Any understanding of Barry Lott must begin and end with an understanding of synesthesia. As defined in the dictionary, synethesia occurs when:
“a sensation produced in one modality is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color.”
Suffice it to say that Barry Lott did not smell. To reduce his… aura… to such a common sense perception would be to say that atomic weapons “burn things” or that Charles Manson is a little “out there.” Barry had a stench you could taste and cut with a knife. He smelled in a way that could physically repel muggers. By looking at Barry Lott in an outdoor crowd, you could deduce two things. You could tell which way the wind was blowing by the relative orientation of everyone else to Barry, and you could tell who was more compassionate than whom by how close an individual was willing to stand to him.
His smell was an invasion. It was not experienced with a nose. It invaded your whole body. To be near him was to partake in the metaphysical essence of wet garbage, un-wiped asshole, sweaty feet, and a marathon runner’s mid-stride nut-sack. Naturally, in my sophomore year of high school gym, Barry Lott was my weight lifting partner.
Barry Lott was a kind, if not very hygienic boy, who gave his all in everything he did. He had the heart of a lion, the tenacity of a badger, and it shone through… even if he had the olfactory presence of a defensive skunk. He tried out for the football team every year, even though he never got to step foot on the green. Every year he asked the girl he liked to prom, no matter how many times she shot him down, and every time we went to lift weights he demanded to lift the same amount as me, even though every time he went to lift, the bar fell on his chest and I had to drag it off him. Barry had the kind of “Little Engine that Could” attitude that made me forgive him for his odor… except in one case.
Barry stood inches away from my face, his unwashed gym shorts only a breeze away from flapping against my ears. I dared not breathe, for fear of my lungs burning like napalm scorched jungles. I could forgive Barry for anything… except when he spotted me for one rep max lifts. Laying on the bench, inches away from Barry’s nuts, I think I pretty much hated Barry.
“Come on man, just lift.” Barry urged, shaking the bar.
I stood back up immediately, and gasped for fresh air. “God damn it, Barry! I just wiped that down!” Barry had some kind of fungal growth along the length of his middle finger that looked like pink cheese whiz. I insisted on carrying two towels with me everywhere. One for wiping down the benches after Barry was finished, and one to wipe down the bar. I gave him a dose of the evil eye as I scraped the bar clean again. “Step back, Barry. I mean it. I don’t need you standing that close.”
Barry huffed in disgust, and I had to turn away from his dragon breath. Barry was on my last nerve, as I had recently lent him my copy of Stephen King’s “Dreamcatcher” and he had returned it covered in what looked like orange organic rust. Tolerance was fine, but Barry’s odor had a certain reality that threw up too many practical issues to completely ignore.
“Just lift the bar, man!” Barry shouted, covered in sweat. His scent, like his temper, was worse when he sweat.
“Okay! But you step back! You hear me?” Barry threw his arms to the side and took an exaggerated step backward. When I was assured he would not step forward again I took my place under the bar. It was the first time I had ever attempted to bench two-hundred pounds, and I anticipated a struggle. I shot Barry one last look in hopes that my gaze would glue him to the ground.
I brought the bar down smoothly, not wanting to cheat by bouncing it off my chest. I brought it half way up, and stuck. Not even breathing I flexed everything I had, pushing upward. I got another quarter of the way up. A hair’s weight either way would spell success or failure. Barry came to stand over me, anticipating my drop. Coach Moore rushed to stand by my side, urging me on, clipboard in hand ready to record my weight.
As I quivered there on the bench, I knew that what I needed most was one deep, powerful breath to give my lungs the fuel they needed to strengthen my arms. What I also knew was that Barry’s sweaty nuts were right over me. Steeling myself against the scent, I opened my mouth and inhaled…. I saw the drop of sweat right as it fell from the tip of Barry’s nose.
It hit me directly in the back of the throat and splashed onto my tongue. At once I was no longer in the room. It was as if I had taken some kind of acid trip to a land where the only sound was the rumbling of Gargoyle farts, and the only sight was a noxious green fuzz that blurred the world in all directions. For a while, I blacked out, and lived in the land of Barry’s sweaty essence… experiencing every flavor wet garbage, un-wiped asshole, sweaty feet, and a marathon runner’s mid-stride nut-sack that could be known to a human palate. When I returned Coach Moore’s expression had turned from an enthusiastic cheer to one of horror. To smell Barry was bad enough… but to have his sweat inside your mouth? Unthinkable.
With the same strength mothers use to lift cars off their children, I threw the weight up in the air and racked it. I stood up with only a hazy memory of how I had freed myself, too overcome by the horrible sensations within me. For I was no longer a man. I was some kind of living instrument that existed only to perceive the full horror of Barry’s sweat. If the concept of rape was a liquid, it had fallen in my throat and become part of me. At best, I was only the living messiah of Barry’s odor. An unthinking savage I turned to Coach Moore for help. He gave me the only look one man can appropriately give another in such a crisis. A look that said “Dude… just do whatever the fuck you need to do.”
So I ran. I ran to the garbage can and threw up until I had nothing left to throw up. Then I tried to throw up again. All that I had accomplished was leaving me with the sense that I had down a shot glass of bile and taken a suck on Barry’s nuts. So I ran. I ran home.
I lived less than two blocks from the high school, on fourth street. I ran past Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. I ran across Broadway. I ran past McDermoth Elementary school. And when I kicked open the door to my home and ran into the bathroom I downed a three shots of Listerine and threw up in the toilet.
Seven years, I thought, seven years is how long it takes for every cell in your body to replace itself. Until then, I would be forever tainted.
