I came to the bottom and stood in front of the red door. There was only about 15 stairs, but it seemed like there should be more. I could put my hands on both walls and still have my arms halfway bent. It was all so much smaller and more cramped than it should be. If you asked me what the smell was, I'd just say, 'basement.' It smells like a basement to me.” I could feel my heart beating in my chest now. A set of wooden stairs went down between two white cinder block walls to a small red door. He flipped a switch and a little fluorescent light came on overhead. He opened up the other door and my hand clenched. “Why go upstairs, when you can go downstairs?” he said. There was a door going out to the backyard and another door.
We went out of the kitchen through the other door to the back hall. He grabbed on the sleeve of my Patriots jacket and nodded for us to leave the kitchen. Nothing to smell up there, though, right?” You remember all that, right? A lot of fun up there. “You wanna go upstairs? You remember what's upstairs, right? White carpet. I didn't really want to give anything away to this guy so I just nodded. I could feel my eyelids getting tight and my lips setting in their place. There was a green pack of Marlboros sitting on the ledge in by the dish soap. You smell that? Every time you come in the kitchen it'd smell like old hamburger fat and Marlboro Menthols. She'd ash in the sink and blow the smoke out of this little window. She used to smoke Marlboro Menthols right here over the sink when it was cold. “Come on,” he said, waving me to come over next to him by the sink. There were wood counters, linoleum, a window looking out on the backyard. We went straight through the living room to the kitchen. I still had my hands shoved in my pockets even though it was pretty warm in the house. He took a few steps into the living room and waved his hand for me to follow him.
That medicine fragrance smell trying to cover up another smell. That baby powder diaper smell or whatever it is. It's the smell, isn't it? It's the smell.” He took a big sniff and frowned and nodded his head like he was understanding something. But so does every other house in America. I mean, we've got a couch here, some pictures on the wall, a TV, little coffee table. “It's not anything you're looking at, is it? That's not how you know this is the place.
“This is it, right? You knew before you stepped in, right?” My jaw kind of moved around instead of saying anything. He turned himself sideways and slid past me in the front entrance and stepped into the living room. “Well,” he said behind me, but I didn't move. He shoulder brushed up against my back as he closed the door. I took one one step farther and looked around more. I stopped at the entrance and looked around. He pulled the door open and nodded at me politely and I stepped into the house. I only had on my Patriots jacket and it was a little too cold. He was a tall man with a nice black overcoat. We went up the frozen front walk and he hurried past me to unlock the door for us. We got out, and when we slammed the car doors you could hear them echo off of houses farther down the road. It looked sturdy but smallish and not very promising. He drove for about 10 minutes and pulled up in front of a two-story home. The trees were thin and stripped, and the grass in the lawns was brittle, and neither of us talked. I got in his car, and he drove me down to the house.
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