The Stench, The Stench

On the hottest day of the summer, the whole town turned out to celebrate. A harrowing short story about America’s brutal history of race and celebration.

By Lucy

Marion, IN, August 7th, 1930.

Content Warning: This story contains description of extreme physical and sexual violence.

At the opening of our drama, we find our characters in the 21st century, where the prejudices and the hatreds of the 20th do not exist—though this does not prevent the occasional lynching of a Negro.

“This is where they lynched a negro the other day. They didn't know who done it. I guess they don't care much. I don't, do you?”

—A Texas Postcard

I couldn’t get hard.

“Lemme try this.” You were on top, imperious. I was below, delirious. Your palm covered my mouth. Moonlight illuminated the peaks and valleys of your curvy body. With your other hand, you encircled my throat and held it there. The air was still. All at once, my field of vision darkened and I tapped out. I felt constricted. In my mind, I was pacing to and fro a tiny cell. I gulped and felt like I was blinkering. 

Our passion was usually a harmony of two wills grappling for domination. Tonight, I was in discord.

“I’m sorry. Now, we know you don’t like it?” You tried joking. I faked a laugh, more a snort than an expression of anything resembling mirth. 

“Please, get out of your head, man. Talk to me, I want you, I’m here, you’re safe and alright,” you crooned. I exposed my neck, prompting you to plant a kiss, softness multiplying on the side of my neck. I ran a hand down your back and gave a playful squeeze. You giggled.

“Ugh. It’s just the fucking rubber or something.” I hated not being on. I felt impotent. Pathetic. And not humiliated in the right way. 

You rolled your eyes. “Yeah, you’re the first person ever to actually be allergic to condoms.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

You planted another kiss. I relaxed into the bed and idly traced your spine. With my other, I took your hand in my own and gave each digit a wanting kiss.

I rolled over and propped myself once more on my elbow, head resting in my hands. Two shimmering chocolate pools swam out from the dark. We faced each other. You blinked. I stared. You blinked. I stared. I sighed, resting on the pillow. I felt fidgety.

“What were you thinking about?” She asked.

I sighed heavily. “That Lorde lyric. It feels so scary getting old.”

“That’s pathetic. You only get to be sad about Lorde when you’re 19.”

I blushed. You went on.

“You just seemed somewhere else. Usually you’re like ah! ah! ahhhhhh! We have so much fun. What’s up? Be honest. Are you seeing someone else?”

“No! It’s just—”

“Oh, God, I knew it. I’m washed up. Is she blonde? I can change.” You begged ironically.

I kissed your forehead. “A blonde? You don’t know me at all. If I saw someone else, they’d have black hair and wear leg warmers all the time. Thin eyebrows, too.”

“You need to stop watching anime. You’re not 19.” 

“Anime is an important part of our culture,” I volleyed back.

I was silent afterwards.

A memory swam out from the silence.. A day that I’d been forgetting and remembering since the moment it had happened.

Images swelled from the void to the fore of my mind. The familiar bits. Climbing to the tenth floor. Sterility. The whine of the machines in his final moments. Holding his hands. The timbre of my grandfather’s voice. Becoming conscious of the man who lay before me.

“Hey, hey, hey,” you intervened, waving a hand in front of my face. “We talked about this. You have to tell me what’s going on in your head, it’s annoying seeing you retreat into your head.”

I whined.

You pinched. 

I sighed.

“My grandpa died the other day.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that."

“Yeah. We weren’t that close but still.”

“Yeah, it still sucks to know that you won’t see him again.”

“I saw him at the hospital. We all— my mom, dad, siblings, and I drove up to go and see him. It was weird. I hadn’t seen him in years. It smelled like they’d taken those tiny Purell wipes to every inch of the room.”

“Damn.”

I nodded.

“Yeah,” I waved my hand to get myself back on track, “He told me this story. These were his last words on Earth.”

“My grandpa says it was a day so hot you felt it on the skin of your teeth.”

You rested your hand on my chest. 

“The sun was just a yellow pulse in the sky. It was dry. My granddad grew up in West Texas. Oil country. In a city you’ll never see on the screen, an economic boom had swelled the population.”

“Not very pretty but they sure know how to run things,” you rejoined.

“After booms… bust. It was sometime during the Depression. Grumbles about FDR and murmurs of Huey Long. They’d arrived at this picnic. Whole town popped out for the barbecue. Grandpa was with his father and his cousins Judge and Joel. His cousins were a little older, I met them once. That day they wore starchy white shirts and matching straw thatched hats, he said. One a little more yellowed than the other. He told me he thought his father was an invincible cowboy. I looked him up and he was actually in the Great War.”

“Really?” 

“Yep. My granddad worked in those oil fields when he was young. In the muck and stink and rot. Said it made him older faster.”

“Anyway,” I said, waving my free hand to get back on track. “He said he had the best spot at the picnic.”

“From atop my great-granddad’s shoulders he witnessed the town trickling in. They were in their fineries, abuzz with social energy. He saw mothers, hands adorned in shabby silk gloves, hiking down their daughters’ dresses. He saw brothers juking and jostling each other. He saw mouths open and close, conversing. Teeth a-clackin’. A twenty-toothed yokel chattered with the portly thirty-two-toothed mayor. Everyone was there.”

“What could unite a West Texas town like that? You may be wondering.”

“Great grandpa began to whistle, dancing in place with him atop his muscular shoulders.”

One, two, buckle my shoe.

“The crowd’s excitement travelled like a wave and from his vantage point atop pop-pop’s head, he saw the source.”

Three,  four, knock at the door. 

“Five men surrounded a sixth who could not have been much older than Joel and Judge. He was the source of the crowd’s ire, their derision, and their mockish laughter. Jeers rained down. He was bound and damned. His eyes were laser focused on the tree.. Sweat glistening, his torso was exposed. The men around him, who were several years his senior, were clothed in what looked like their Sunday best. My grandpa said he felt the wrath of God burning in his throat. He jeered his forefather’s private insults. He hissed along with the crowd.”

“They were mere feet from him. As the damned black boy approached, a pale horror seized my grandpa as recognition flooded his mind. The chattering mayor sauntered to the shackled black and held his arms forth to silence the crowd. A hush fell.”

“Hail, this prince of niggers.” The mayor boomed. “Tried to skip out on a hard day’s work. Caught the big fella milling about the oil fields. What do we think of that?”

“The crowd heckled and booed.”

“Heard testimony yesterday that he was kicking dogs. Grandpa said a woman fainted.”

“Boy says he wanted to go to Chee-cah-goh!” The crowd hissed in unison. 

“Why,” the mayor had the crowd on a string, “I heard that he was profaning our Holy Book with his bastard, niggerly hands.” The black jutted his chin defiantly. His eyes scanned about the place and landed on my grandpa. His eyes widened slightly, poise wavering. As he was about to speak, the mayor palmed the lower half of the black’s face and whipped it back towards the tree. 

Still gripping the boy’s face, the mayor cried out. “Here is the man! The nigger! Black buck beast of burden niggering the land. A living ode to the lazy, loathsome, vermin among creatures, enmity, living antithesis to the Word.” 

“Will we allow this?” The mayor’s voice was lightning on a cloudless day, inciting the white hot fury of the mob. 

“Never!” The crowd thundered.

“Now,” in the silence after the strike, the mayor spoke calmly, “behold. I bring him forth with a singular charge. Good people, on the fields of L—, it has been brought to my attention that work has been shirked. Sons of the land, in their tireless work to wrest from the Earth her riches, have spoken of a man who refuses their lot in life!” His grip visibly tightened on the boy’s face and he spoke directly at him.

“Can you not speak, boy? Do you not care to save yourself?” A leering smile crept across the mayor’s face. “Speak!” The mayor released his purchase on the boy’s face. But he was silent. 

Palm struck face. The black boy buckled in the arms of his tormentors but was not allowed to fall. He did not protest but stood.

“Speak!” The mayor repeated and raised his hand. The boy was resolute. Though tears were in his eyes, he stood stout and proud. They stood off for moments. Thousands were silent. 

“Shame!” came one voice. “Shame! Shame! Shame!” 

The mayor offered a corrective shout. “Hang!” 

“Hang! Hang! Hang! Hang! Hang!” The crowd continued as the five wise men jostled him to the foot of the tree. A ladder was brought out and one of the men climbed to the top.  

“The one guy climbed to the top, fastened the noose. The boy was jockeyed to the foot of the ladder but refused to climb. He was now fighting and the four men wrestled him to the ground. From atop my great-grandad’s shoulders, my grandpa could see a knife raised high. It was handed to the mayor. The knife disappeared downward and a bloodcurdling scream rang out from the black boy. Grandpa says he heard that cry all his life.”

“He said it crescendoed, growing louder over the course of two minutes as a brutal operation was performed. Laughter thundered from the crowd, almost in an attempt to drown out the black boy’s pain. After 120 seconds the mayor’s bloody hand extended towards the heavens. In his hands was a strange, floppy looking thing.”

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered.

“I know. It was tossed through the air and fell and my grandpa reached out to catch it. Blood flecked his face as he snatched it out of the air. He reeled it in. In his hand was a stump, worm-like, inches long. It stunk of iron. The other part had separated from it in the air and there was a frenzied attempt to collect it by some people to my grandpa’s right. It looked like his save for its color and the rivers of blood dripping off the thing.” 

“Moon-colored faces turned to look at my grandpa. My grandpa says they were jubilant. Congratulatory. Ecstatic at the catch. My grandpa, filled with praise, raised it into the air and was heaped with applause. The black boy’s screams had descended into a smattering of sobs. Two of the five men fitted a rope around the boy’s neck then a third got to work dragging the youth up a ladder that had been placed on the tree. His choked sobs were drowned by the chirping crowd. A chorus of ‘Hang, Hang, Hang!’ rang out. My grandpa could see other squealing white children. The black boy was fastened to the tree. Shushes filled the crowd. Then, with all the fight free bleeding into his corduroys, he was dropped, flailing, from the noose around his neck. The onlookers exploded into cheers. Rocks were pelted at the corpse while his face turned a black blacker than black. The feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-southwest, south, south-east, east...”