked Chocolate, who whined most appealingly, and headed back downstairs. “You’re an asshole, Walter,” he said, softly, while Walter guffawed behind him. He said it like a mantra over and over until he was in bed next to his wife, and had pulled all the covers from her nightgown-clad body, until he fell asleep with his glasses on the bed next to him. He dreamt of his childhood in the country, of his father, of helping to build his house, and of the high school sweetheart he didn’t marry and maybe should have.
“We’re leaving tomorrow?” John mumbled, struggling to wake up.
“Yes, John. Don’t you remember? We talked about it at dinner last night.”
“No, I don’t remember. When was this?”
“Well, maybe you weren’t there. It must have been while you walked the dog. Anyway, Walter has guests coming over tomorrow, last minute thing, they couldn’t get a place to stay, so we’ll have to go. My plants will be dying off anyway, with no one to water them.”
“Oh.” John got up, put on the bathrobe, and went upstairs.
Walter was eating breakfast, keeping half an eye on the silent TV, Ed Koch’s grinning face and shiny forehead filling the screen. “Good morning!” he said jovially.
John ignored him. “I’ve been thinking about Chester Glory.”
“Oh?” Walter said, his mouth full of egg.
“And maybe this woman is married, and they’ve been having an affair for a long time. Maybe it’s one of those things where he was the first lay she ever had.”
“Who knows?” Walter said. “All I know is that he’s the entertainment for the block, every Thursday night.”
John took the leash from the hook on the wall. Chocolate leaped up from her perch on Walter’s knee and came running. “I’ll walk the dog,” John said.
The elevator was empty. John thought about Chester the whole way down. Maybe Walter had shown him Chester’s lover just to annoy him. Probably. He wasn’t going to let it annoy him, though. Walter was a sanctimonious asshole, Cathy was a bitch, and Chocolate was a stupid poodle. John was the only sane person around, even if he was going to freeze his ass off.
As he threaded through the piles of trash bags caused by the latest sanitation strike, John found his path drifting towards Chester Glory’s building. There was a doorman on duty, who stared at the apparition with disheveled hair and a bathrobe, walking a mud-colored miniature poodle cut to the latest fashion.
“I’m looking for a Mr. Chester Glory,” John said, pulling at Chocolate’s leash. The doorman just looked at him, and said, “No pets allowed.”
“Fine,” John said, and handed him the leash. He walked up to the buzzers and looked for Glory’s name. When he found it, he rang.
“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice. Low, a contralto, sort of furry.
“I’m looking for Chester Glory?”
“Yes? May I help you?”
“We met last night. I… I was walking my dog. I mean, it’s not my dog, it’s my brother-in-law’s dog. I… Can I come up? It’s cold out here.”
A moment of silence accompanied by the hiss of the PA system. Then Glory’s voice. “Go ahead.”
The door opened, and John walked in in his bathrobe, leaving the confused doorman with Chocolate.
“Nice seeing you again.” Chester said. He looked very different in daylight. Bones peeked through his skin, and he looked birdlike, easy to crush. “Why are you here?”
“I… I felt like stopping by. I thought I was rude to you last night.”
“So you were.” The old man smiled. “I was in a strange mood last night. I apologize. How did you know where I live?”
“Walter told me. My brother-in-law.”
“Is he the one with the telescope?” the woman asked. She wasn’t as beautiful close up. Her nose was crooked, and one of her eyes wandered when she spoke.
“Uh, yes, actually.”
She laughed, and ran her hand through her hair so it spread like it would when the wind ran through it. John had to swallow hard to avoid thinking about her naked. There was his wife waiting back at home, the woman who had exchanged vows with him, the woman who was so like his mother. He stared at the Lincoln Log set. He remembered using the logs to carve little figures from-zoos of small wooden animals. He didn’t even know where his knife was. And the logs looked different to his adult eyes. It was hard to see the same as always, without his glasses.
John sat there for a while, as they both waited for him to say something, waited expectantly. Then he stood up suddenly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I should go. I left the dog with the doorman.”
“The dog’s in good hands, then,” Chester said.
“I still should go,” John said, and made for the door. When he reached it, he turned around and said, “I’m sure you are both nice people. You look like nice people.” Chester and the woman looked at him gravely. “I… my name’s John.” He stuck out his hand. They didn’t take it, just stood there. Their hands reached out to one another. “My marriage is breaking up and my name is John,” he said, and opened the door. He was about to go out, when he turned around. “I’m sorry. How many pairs of glasses do you own?”
Chester looked at him sad-faced. “Two. Why?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” John said, and ran to the elevator.
Walter had been leafing through a leatherbound volume on the downstairs bed when John had stomped in, throwing the leash over the back of the nearest chair. John had ignored him and gone upstairs, where Cathy was sitting in that Boston rocker, staring out the window.
She stared at him, blood draining from her face. Her foot started twitching nervously, and the chair began to wave from side to side like one of her plants in the breeze.
“I want a divorce, Cathy.” He paused, then said plaintively, “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve whittled?”
Footsteps behind him. “Bravo!” shouted Walter. “Bravissimo! Maybe you aren’t the pissant I thought you were!”
John turned around and pushed him down the stairs, and watched calmly as Walter bounced down, always breaking his fall with his arms, and landed unhurt at the bottom. Christ, John thought, he even knew how to fall down stairs without getting hurt.
Cathy was still sitting near the window, but now she was crying, the rocker moving freely and inevitably. John picked up the leash, and when Chocolate came running, he tossed it out the window. Chocolate ran up to Cathy, and stood on her shoulder, peering down the sixteen floors, wobbling unsteadily as the rocker swept her from side to side. He hoped good old Chocklit would jump. She was stupid enough.
A few flakes of snow were drifting down from the New York skyline. John went downstairs, got dressed, and put on his glasses. They had fallen under the bed during the night. Then he went outside. The smell of snow dogged him all the way to the deli, as he set off to see the city sights.
