Gordon G's Story
A Lesson in Smells and Bells
Once People Know You’re a Writer
They begin to preface their anecdotes by saying either “You can use this” or “You Can’t use this.” In most cases they proceed to tell you a story you’d never consider cribbing because it’s so tedious. This story was an exception. Gordon G told it to me in 1989? 1990? Gordon and I had been raised as Catholics, we both had been altar servers during Catholic Mass. Among altar boys, we refer to the ceremony of Mass as “smells and bells” due to the stage management of candles and bell ringing and incense burning. To get all of these little actions and cues perfect — in particular during a wedding or a funeral — is a nightmare for a little kid. Really, you’re a kid, and if you screw up somebody’s wedding or funeral, you will never hear the end of it.
Mass amounts to an hour-long script. You have to stay in character and costume. You have to hit your marks like a movie actor. There is no room for error.
Gordon’s nightmare involved igniting the incense burner. The censer. Backstage, you hold a small charcoal briquet between two spring-loaded tongs. You flick a cigarette lighter to ignite the briquette. Then, you quickly drop the glowing briquette into the metal censer and bury it in powdered incense. A vast cloud of smoke erupts, and you carry the billowing censer out to the priest at the altar. Done correctly, it’s a big show stopper. The church instantly reeks of sandalwood and the air gets hazy. A mystical moment.
Your timing has got to be perfect. You’ve got to listen to the priest saying Mass and then to ignite the incense at the perfect moment. In Gordon’s story, little ten-year-old Gordon G lit the briquette too early, it burned too fast, and the pressure of the tongs cause the fragile charcoal to shatter. Burning fragments of charcoal flew all over the backstage room — the vestry — landing in the carpet. Little fires sputtered up all over. Wearing his white altar boy gown, Gordon ran around stomping out fire even as the priest hesitated in his recitations, waiting for the smoking censer to appear.
Gordon’s dilemma was: Piss off Father Caswell or leave the entire vestry burning? This all happened in a heartbeat, and Gordon chose to carry the smoking censer out to the waiting congregation. Leaving a hundred tiny fires smouldering in the vestry carpets and drapes. When you’re an altar server, there is no escaping your conditioning.
My Point Being
There are sure-fire ways to ground a scene. One is to use a quotation, a line of dialog. A second way is to introduce a nonverbal sound — a bell, let’s say. But the least used, but most effective way, is to introduce a smell. Smells and active verbs engage on a physical level. We’re always watching for movement, sniffing for trouble, and listening for a twig to snap. Whenever your scene fails to hold interest, consider a smell.
Even if your character is alone… trapped in their own head… delivering shitloads of expository backstory… navel gazing… despite all of these interest-killing elements, if you drop in the smell of coffee or an onion you might still hold onto your reader.
As I child I hated attending Mass. It all — the bells and incense and chanting — bored and confused me. It was all a mystery, like faith itself. Mystical. But because I couldn’t fully grasp its meaning, I could never explain it away. The Mystery beguiles. The Physical holds.
My entire body still knows the exact moment to ring the little bell.
Repetition, form and ritual, it’s always the same until the tiny blazing charcoal briquette explodes. With that your entire church is on fire.
As a writer, that’s what you want to happen.
Years ago, a friend said that he loved ginkgo biloba trees because their flowers smelled like jerking off. That association icked me out a little, but I recall it because it’s a scent. Another friend told me about finding her teenage son’s “jerk-off sock,” and ginkgo trees instantly came to mind. A Proustian moment.
What strange, unlikely scents trigger a cascade of associations in your mind? Let me know in the Comments below.
During the final year of my prison sentence, I transferred to a facility for the criminally insane to work as a POA (Prisoner Observation Aid).
It was a voluntary work detail and supposedly greased the wheels for an easy parole hearing.
My job was to sit outside the cell door of a prisoner on suicide watch, document his movement every 15 minutes and alert the staff if he attempted to self harm.
The guy I was sitting on was a cutter, a biter and refused to bathe. His body was riddled with rotting flesh and open wounds. They couldn’t keep the guy clean.
The combination of his body odor and rotting flesh smelled like cumin… you know the spice used in chili, tacos, and such?
To this day the slightest whif of cumin transports me to his cell door.
The giddy smile of that sick fuck squirming in his restraints to get at his wounds.…
… All of it comes flooding back
I had gangrene in my c section wound and that smell vacated the corridor beside my room on the postnatal ward. For 2 years I couldn't eat roast chicken because gram negative anoerbic bacteria smells just like well-seasoned rotten chicken.