QUOTE : made the nostrils seize up. Chicken shit had an unpleasant edge, like when damp pinfeathers were scorched off a roaster’s carcass; horse shit, on the other hand, was almost sweet, if not actually cheerful. He thought about it as the car rolled through a swampy smell and decided he might have been working out in the countryside a tad too long, now that he had begun comparing and contrasting the different varieties of livestock odors. He switched to contemplating the appearance of the Blessed Virgin. Virgil’s father was a Lutheran minister, and Virgil had gone to church almost every Sunday and Wednesday from the time he’d been