Читать книгу Arcade - Drew Nellins Smith - Страница 14

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THE ARCADE HAD A MUSKY, SWEATY AROMA, WITH HEAVY overtones of the scent I’ve seen described as “mushroomy” and “earthy,” though really it’s the smell of the male crotch and nothing else. It’s the stink that rises from your pants as you take a leak in the middle of the summer after walking around the city all day. It’s a pleasant smell, always different but the same on every man you meet.

In a forum online I saw a thread about favorite smells. There was the usual stuff about fresh cut grass, babies, and whatever, but slowly a controversial contingent arose which named the smell of their own balls as their favorite aroma. At first, it wasn’t taken seriously. It seemed like the usual internet trolls saying the least constructive, most absurd thing imaginable. But as the day progressed that answer received more and more votes and notes of agreement. A conversation arose. The internet is a miracle at times like that, not just in the way it brings likeminded people together, but in the way it suggests that we are all of the same mind after all, connected by invisible trails like neural paths.

In the arcade, the smell was everywhere, mixed with a certain bleachiness. Just vaguely. Diluted. Enough to know the place was being kept up. It was a nice smell, actually, the way it hit you in the cool air the second you opened the door.

I once worked with a guy whose girlfriend’s company produced scents for retail stores and restaurants. The smell of cinnamon rolls in shopping malls was the company’s landmark achievement. They could duplicate the smell of anything, improve upon it chemically, and then, through patented machinery, send out their proprietary scents in invisible puffs, all but forcing people to consume impossibly high-calorie desserts as they shopped.

Smells, he told me, could make people do all sorts of things.