The first thing that accosts you, invades you, chokes you on its purity, is the stench of skin and sweat. It rolls off him like the sour gas from a rotten Harley, its salty musk buried into his black suit from too many nights slept through sandstorms.
The second that trails up to meet you when you lean in for a handshake or a hug (you feel you could have known this stranger for years) is the comfortable smell of cigarette smoke. It drifts like tumbleweed on the air around him, helping you ignore the pungent twang of liquor staining his breath. The cheapest he can find but whiskey if he can choose, he does not slur on its biting potency. Stil