Plastic and chrome

That smell. A combination of plastic and chrome. It greeted you every so often.

Some opened and didn’t release that odor.

Others opened and sprayed it out like mace. Or a Glade air freshener, depending on your point of view.

I will always identify that smell from cassette tape in particular – INXS’ “Listen Like Thieves”.

“I have a very vapid life,” I said out loud while I sat in the dark, avoiding my computer.

A bolt of lightning struck the Atlantic Ocean seconds later, filling the air with thunderous approval or rejection.

I turned on my computer seconds later.

The words still aren’t flowing. Maybe it was all the Triscuits and beer?

She sat down on the porch across from his house. She was wearing a striped shirt and knee-high socks. It was like she was straight out of a porn set. If she’d had her hair in pig-tails, it would have cinched it.

Watching her, he noticed that she was very much watching him. They played the game as if neither noticed the other, but it was too hard to do.

“Hey neighbor,” he finally yelled out.

“Howdy,” she screamed back.

A few hours later, he was soaked with sweat and naked. Who knows what she was doing.

“I like bottle caps,” he said to the waitress. “Can you be sure to keep them for me. I collect them.”

She looked down at him, sitting in the booth. He looked pathetic in his cowboy boots and Umbro shorts. All the while the booth’s giant red vinyl seat was devouring him.

“Sure hun,” she responded. “Where’d you come from all dressed like that?”

He looked down at his knees, so much smaller were his legs than just 20 years ago. That was when he rode his bike everywhere. Back then, he said he’d never stop riding. It’s been over a decade since he did it regularly. Over a year since he last did.

“Oh, just work,” he replied.

“What are you a rodeo clown?” she snickered.

“Nah, just a hack writer.”

“Really? What do you write?”

“Anything they’ll pay me to. Anything.”

“Like what?”

He was tired of her questions, but she had red hair and a nice ass. So, he made small talk. She had on long pants – it was 24 degrees outside – so he had no idea what her legs looked like. Legs were the deal breaker for him. Ugly legs equals ugly girl. No matter what.

“My job now is writing travel brochures, so, I dress up like this to inspire my writing. Today, I wrote about Cary, North Carolina and Farmington, New Mexico.”

“Huh,” she said with some interest. “What else?”

“I dabbled in greeting cards for a while. Also was a newspaperman for over 15 years. But, no one reads ‘em anymore, so they don’t need writers as much. Hell, I was replaced by a robot in the Phillipenes. Heard he has a really good way with the letter Q.”

She didn’t laugh, and really, it didn’t deserve a laugh.

“Any books?”

“I’m writing one now. Short stories. Like Hemingway, but not at all.”

“I love Hemingway,” she said with a sparkle. This made him smile.

“What’s your favorite?”

“Oh, you know, the one about the guy who got wounded and couldn’t have sex.”

“The Sun Also Rises?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Do you think it had a happy ending?”

“Of course not,” she said. “How could anyone see that as a happy ending?”

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

“It would be, yes, but it was not a ha…Oh, I see what you did there.”

He was shocked and quite happy to discover she had actually read the book. And actually remembered how it ended. He still thought there was a possibility, no matter how remote, that Hemingway saw happiness in Jake Barnes. It’s what kept him alive many nights, re-reading that book. Trying to absorb it. Become it. Then purge it all out with a 12-pack of beer.

“How’d you like to go see my collection of copies of it?” he said.

“You have more than one?”

“I have almost a hundred now. All with different covers. That’s the catch. I need to see how others have seen the book. I really like finding old library copies. Usually, people scribble notes all over the margins. It’s quite fascinating.”

“Carol,” a voice boomed from behind. “Get your cute little ass shaking and start doing your job. And stop flirting with Mr. Fancypants there.”

He blushed. She blushed.

Later, after he’d eaten his meal – a pulled pork sandwich, Western North Carolina style, and hush puppies with a side of macaroni and cheese (white) – he noticed her phone number on his bill. He tipped $10 on the $4.66 bill and walked out humming. He didn’t know what song it was, until he smelled the awful generic taco shells that he pulled out of his pantry later that night. “Biting Bullets” by INXS. The smell of taco shells brought back the smell of a cassette tape, a fresh one, newly opened in 1985. The smell he always tried to smell because it reminded him of a simpler time, when he didn’t want to do anything except kiss a girl. Not fuck her. Not marry her. Just kiss her. And maybe hold her hand afterwards if he was deemed worthy of such finery.

He looked at the receipt he had put on his fridge. He didn’t want to go all John Favre and call her immediately, or too many times. Instead, he wrote down what he wanted to say. Figured she’d be asleep or at work still.

He dialed the number. It rang. Five times. After the fifth, it picked up.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

Startled, he just sat there, listening.

“Listen, whoever you are, we have caller ID. I’m going to get up and go look at it. Then I’m going to come and beat the shit out of you.”

The voice put the phone down and started to walk. He panicked a little, but held fast.

“So, Mr. Jones,” the voice said. “You want to fuck my wife, don’t you?”

“Actually, sir,” he said. “I want to write about her. And now, write about you.”

“What?”

“It’s what I do. I meet someone, I talk to someone, I just see someone and I write about them. Now, you have entered my world, so I will write about you.”

He hung up the phone. It rang seconds later. He picked it up.

“Randy?” the voice on the other end was much softer, much sweeter.

“Yes?”

“Go fuck yourself,” she said.

He never went back to that Bar-b-Que joint again. Even though they had great macaroni and cheese (white, of course).