By Lisa Ann Dalton

I came to recognize the smell of a corpse through a closed coffin after I spent a year working in Shipping & Intakes for The Port of Savannah right after I turned twenty (to save money for, as I claimed, college). Life took on a temporary new direction when I met Poncho Pilot on an extra late delivery one August night. His plane landed twenty seconds before Tropical Storm Julie began pounding the hangar, and he made a run for it under the cover of a bright yellow poncho. It was a silly sight at first, him jogging through the rain like an off-brand traffic cone, but when he peeled the plastic off and golden-retriever-shook the last few drops from his dark, springy hair, I completely forgot about the first image. 

The only way he could make the lousy timing and weather up to me, in his words, was to buy me a drink, or at the very least some food. We ended up having street tacos at a Hutchinson Island Taco Bus, where the river met the university campus. We talked about the endless countries he’d been to that I just had to see, exchanged a little high school Spanish and stories about our mothers, discussed our favorite bands of various decades (he was all over hair bands and hardcore metal, where I stuck to modern punk). He liked my piercings, and the tattoos he could see: the little walrus in a top hat on my arm. Besides that, I didn’t really learn much about him. That first night, he paid for a car to drive me home, and he went to his hotel back near the airport. 

The second time he landed in my port, his plane came bearing a coffin carrying kilos of cocaine. I didn’t discover this on inspection—coffins were never opened at the time, out of respect, and my superiors always nodded him through security like an infamous Admiral. He told me himself when we were alone in his hotel suite, him sitting on the bed shirtless, while I undressed in the middle of the room. He got off on getting away with things like that, I think. He snuck me liquor at a number of bars that barely ID’d anyone, and the bartenders pretended they were blind to a list of questionable behaviors. 

Sometimes, he actually transported bodies. People who died abroad or whose families wanted them buried overseas. A hero in the skies, Atmospheric Cowboy. He showed me one, once. Even though policies were strict about what cargo to never open. It was this burly man who’d suffered a heart attack on a vacation in Spain. Looked like he was taking a nap and maybe could use some vitamins, but other than that, you couldn’t really tell he was dead. 

I considered turning him in for the cocaine. I figured he’d hate me, and the thought of losing his respect hurt more than the compounded effects of the snow-white game he was running straight through Atlanta. Sometimes, he ducked out for phone calls between nailing me to the bed and ordering room service. Other nights, he left after an hour because he had a long drive to make. 

Turns out, I didn’t have to do anything. Despite giving me a number and an address he didn’t seem to live at, he never answered my calls, and we never talked outside of his visits. One day just happened to be the last day I saw him, easing into the blazer he’d shown up in before slipping out the hotel door. He’d drawn a heart on a sticky note and stuck it to the lampshade on the single nightstand, the sketch of a romance. I couldn’t tell you if he meant to disappear after that, if he knew that he wouldn’t see me again or if even cared that he didn’t. He’s probably rotting somewhere now, with no regret for all the horrible shit he did. 

Months later, I heard the news. It was a brief story on the evening programs smashed between a car wreck on a nearby interstate and coverage of a local teacher running a canned goods event for the holidays. Local pilot arrested at the Seaside Hotel near Savannah…Officers say he was found due to an undercover prostitution ring…The investigation uncovered a history of smuggling illegal substances across the Atlantic…I threw away my leftover pizza and went for a walk.

The port changed policies after that. Every coffin underwent a multi-point inspection, as did other cargo that had previously avoided scrutinization. I stayed there long enough to learn the new procedures and then quit to do office administration for a law firm in a town small enough to hire someone who knows jack-shit about the law. And it wasn’t the rotting flesh that lingered indefinitely in my brain, imprinted in my nostrils like masochistic scripture—it was the chemicals morticians use to preserve the body, to keep it fresh on a journey overseas. Every funeral I’ve had to attend since then—Pop’s, Uncle Rick’s, Juni’s—I can smell them. Just behind the wood, marinating in formaldehyde.