AFTER THE RODEO: Local Woman Refuses to Elaborate
Pearl choker recovered following the rodeo. Owner says she went straight home.
There are several versions of what happened after the rodeo.
This is unfortunate, because none of them are particularly flattering.
What we know for certain is that there was a rodeo. There was a Tiger’s Blood snow cone. There was a funnel cake being eaten out of a paper tray. There were cigarettes. There was powdered sugar on somebody’s jeans.
And at some point, somebody lost a pearl choker behind the grandstands.
She says she went straight home.
Nobody believes her.
THE OFFICIAL STORY
After the Rodeo started with my friend Cortnee, who owns the local snow cone shack.
Which is probably where things first went wrong.
She had an idea for a perfume that smelled like the county fair after dark. Not the romanticized version of it. The actual one.
Tiger’s Blood snow cones melting down your wrist.
Funnel cake and powdered sugar.
Hot summer air.
The smell of the rodeo grounds.
Cigarette smoke caught in somebody’s clothes.
The particular feeling of being young in a tiny western town when the rodeo ends, everyone is supposed to go home, and absolutely nobody goes home.
She gave me the story.
I made it smell.
THE EVIDENCE
The first thing you smell is Tiger’s Blood snow cone: strawberry, watermelon and creamy coconut.
Bright red. Sticky. Artificial in exactly the way it should be.
Then comes the fair.
Warm funnel cake. Powdered sugar floating through the air. Sweet cream. The faint dry smell of hay and rodeo grounds underneath everything.
And somewhere in it is the suggestion of a cigarette.
Not an ashtray.
Not smoke pouring into your face.
The smell left on a shirt after somebody who definitely does not smoke has been standing suspiciously close to somebody who does.
There is a difference.
THE PEARL CHOKER INCIDENT
At approximately 11:30 p.m., a pearl choker was allegedly recovered behind the grandstands.
Officials have declined to confirm whether it belonged to a Creamery Girl.
This has done very little to discourage speculation.
The Creamery Girls have, of course, been banned from attending the rodeo since the incident of 1997.
We were under the impression everyone knew this.
Apparently not.
One witness reported smelling strawberry ice cream near the scene. A second witness corrected the record:
“No. It was definitely a snow cone.”
Neither witness has been considered particularly reliable.
Earl has information but cannot currently be reached for comment.
Cortnee knows more than she is saying.
And the woman whose pearl choker was recovered maintains that she went straight home.
Fine.
WHAT AFTER THE RODEO ACTUALLY SMELLS LIKE
It smells like being somewhere you probably shouldn’t be for twenty minutes longer than you said you would.
Like the carnival lights have gone blurry.
Like your mouth is stained red from a snow cone.
Like there is powdered sugar on your clothes and somebody else’s cigarette smoke in your hair.
Like walking back to the car carrying your shoes.
Like summer in a tiny western town, when nothing ever happens and somehow everything happened last night.
That was the thing I wanted to preserve when I made Cortnee’s idea into a perfume.
Not just the fair.
Not just the rodeo.
After.
The strange little pocket of night when the official event is over and the story actually begins.
After the Rodeo is strawberry, watermelon, coconut cream, funnel cake, powdered sugar, hay and the lingering evidence of poor decision-making.
It is sweet.
It is nostalgic.
It is slightly incriminating.
AFTER THE RODEO
A fragrance collaboration with Cortnee’s snow cone shack.
Arriving August 21st.
The Creamery Girls remain unavailable for comment.
