The research was conducted successfully. The visits with friends and relatives were a delight. The address I delivered to the graduating class was well received. I was awarded the honorary doctorate — whereafter I had to decide whether to be a podiatrist or cardiovascular surgeon, a very difficult choice in a world where heart disease and sore feet tragically afflict millions.
Soon we were driving west from Pennsylvania, on our way home, our tasks completed and our lofty goals fulfilled. Our radar detector was clipped to the sun visor, Ohio and Illinois and Indiana were passing in a pretty blur rather like that of the star swarms beyond the portals of the Enterprise when Captain Kirk tells Scotty to put the ship up to warp speed, and we were proud to be participating in that great American pastime — Avoiding Police Detection. Driving in opposition to the direction of Earth’s rotation, therefore having to set the car clock back an hour every once in a while, we might have made it to California before we left for the journey east, in time to warn ourselves against that damn salad-bar restaurant outside of Memphis — except we planned to take a side trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to meet Ed and his wife, Carol.
3. The First Night of That Historic Visit
After leaving Interstate 80, we passed through gently rising plains and rich farmland, all of it so bland that we began to be afraid that we had died and gone to the twenty-third circle of hell (Dante had it wrong; he undercounted), where the punishment for the sinner is terminal boredom. We couldn’t get anything on the radio but Merle Haggard tunes.
Late in the afternoon, we reached Cedar Rapids, which proved to be a surprisingly pleasant place, attractive to more than the eye. As we crossed the city line, the air was redolent of brown sugar, raisins, coconut and other delicious aromas, because one of the giant food-processing companies was evidently cooking up a few hundred thousand granola bars. How pleasant, we thought, to live in a place where the air was daily perfumed with such delicious scents. It would be like living in the witch’s fragrant gingerbread house after Hansel and Gretel had disposed of her and there was no longer a danger of becoming a human popover in the crone’s oven.
That evening we went to dinner with Ed and Carol at a lovely restaurant in our hotel. We had a great good time. Carol, who is also a writer — primarily of young-adult fiction — is an attractive blonde with delicate features, very personable and very much a lady. Ed surprised us by wearing shoes. Not to say that shoes were the only thing he was wearing. He had socks, too, and a nice suit, and I think he was also wearing a shirt, though my memory might well be faulty regarding that detail.
There was almost too much conviviality for one evening. Ed started telling jokes about Zoroastrianism, involving the god Ahura Mazda, of which he has an infinite store — always a sure sign that he is having too good a time and might begin to hyperventilate or even pass a kidney stone out of sheer exuberance. They usually begin, “Ahura Mazda, Jehova and Buddha were all in a rowboat together,” or something like that. For his sake, we decided to call it an evening and meet again first thing in the morning. Carol asked if there was anything special we’d like to do or see around town (like watch corn growing), and we said that we had heard there was a large Czechoslovakian community in Cedar Rapids; as this was an ethnic group about which we knew little, we thought it might be interesting to visit any shops that dealt in Czech arts, crafts, foods, assault weapons imported from the East Bloc, and that sort of thing. We all hugged, and after Ed told one more Zoroastrianism joke — “Ahura Mazda was having lunch with two attorneys and a proctologist” — we parted for the night.
4. On the Edge of Sleep
Lying in our hotel-room bed that night, on the edge of sleep, Gerda and I spoke of what a lovely evening it had been.
“They’re both so nice,” Gerda said.
“It’s so nice that someone you like on the phone turns out to be someone you also like in person,” I said.
“I had such a nice time,” Gerda said.
“That’s nice,” I said.
“Those Zoroastrianism jokes were hilarious.”
“He was wearing shoes,” I noted.
“I was a little worried when he hyperventilated.”
“Yeah, I was afraid it was going to build up to a kidney-stone expulsion,” I said.
“But it didn’t,” Gerda said, “and that’s nice.”
“Yes, that’s very nice,” I agreed.
“Tomorrow is going to be a very nice day.”
“Very nice,” I agreed, anticipating the morning with enormous pleasure.
5. A Very Nice Day
Overnight, Ed and Carol discovered a museum of Czechoslovakian arts and crafts in Cedar Rapids, and in the morning we happily embarked on a cultural expedition. The museum proved to be on a — how shall I say this as nicely as possible? — on a rather frayed edge of town. When we got out of Ed’s car, I was hit by the most powerful stench I’d ever encountered in more than forty years of varied experience. This was a stink so profound that it not only brought tears to my eyes and forced me to clamp a handkerchief over my nose but brought me instantly to the brink of regurgitation that would have made the explosively vomiting girl in The Exorcist seem like a mere dribbler. When I looked at Gerda, I saw she had also resorted to a handkerchief over the nose. Though you might have noticed that comic hyperbole is an element of the style in which I’ve chosen to write this piece, you must understand that as regards this odor, I am not exaggerating in the least. This vile miasma was capable of searing the paint off a car and blinding small animals, yet Ed and Carol led us toward the museum, chatting and laughing, apparently oblivious of the hellish fetor that had nearly rendered us unconscious.
Finally, after I had clawed desperately at Ed’s arm for ten or fifteen unsteady steps, I caught his attention. Choking and wheezing in disgust, I said, “Ed, for the love of God, man, what is that horrible odor?”
“Odor?” Ed said. Puzzled he stopped, turned, sniffing delicately at the air, as if seeking the elusive scent of a frail tropical flower.
“Surely you smell it,” I protested. “It’s so bad I’m beginning to bleed from the ears!”
“Oh, that,” Ed said. He pointed toward some huge buildings fully five hundred yards away. “That’s a slaughterhouse. They must be in the middle of a hog kill, judging by the smell. It’s the stink of blood, feces, urine, internal organs, all mixed up together.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Not really. When you’ve smelled it often enough over the years, you get used to it.”
Gagging but determined to be manly about this, I managed to follow them into the Czech museum, where the odor miraculously did not penetrate. The museum turned out to be one of the most fascinating we’d ever toured, humble quarters but a spectacular and charming collection of all things Czech.
We spent longer there than we had anticipated, and when we stepped outside again, the air was clean, the stench gone without a trace. All the paint had melted off the Gormans’ car, and a couple of hundred birds had perished in flight and now littered the ground, but otherwise there was no indication that the air had ever been anything but sweet.
I thought of the delicious aroma of granola-bar manufacturing, which had marked our arrival. That was at the front door. The steaming malodor of the slaughterhouse indicated what went on at the back door. Suddenly Cedar Rapids seemed less innocent, even sinister, and I began to understand for the first time how Ed could live in such sunny, bucolic environs with the gracious and lovely Carol always nearby — and nevertheless be inspired to write about the dark side of the human heart.