The Scent of Death

They said my Great Granddaddy Jo was a medical marvel. They said he was a survivor, a fighter with a lust for life. Of course, that wasn’t entirely true. The truth was he made a deal with Death. When I was a kid it was his favorite story. He’d pull me close to him and say,
“Did I ever tell you about the time I cheated Death, Thomas?” and even though I’d heard the story many times I’d shake my head vigorously and ask him to tell me.

“I was barely out of short trousers when I signed up for the army,” he’d begin, “but then there was nothing out of the ordinary about that. So many young men died in that first great war. Boys in my regiment barely 15, you know, because they’d lie about their age to sign up. Thought they were going to be in for glory. The truth was very different.”
“Anyway, we were at the Aisne River, and Lord were things grim. Amid the fighting, I noticed this young fella. Looked no more than about 16 or 17 himself, but the reason he stood out to me was he wasn’t scared, and let me tell you we were all scared half witless out there, but this young fella was almost sauntering about and I’ll tell you something else I noticed. He would touch someone and the moment he did they’d die. Some of ‘em were already hit and on their way out anyway, but some were standing fighting and you could guarantee the moment he laid a hand on them they’d drop like a stone. Funny thing was, even though I was already half out my wits with fear because there were grenades dropping like apples off a tree into the trenches, this young fella scared me more. He was dressed like one of our own and seemed to disappear and reappear in the smoke like a phantom.”
“So anyway in the blink of an eye there he was next to me. Thomas, I have never been more scared in my life but I was a cocky young’un back then and in all honesty thought I had nothing to lose.”
“Before you lay a hand on me,” I said “I have always heard you like a bit of a gamble. Is that true?”
“He looked at me with the blackest eyes you ever did see and slowly nodded.”

“Well I don’t exactly have a chess board in my pocket,” I said,”but I do have my lucky coin so how about a coin toss? Best of three, heads I win tails you take me. How does that sound?”
“Well it’s rather against the rules you know” he answered, and no word of a lie his voice was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard in my Goddamn life. I nearly changed my mind just at the sound of it, but then I thought about your Great Grandma back home. She was just a slip of a thing back then, but I was mad for her and I would have given anything to get back home and see her.”
“He looked at the carnage around him and I could see the sadness on his face, “Lucky for you I’m in the mood to break the odd rule today. Heads you win, tails you lose” and his face broke into the most angelic of smiles.”
“Now I can’t tell you how relieved I was, because what Death didn’t know (and I was praying he couldn’t read minds) was that my lucky coin was a two-headed sixpence. Sometimes when coins were minted back in those days there’d be a mistake and though they were rare you’d get the occasional two-headed or two-tailed coin.”
“So anyway, I tossed my coin and it came up heads. Tossed it again and it came up heads again. Then Death gave me the strangest look. For a moment I thought he was wise to my deceit, but after a moment he smiled and said,

“You win. I’ll pass you by.” and then he was gone.
“I saw him many times in the next few weeks, but he never acknowledged me and I wasn’t exactly keen to make his acquaintance again myself. The scent of death was heavy in the air during those weeks but he never laid a hand on me.”
“What does death smell like?” I’d ask.
“Baby’s breath and cat piss” he’d answer and roar with laughter. This part of the story changed every time and would always be something that made me laugh. The smell of death had ranged from ‘cherries and dead skunks’ to ‘mint and horse shit’ and all things in between. Looking back I suspect the smell of death during the war wasn’t something my Grandpa Jo cared to remember.
In 1961, when he was in his early 60s, Grandpa Jo had a horrendous car accident. A lorry sideswiped him off the road and his car overturned several times finally ending up in a ditch. He lost a leg and an eye that day. The doctors were amazed that he survived at all. It was a medical miracle.
He confided in me that he was sure the young man driving the ambulance that day was the same young man he’d seen so many years before in the trenches.
“I swear Thomas, that accident was meant to kill me, and yet here I am large as life. I guess the deal I made that day wasn’t just a one time only job. Death was in the ambulance that day but he never laid a finger on me”
If I’m completely honest I’d never really believed his story. I thought it was something he made up to amuse me as a child, but I was a little older when he told me about the second incident and I could tell it made him unsettled although at the time I never realized why.
1983 and Grandpa Jo was diagnosed with cancer. I was thirteen at the time and my folks did their best to protect me from the details. All I knew was it was bad. I thought about the stories he’d told me when he was younger and prayed that they were true and that again Death would pass him by.
He did.
After a long and uphill battle, Grandpa Jo went into remission. He was different after that though. He had a haunted look. I never asked him directly about his illness or recovery but I could tell it played on his mind and I knew why.

Once when he was having a particularly bad day he asked me, “What if he never comes for me?” I had no idea what to say.
He was now in his mid 80’s and his health was dreadful. He was a wreck of a man, half deaf, almost blind and unable to walk. As a family, we did what we could to keep him cheerful, but I always felt his smiles were forced and underneath it all he was afraid.
By 1996, he was in his late 90’s and his cancer had returned. He was in hospital wired up to machines that beeped and pumped stuff into him. We had been told there was nothing more they could do for him and it was only a matter of time. For his sake, I hoped that was true.
While he’d become forgetful in his later years his mind was still pretty sharp. One day when I was visiting he was visibly distressed. At first, I thought maybe he needed more pain medication but after he assured me that wasn’t the case I finally wheedled it out of him.
He wanted me to go get his coin. He’d hung onto it for all these years. His lucky coin that had kept death from his door for nearly a century.
“Maybe I can show him. Maybe if he knows I cheated he’ll take me” he rasped.

So I went home and looked. He’d been living with me and my folks for almost ten years at that point and I just about tore his room apart looking for the shoe box he said he kept it in. Eventually, my mom came in and asked me what the hell I was doing and, when I told her, she admitted she had thrown it out.
“Your Great Granddaddy is such a hoarder” she sighed “and I just thought it was junk. Anyway” she added, “you surely don’t still believe those stories he told you when you were a kid?”
I wasn’t sure if I did or not, but I knew Grandpa Jo did.
When I returned empty-handed to the hospital, he was sleeping, the machinery around him humming softly. I was relieved. I didn’t know how to tell him my mission had been unsuccessful.
As I slumped in the chair next to him I began to doze off. I was aware of a young doctor quietly entering the room and as he passed me he said in a voice like velvet,
“You should sleep. You need it.” and though I tried to rouse myself I couldn’t. It was like being drugged but it felt so pleasant. I felt warm and peaceful for the first time in days, and even though I slept I could clearly hear voices in the room.
“You know I cheated that day?” I heard my Grandpa Jo say quietly.
There was a low chuckle and a soothing voice answered,
“Now Jo you can stop worrying. Of course I knew, but it didn’t matter. I can’t break the rules just as I never made them. It wasn’t your time that day that’s all, and I thought playing along might give you some comfort in such a macabre situation. You were little more than a child.”
“And the car crash? The cancer?” Grandpa Jo’s voice sounded weaker.
“Just not your time again Jo” and the sound of his voice made my heart happy. I could smell my mother’s kitchen on Christmas day intermingled with the smell of my dog curling up on my feet during the night.
“I’m a deeply misunderstood figure you know,” he said in a rueful tone, but I could hear the humor in his voice. “I don’t murder people. There is enough hate and disease in this world without my help. All I do is stop the suffering. Can you imagine what it would be like if I didn’t?”
I could smell my girlfriend fresh out of the shower, and the smell of the beach on a hot summer’s day, and I heard my Grandpa’s voice very low now,
“Oh yes, that’s what I’ve been afraid of.”
“So are you ready?”
“Yes.”
I awoke with a start when my Grandpa Jo flatlined. There was a rush of medical staff into the room but no attempt was made to resuscitate him as had been his wish.
His face was calm and peaceful.
So Grandpa Jo was wrong. When he comes for you, Death doesn’t smell like decay and fear, or even baby’s breath and cat piss. He smells like comfort.