Published Spring 2007
 
Sniff
It must be a burden to have a last name that's a common noun, like Bob Love or Nelson Riddle or Cubby Broccoli. But it must be even worse to be born a verb. Which was why I felt sorry for Tom Sniff.
"I think his name warped him," I told my friends at our every-other-Saturday breakfast at the Waffle House.
"Like, how?" asked George the investment banker.
"Like, when your name is Sniff, people snicker when they meet you. Imagine having that name in third grade, or during puberty. Must've scarred him psychologically."
"That's nothing. I knew a doctor named Paine once," said my other friend, Sherman the car-repair manager. "And we used to live next to a family whose name was spelled H-O-A-R-E. Pronounced 'whore.' And they had two young daughters."
"You're always changing the subject," George said. "We were talking about Sniff."
"Well, what about him?" Sherm asked.
"I'm just saying," I said, "that I always felt a little bit sorry for the guy."
"Not me," George said. "Sniff was a communicable disease, and it had nothing to do with his name. If he had the right personality, he could've been President Sniff or Chief Justice Sniff."
"Instead of just Sniff the Stiff," said Sherm.
"That's not funny," I said. "I mean, the man's dead."
"You sure about that?" George asked. "What's to say it's not just another prank of his?"
"No way," Sherm said. "His family must've ID'd the body."
"Maybe he got 'em to lie," George said.
"I seriously doubt that," I said. "That would be a crime, wouldn't it?"
"That would be just like Sniff," George said.
A waitress with a wrist splint stopped by to refill our coffee cups. While she poured, I sensed that all three of us were thinking about Sniff.
We had met him in college. He was a sneaky sort of person even then, with his eyes bulging dead-ahead while his slick black hair fled straight backward. After we graduated, Sniff settled in the same suburb as we did outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. In the decades that followed, we'd see him around town, at the movies or the ballpark or the supermarket. He'd occasionally show up at the cookouts of mutual friends.
I talked to him rarely, but often heard about him second or thirdhand. Sniff's pranksterism, which I'd once thought was just a college-kid diversion, had only gotten worse in his later years. Which was why people were always talking about Sniff.
"You ever hear the trick he pulled on his own kid?" asked Sherm.
"The zipper-inspection thing?" I asked.
"No, that was with his daughter. I mean the fat-zapper thing, with his son."
"Yeah, I heard that one," said George.
"I didn't," I said. "Go ahead and tell it."
"Well," Sherm said, "Sniff is visiting his son's apartment one time, and he notices this strange electronic device sitting on the coffee table, and he says, 'Son, what's this?' and his son says, 'Well, Pop, it's a fat zapper. You wear it like a belt for a few hours a day, and it's supposed to melt away the pounds.' So Sniff goes home and writes a fake letter from a lawyer and mails it to his son, saying the fat zapper causes temporary sterility and inviting him to join a class-action lawsuit that might be worth a couple thousand dollars to every consumer who bought one."
"So what happened?" I asked.
"Well, nothing at first. Sniff waits a few weeks to see if his son will tell him about it, and he doesn't, and Sniff has him over for dinner and says, 'Son, you still using that fat zapper?' And his son says, 'Yeah, Pop, I am, every chance I get. But can you believe it—I got a letter from a lawyer saying I might get some money because it causes temporary sterility.' And Sniff's boy also tells him, 'When I found out about the lawsuit, I told my friend Paul and he rushed right out and bought himself a fat zapper, too. He's gonna use his lawsuit money to buy a bass boat.'"
The three of us snickered just as the waitress brought our eggs and sausage. I hoped she didn't think we were laughing at her.
"But there's more," George said.
"Yeah, there's more," Sherm said. "Sniff asks his son, 'How come you didn't quit using it when you got that lawyer letter?' And the kid says, 'It's temporary sterility. Temporary. I'm not ready to be a daddy, so I'm using it for birth control.'"
We laughed again, and the people around us stopped to look. They weren't angry at us, just curious.
"Well, Sniff hears that," Sherm said, "and he knows he's not ready to be a granddaddy, so he's forced to tell the boy about the whole thing. And when he does, the kid is seriously pissed off, ferociously pissed off. I mean infuriated. The way Sniff tells it—or used to tell it—the kid tore the radio antenna off his car."
The Waffle House was full-up. A man and a woman were standing by the cashier, waiting for a table to open up. They were looking at our food.
"The topper was back in college, I think," I said. "Y'all remember the frat house thing?"
"The bathtub full of creamed corn?" George asked.
"No, not that one. God, I'd forgotten that. I'm talking about the second-floor swimming pool thing, when Sniff got a bunch of blue plastic sheeting and duct tape and tried to seal off an entire room, a bedroom on the second floor, and took a hose and filled the whole damn frat room with water, five feet high."
"That's what got him kicked out of the fraternity, didn't it?" George asked. "I was there when that room sprung a leak and poured into the hall and down the stairs. Of course, everything in that poor sumbitch's room was ruined."
"Whose room was it anyway?" I asked.
"I don't even remember," George said.
"It was mine," Sherm said quietly.
"Ouch," I said. "I'd forgotten that."
"Every book, every cassette ruined. All my Playboys soaked," Sherm said. "Not that I'm bitter or anything."
In truth, Sherm didn't seem all that bitter. His wife would've made him throw out his Playboys anyway.
Meanwhile, the couple that was waiting beside the cashier got seated, but the woman didn't stop looking at our food. She just saw it from a different angle.
"No doubt, Sniff was twisted," I said. "Just last year, I heard he was calling in fake Friday night football scores to the newspaper."
"It was a sickness," George said.
"Or maybe just a hobby," said Sherm. "You play racquetball, I collect NASCAR posters, and Sniff puts fake wedding announcements in the newspaper. It's what he does, or did. He did that, you know—the fake wedding announcement. He doctored a picture of his poor old widowed mother and put his father-in-law in it next to her. The two of 'em didn't even like each other—couldn't stand each other—and Sniff had 'em getting married in the paper."
"His family must've hated him," I said.
"Not to mention the newspaper," George added.
Many of the Waffle House's customers abandoned their tables all at once, and the sound of busboys stacking plates cut through the conservation.
"You ever get Sniffed?" Sherm asked George.
"Me personally? Nope," George said. "Somehow no. He always left me alone."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well," Sherm said, "I heard you showed up at last month's school board meeting wearing a pea-green suit."
"And?"
"You don't wear green. You're not a green guy. You did it for a reason."
"Yeah, bad taste. I plead guilty."
"That's not what I heard."
"What'd you hear?"
"I heard Sniff called you up and pretended to be a board member and said it was Green Night, and all the board members were supposed to wear green in honor of the high school football team going to the playoffs."
"Who told you that? Sniff?" George asked.
"I'm not at liberty to say," Sherm said.
My friends looked at each other in a way that made me worry that they might not be friends anymore. I thought I'd better serve as a distraction.
"I got Sniffed once," I told them. "I've never told anyone about it before. Not even the wife. Can I swear you two to secrecy?"
George and Sherm raised their right hands.
"About four years ago, I got a letter in the mail from the Game and Fish Commission, and it said they were doing a spot check of hunters' equipment, and they wanted me to show up at the commission headquarters in Little Rock, and enter through a door on the south side of the building, and wear my best camo and carry my shotgun, loaded. I thought the loaded part was a little weird, but I always try to play by the rules, so I showed up like the letter said. And I'm walking through the parking lot with my loaded shotgun, going up to a government building all dressed in camo, and suddenly I get it. Ten feet from the door, I get it. So I stop, turn around, and leave, quick as you please, before anyone notices."
"How do you know it was Sniff?" Sherm asked.
"It was Sniff. He and me were shooting the shit at a picnic the summer before, one of the rare times I talked with him, and we talked about hunting. It was him. I know it. I like a good joke as much as the next guy, but damn, I could've gotten killed walking into a government building loaded for bear. I mean, the man was a danger to friend and foe. And acquaintance, too."
"Y'all going to the funeral?" Sherm asked.
"Sniff's?" George asked.
"No, mine," Sherm said harshly. "Of course Sniff's."
"Nope," George said. "I hardly knew him."
"I'm halfway afraid to go," I said. "I mean, they might throw creamed corn on people. There could be whoopee cushions in the pews. You never know with Sniff. Even dead, he makes me nervous."
"It's a bad time for me," said Sherm. "My mornings are always busy. Especially Tuesday. That's spare-parts day. Plus, I think it would be creepy to be sitting there when the murderer might be in the pew right next to you."
"They're not sure it was murder," I said. "It could've been suicide."
"There were two gunshot wounds to the head, is what I read," George said.
"Well, they still haven't ruled out suicide," I said. "He could've winged himself, in the head I mean, and then shot himself square with the second one."
"Stranger things have happened," Sherm said.
"I feel sorry for the police," George said. "There must be a lot of suspects." "Tons," Sherm said.
"Hundreds," I said.
"A couple of 'em right here at this table," said George.
There would've been a pause in the conversation even if the waitress hadn't showed up to refill our coffee cups. But she did indeed show up, and poured our coffee.
"What do you mean—a couple of 'em?" Sherm said. "You might say all three of us, if the green-suit story is true."
"But it isn't," said George.
"You sure?" said Sherm.
"You a cop?" said George.
"No, George, I fix cars," said Sherm.
"Well, let's just keep it that way," George said.
Breakfast ended soon after. The conversation had piqued my interest in Sniff's funeral, so I attended after all. It wasn't one of those happy types of funerals—one of those "roasts" or "celebrations of life" that have become so common lately. Sniff's widow and children wore black and cried through the ceremony, and the reverend, who didn't seem to know Sniff from Saddam Hussein, gave a grim and generic tribute to "Tom." He called him "Tom," not "Sniff." And then everybody left, after shaking hands with the survivors in the vestibule.
Outside the church, I thought I noticed a man leaning out of the passenger's side window of a parked car, taking pictures of people as they left. He was a police officer, I figured. I waved at him. I always hate it when sneaky people think they're getting away with something.
I didn't mind if he got my picture. I didn't have anything to hide. But I was glad Sherm hadn't come with me. He hates getting his picture made. Might've hauled off and punched the guy.
And I was even more relieved that George hadn't shown up. If he was smart, he would keep a low profile for a while, especially when the cops were around. But of course, if he was smart, he wouldn't have flown off the handle a month ago, when he got tricked into wearing a pea-green suit.
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