Clean Chemical Fruity

The smell of her hair, that clean chemical fruity smell like dried laundry, dryer sheets, bad for the environment, the way she would use dryer sheets but wouldn’t eat red meat, "it takes two and a half pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef," but she would still drink two percent milk if the store was out of oat milk or if she didn’t feel like going to the grocery store, corner deli, bodega, the way the men behind the counter would ogle her, the way I didn’t worry about it because she was mine, mine, mine, mine

“Mind if I sit here?” Callie asks Fred. The smell in the air is lilacs and vanilla, the shampoo Kelly used, the shampoo Callie uses too. It’s a busy day for Callie—her brown hair clings to the back of her sweater, still damp from the shower. She did not have the time nor the inclination to let it fully dry before leaving her apartment. Her paper is due at midnight, and she hasn’t started it yet. Mindy, her roommate, has taken up playing the slap bass, and her boyfriend Rod is coming over, and they’re always so loud. She did not expect the coffee shop to be this crowded. There’s only one open seat and it’s at the long, wooden, elegant-looking table in the middle of the room that seems out of place, like it belongs in medieval dining hall instead of a Lakeview cafe. The open seat is next to a sad looking blond boy staring blankly at an open chrome tab. The open seat is next to Fred.

lilacs, lilacs and vanilla, the bonfire, the way Chad jumped over it and it seemed like Kelly was impressed by that, the way I thought he was going to get himself killed, burned, charred, blackened, but he sure didn’t, and he sure put a smile on Kelly’s face, and sure

“Sure,” says Fred. Callie sits down and pulls out her Macbook. Begins typing away, chewing mindlessly on the straw of her Vanilla Bean Frappuccino.

vanilla, vanilla bean, vanilla coke, coke blak, "if you remember coke blak you’re a millennial, if you don’t you’re gen z," remembering, remember, never forget, 9/11, the way I thought that was the true marker of gen z vs. millennial, millennials remember the towers falling, remember the world before, at least a little bit, little bits, bagel bites, mini muffins, "too much sugar, Freddy," the way Kelly didn’t mind how much sugar I had, just no red meat, no cow milk unless she decided to buy it, "we have to do our best, Fred, we have to do our part", the way I agreed and didn’t, the way corporations are responsible for something like 70% of all emissions, futile, feudalism, fatalism, predestination, John Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes, Dear Mr. Waterson, to whom it may concern, best, regards, gourds, pumpkin, pumpkin spice, PSL, the way Kelly laughed at fall fashion, "why does every girl dress like Han Solo," Han shot first, Jabba the Hut, Job-a the hunt, the way I came to this coffee shop to work on my resume and now all I can think about is Kelly, the way the embers burned through her sweatshirt but she didn’t care, the way her sweaters always had burn holes in them anyway, camel crushes, camel skull tattoos, celebrity crushes, Brie Larson, Phoebe Bridgers, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Kelly’s crushes, crushing on Kelly, our first date

Callie can not remember why she chose carbon dating as the topic for her English 1000 paper. She has a vague memory of watching a PBS special about it with her dad when she was a kid. It is one of her few happy memories with him. The topic came to her suddenly the night before her outline was due and she decided to run with it, certain there was a treasure trove of great sources about the topic—there were, but they were each about as interesting as watching paint dry. Should have written my paper on that, she thinks. How fast does paint dry? Why is it our barometer for why something is entertaining? Still, her fingers fly across the keypad, typing away. She feels bad that her professor will have to read this drivel, and preemptively cringes at the attempts he will make at constructive criticism: interesting point, but how does it connect to the thesis? What IS the thesis? Every few minutes, she rests her fingers and takes a sip of her frap, stealing a look at the boy next to her who’s mindlessly staring at a google docs resume template. He’s cute, she thinks, but in the mindless, noncommittal way one thinks a stranger on the street or a guest actor on Criminal Minds is cute. Maybe she pictures them dating, but only for a brief flash before she sets her drink down and dives once more into the exciting world of carbon dating.

the overpowering scent of this girls hair, the way she keeps looking at me and my blank screen, pitying me, jobless the hun, hung, hanging, hanging chads, how I would like to hang Chad, the brooks brothers riot, the way I wish he had fallen into the fire that night, "poor thing, he had a whole life of girl stealing ahead of him," Mr. Steal Yo Girl, Mr. Brightside, The Killers, how I would like to kill Chad, but who am I kidding, nonviolent resistance, Brandon Flowers, Hot Fuss, Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright, writing, this girl writing next to me types so loud, how her hair smells just like Kelly’s the night of the bonfire, bon voyage, bomb voyage, The Incredibles, how that one character in The Incredibles is definitely meant to look like Tommy Lee Jones, Men In Black, D’onofrio, private pyle, Edgar suit, Edgar Wright, "they call him baby driver and once upon a set of wheels," Wright brothers, this girl writing next to me and the fucking smell of her fucking hair that makes it so I can’t escape that bonfire and the lilacs, the vanilla, the smell of the fire on her sweater when she took it off on that blanket and we lay half naked staring at the stars, how the cold november air made our hairs stand on end, the way she said "you’re so weird" when I wouldn’t stop smelling her hair but it smelled so good, good, good, Good Time, Robert Pattinson, The Safdie Brothers, Uncut Gems, "this is how I win," how Howie could never win and neither can I, "I’m so sad, I’m so fucked up," how at least I don’t have a gambling addiction, how I bet I could win some money playing blackjack though, how maybe that could be my job, how there’s strategy to it even if you don’t count cards, how there are charts you can memorize, always split aces, always hold on seventeen, hit on thirteen, goodbye job hunt, hello Oakleys, spiked hair, hookers, Hard Eight, P.T. Anderson, Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio, how Kelly is from Ohio, Anderson, how I’m now remembering that her town was called Anderson and her elementary school was named Sherwood, how that must have been on purpose, a little suburban literary reference, how she told me all this on our first date, pizza and a movie, how she hated the movie but didn’t tell me until later, how that’s a microcosm for the whole relationship I guess, Chad jumping over the fire, the glow of the fire in her pupils, the fire growing inside her, inside her, how she said she wasn’t in the mood, how she wasn’t in the mood much after that night, how I should have seen it coming, how that was three years ago and I still wake up thinking about it some days, most days, how she was the best thing that ever happened to me, how that’s kinda sad given the way she treated me toward the end, how everything was my fault, how my sadness was a burden, like my being hurt was an affront her, an assault on her clean conscious, Chad jumping over the fire, "I wish you were more spontaneous", how I wonder if the girl next me values spontaneity, values, "we don’t have the same values anymore," how I think she meant interests, how she always hated it when I’d correct her vocabulary, unless you consider your interests valuable which is sort of shallow, how values are like morals, like truth and honesty and not fucking Chad on our third anniversary of dating, how Kelly had called me and told me she couldn’t make it to dinner even though I was already there, how I could hear the sadness in her voice, how I could hear how defeated she was, how tired of the lies, how when I think of it I feel bad for her, how that’s fucking pathetic of me, how I wonder if the girl sitting next to me would react to that news, "if we date and you cheat on me I’ll feel bad for YOU," cuckold, cuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK

Fuck this, she thinks. She’s written almost four pages of the five page minimum and it’s all drivel. Facts about dinosaur bones lead into an aside about the Garden of Eden which then somehow leads to Charles Darwin and the Galapagos tortoises. Why hadn’t she gone to class the day they workshopped their theses? She thinks maybe that was the day that Mindy thought she had appendicitis and made Cassie drive her to the emergency room. It ended up just being IBS. As it stands, she’ll waste more time trying to tie all of these disparate facts together than she would have if she had simply done her research. She decides to pack up her things. Her professor seems like a decent guy; she figures maybe she can get an extension if she stretches the truth a little. My roommate had a medical emergency and it’s been really stressful at my house and I’ve gotten behind. The parts are true enough; the sum is complete bullshit. She can’t wait for Mindy to move out so she can finally focus on school. Mindy is a relic of her old life, her gap year that became nearly a gap decade. They met at O’Bently’s, the downtown bar that they both worked at in their early 20s. Mindy was the party girl that Callie always wanted to be—Callie got straight A’s in highschool but had been burnt out on learning by the time it came to apply for college. One year, she told herself. Then Northwestern, or Purdue. Eight years later, she’s knocking out her gen eds at Harry S. Truman, scared shitless of the debt some of her friends are in. But at least they have real jobs, she thinks. Real wives, real husbands, a dog and a little girl named Dakota or some shit. Callie never thought that would be what she wanted. But staring down the barrel of community college makes her want nearly anything else. She glances at the boy next to her, who has finally made some minor progress on his resumé. I’d even take him, she thinks. A vision of them cuddled together on a soft beige couch in a cozy two bedroom flashes in her brain for a moment, then she stands up.

3.85, or maybe it was 3.86, the way that maybe that matters, I can just see some macklemore-haired fuck tossing this resume in the trash can, "3.85!? What sort of lackluster institution does this Fred character think we are? After I make a few calls he’s finished in this town, I tell you. Finished!" the way the girl is getting up to leave, the way she was kinda cute, how I should have said something to her, anything, but who am I kidding, the way her hair smells like Kelly and the way that sometimes when my phone rings I think it might be her, Kelly, not the girl, crawling back, just to check in, just checkin’, Czezh Republic, Banana Republic, that old Mad Magazine issue with the words of the pledge of allegiance replaced with products, "Ipod, Allegra, Tutsi, Fab, Fugi, United, Franco America, Banana Republic, Ford, Chicklets, Vans, One, Nathans, Wonder, Bod, Disney, Vagisil, Whisk, Listerine, Ban, Jergens, Hornel," how I memorized it when I was like ten, how I probably didn’t get the satire of it, how I didn’t even realize how commercialist our society is at that age, how I just appreciated the creativity of it, the rhythm, how if you said those words to the cadence of the pledge it kinda sounded like it, how all these years later I still remember it, how a bunch of words some underpaid comic wrote down fifteen years ago got lodged in my brain, how it’s muscle memory, how my tongue knows exactly where to go, no need to understand the content or the form, just a tongue bouncy around a mouth, making sounds, keys clacking on a keyboard, memories flashing from years gone by, how the past doesn’t die but lives in your brain, like a ghost, gaining power, changing to suit whatever narrative it wants, how it won’t be long until Kelly’s just a ghost lurking the halls of my brain, how fifteen years from now the muscle memory will still be the same, the words but no content, the form but not the meaning, my tongue bouncing against my teeth, finding all the points to spell out I still love you