Black Construction Mastic

Writing from the Heart.   Assignment in class, 6-17-2023.

I can never ever forget the smell of…

Black Construction Mastic

 

   The heavy, tar-like, construction mastic was on everything I wore and all over the work truck.  My hands were covered up to the elbows with black splotches of the malodorous mastic, used to put down wooden floor tiles and used as a sealant.

   The only way to wash it off was to use a heavily saturated rag with Kerosene – another fun smell.  Thank God I didn’t have a hankering for a smoke (I didn’t smoke); I would have surely gone out in an inglorious blaze.

   The truck seat had smears of sat-upon mastic.  The once blue steering wheel had smears and blobs of the caustic, odiferous gunk.  I couldn’t get it off of my pants or work boots.  If I get in the truck like this, I am sure to take it all home with me.  The worst part was that this old, smelly, mastic-addled pick-up truck was my conveyance to my date that night.

   Will Lorraine dig me smelling like this?  It is highly doubtful – unless she, herself, was dirtied and sullied by thick, black construction mastic permeating her clothes, her hands, and her being.

  The flowers I got for her smell like mastic.  I will not be getting lucky tonight.

 

Richard Melnick, 6-26-2023. 

   *It was October 21, 1998.  The only upside to that night was that the New York Yankees defeated the San Diego Padres and won the 1998 Baseball World Series.  I drove home in my smell bomb of a vehicle.  I did not get another date with Lorraine.  RM