She smelled bad and he tried not to contort his face in ugly ways that would indicate he was smelling her noxious fumes but it was hard. He tried to be nice, to keep the mind along a nice smooth line with no major hiccups to derail him into stomping his feet and crying like that one time. That was embarrassing. Be nice to others so they'll be nice to you. But no one was nice to him. His cousin was a jerk. And mean. He never got the young ones, prettiness aside, the young ones were nicer. Nice like that nice Miss Belvedere who lived down the hall and always knocked on his door and on Sundays asked how he was and if he wanted some cookies, which he always did.
Not one of them was pretty, well there was Amber Adams but she was gone after a month perhaps and that still hurt. She was so nice and never even came close to forming her sentences into sharp accusatory or mean ways like Jasmine James would do.
Jasmine James had kicked him in the face and almost broke his camera six months ago and everyone laughed. If Edward, the smooth star photographer who slept with all the women and men alike, would have been kicked in the face he would have stood up and smacked Jasmine Jones in the face and pulled her up by the hair so fast that her ugly fake bulbous sacks of tit flesh would have, despite their incredible stiffness, been forced to jiggle slightly from the major shaking and displacement she was undergoing.
When Jasmine James kicked the photographer he simply said, "Ouch. Jasmine James don't kick me, I'm just trying to talk sexy to you like Edward so you'll be able to take more high quality professional pictures and we both benefit."
"There is no way I would ever want to benefit with you!" she had yelled as if he were a wet sack of garbage with maggots and flies dripping and swarming from the many holes produced by various bio-hazardous needles containing things like H1N1 flu and the H.I.V. virus. That was how she looked at him.
Jasmine James wrinkled her nose and lemon-pursed her lips and bellowed for his cousin, who surely would hit the poor, fat, and bald photographer in the back of the head just for arriving and then level more and more sharp crisp blows to the back of his soft head before each sentence the globule chested Jasmine James would spiel.
"Photographer Bob, damnit. You know how they hate to talk to you, for one—"
"And look at him," Jasmine added.
"Good point honey, and look at you, Bob. If it wasn't for your mom and my mom, you know, being related real close, closer than we are, obviously, you'd be, I don't know, what's the word. You wouldn't be here for sure and maybe you'd be in prison or dead. So, thank your stars and don't talk to them and try not to look at them and maybe you should, yes. First thing tomorrow morning honey Jasmine, I'll get a nice little mask, maybe one of those that those guys at Guantanamo wore when they did the pyramid stuff, those thin black ones, I'll get one of those for Bob here to wear so that you can pretend he's neither fat, disgusting, or really anything but a 10,000 dollar piece of camera. Ok?"
Fear of conversations like that made him apprehensive to call over cousin Dean to tell him Liberty Cunningham smelled worse than Miss Belvedere's garbage disposal drain smelled after it broke before disposing away the eggs and leftover liver and cabbage that she had for dinner the week previous.
He stared down into the hateful, bitter contraption and tasted bile rise. He had to say something. He hid behind the lens but the usual snap snap snap didn't trigger. He tried to be nice, how would he feel, after all, to be told he smelled like a malfunctioned garbage disposal choking on rotting eggs, cow liver, and spoiled cabbage? Bad, he would feel bad.
"Um, concern, Ms. Cunningham, I have slight issue? Maybe you need to attend to powder room before we shoot more frames?"
"What? Don't talk to me, you little pervert! You disgusting bald mole! I'm already drier than the Sahara because of your ugly heavy breathing all over my prize winning lady parts."
"I'm just saying, not implying, you're great Ms. Cunningham, it's just that, perhaps refreshing yourself, would..."
"DEAN!" Liberty Cunningham screamed out and it seemed before she produced the full name there was a strong KNACK! Colliding with the photographer's head.
"Darling, issue, problem, speak?"
"This spineless clam chowder says I'm not good enough to take pictures of."
Dean turned and shook his head, "Bad, bad photographer. I call you that, right? Photographer. And why do I call you that? I call you that because you take pictures, you have a camera and you sit here, or stand, or kneel, you see? I'm nice, there are certain freedoms that I allow, right? And what do you do? You want to sit, stand or kneel here for what? The scenery or the delicious snack bar that I set up with Oreo cookies and apple slices? And not do your job? That's not fair, how should I respond, really, how should respond? Speak Photographer Chowder?"
"It's just, sometimes, no fault of anyone really, it's just that sometimes, perhaps because you were playing beach volleyball with the catering crew, but sometimes, and I suppose it's the bacteria's fault really, but if pressed I would have to say the bacteria is in there and well it's not really going to win the most floral smell award, unless of course it's one of the flowers that smells, like, well, rotting flesh which it needs to smell like because it needs to attract flies for pollination."
There was KNOCK on the photographer's head. "Chowder. No. Clearly not this is a corpse-smelling flower. Clearly yes it is you, my distant photographer cousin who sometimes I think was adopted and doesn't know it, clearly yes it is you, with perhaps a broken nose or brain that misidentifies say, a rose for meatloaf, or the sun for a star. And just to prove the point, Clamtographer, I'll get in there myself and investigate, see what I can see, or smell, moreso."
Cousin Dean then got on his knees and leaned forward as Liberty Cunningham arched her back and Photographer Bob pinched his nose.
"You see," came a muffled voice, "It's great down here. Smells strangely enough like fresh baked Christmas cookies although it's Spring and should smell like the flowers we've been so far discussing. No problem Clamtogorapher, here, wait, watch this." Dean said and left for the small snack table where the Oreos and apples slices were, but there was also a carafe of milk that he picked up and brought over.
"Liberty darling, here, this is a some delicious two percent milk for you to pour over yourself and Clam, take the sexy pictures. Ok?"
