I’m many things but I’m a gentleman first he says with a small laugh. Thank you sir, I appreciate it. He steps aside and let’s me in the train first. It’s 8:40 and by the 4th subway stop you’re lucky if you can hold on to a bar let alone get a seat.

He sits down next to me and I’m immediately enveloped in a cloud of drakkar noir. I don’t even need to close my eyes to see the black and red box the black and white bottle came in. It was the topic o…f many 12 and 13 year old conversations over 20 years ago.

Ladies and gentlemen this train will be making local stops, local stops. Next stop is 163rd street. There’s a collective groan as we’re all already looking at our phone’s clock to calculate how late we’re actually going to be to work. At least it gives me more time to travel back in time, thanks to my olfactory memories.

Drakkar noir. My sisters boyfriend in the 8th grade wore drakkar noir. Keegan. He’d given her a pair of his boxers doused in them. The scent lasted months. Far longer than their actual relationship.

For christmas we plotted together to collect enough money and asked our parents enough times to take us to the mall in town so we could buy him a new bottle.

The Cologne was kept safe in a clear locked box at Walgreens, after all it was a treasure. The cashier walked us over to the case and sighed as she unlocked it for the 5th time that day in the name of adolescent love. It was right there next to Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden, the most coveted scent, and White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor which was regarded as a hint too old lady for a 13 year old. Two years later I would beg my parents to buy me Diamonds and Emeralds. But that same Christmas Cicely was given Sunflowers.