scott pilgrim

Scott Pilgrim woke up in his apartment, but his apartment didn’t make any sense. There was a mattress on the floor that he shared with his roommate, and there were two pillows. There was an old poster of two women kissing on the wall. Scott Pilgrim shared the bed with his roommate Kara, but sometimes he slept on the couch when he needed his own space. Kara paid most of the rent, and Scott Pilgrim made vegetarian meals for her and let her boyfriends sleep on his side of the bed.

As soon as Scott Pilgrim woke up, he opened his MacBook and watched Season 3, episode 1, of Modern Family. The episode was streaming on the ABC website, free with ads. Their internet was slow. It took a long time to buffer. The family was flying to Yellowstone National Park to go to a dude ranch. Scott Pilgrim noticed that they were flying on United Airlines, even though in the penultimate episode of season one, they had flown Continental Airlines to Hawaii. Continental had merged with United around that time. Scott Pilgrim thought it was interesting that he was able to pinpoint the time of the merger: October 1st, 2010. Modern Family season two aired in September of that year.

Scott Pilgrim was in an indie rock band that had a stupid name that never made sense to him. He had been seeing a girl named Ramona who was a lot younger than him and had dyed blonde hair. He had a hard time picturing her with her natural hair color. She was going to sit in on band practice today and meet his friends for the first time. They were going to go on a dinner date later that evening at a restaurant called Casino.

Scott Pilgrim left his apartment and closed the blue door behind him. The sky was gray like gray goo. He put on his beanie and zipped his jacket. He hated the effort it took to buy winter clothes, they tended to find him, passed down from old friends and girlfriends, bought slowly and one by one at expensive thrift stores. Nothing too new or too old. He always got sick in winter.

By the time Scott Pilgrim got to his friend and bandmate Stephen’s apartment, he was sniffling, but Stephen's apartment was warm and fuzzy. It had muted beige walls and a faded brown rug. Ramona was already there, sitting on the couch. She had been talking with his friends and getting to know them. Scott Pilgrim gave her a kiss on the forehead to say hi, and told her to be good, as a joke. When they started playing music, the room got bigger and longer. There were three people in the band: Stephen played guitar and was the lead singer, and Scott Pilgrim’s friend Kim played the drums. She had her own kit and played with her mouth open wide. Sometimes her knuckles bled.

As they practiced, the wind from their playing blew her hair around and she looked like a model. She was wearing a baby blue coat and a graphic t-shirt. She had angular blue sunglasses hanging from her collar that matched her coat. It was the same outfit she wore on their first real date, when they went to the Natural History Museum and took ketamine in the planetarium.

When practice was over everyone was tired. The room smelled like fast food and the radiator made a violent noise. Ramona left practice with hearts in her eyes, and there were hearts in Scott Pilgrim’s eyes right back. After she was gone, Scott Pilgrim, Kim and Stephen sat in various positions on Stephen’s bed, legs resting on one another. Stephen’s roommate was playing Portal 2 on Stephen’s iMac. Scott Pilgrim used his fingernail to separate and remove a long toenail. Stephen looked at Scott Pilgrim and his mouth opened just a little to say, “She was nice.” Scott Pilgrim said, “You think so?” And Stephen smiled and said nothing.

Scott Pilgrim walked back to his apartment to get ready for his date. He put on his Nudie suit. It was his old uniform from a burrito place he used to work at. It was wrinkled and he didn’t own an iron, but they wanted to dress fancy. It was windy and sleeting a little bit. Scott Pilgrim got to the restaurant before her, and she pulled up in an Uber Black. She was wearing a glamorous gown and fine jewelry.

The waiter was wearing white face paint and had black dots painted on his cheeks like a clown. Scott Pilgrim liked the way that his slouch pulled his white button-down up at the back of his neck. He talked to them too much. He seemed bored, and they were the only ones there. He probably wanted to sleep with Scott Pilgrim and Ramona. Ramona was a clown too. She had gone to clown school for a year. Her clown name was Tamara The Clown.

Dinner was fine, but Scott Pilgrim drank too much. He rarely drank, only Coke Zero. When he did drink, he would wake up hungover, and Kara would make bacon for them. The wine was good. Scott Pilgrim thought it might have been better chilled. He told Ramona that to impress her. She might have thought it was cool that he was tapped into various temperatures wine could be.

After dinner, Scott Pilgrim and Ramona took the subway back to Ramona’s apartment. On the subway, there was an eighteen-year-old Asian teenager sitting with her mom. Her mom was playfully berating her about not having a boyfriend. The teenager dropped her school books on the floor, Scott Pilgrim picked them up and said, “Don’t worry about it!” with a smiley face. Ramona and Scott Pilgrim got off at the next stop, and Ramona said that Scott Pilgrim should fuck the Asian teenager. She said it was a real meet-cute. Scott Pilgrim bumped into Ramona on purpose on the walk back. They held hands, then switched the interlace of their fingers.

It was Scott Pilgrim’s first time seeing Ramona’s apartment. It was just a sublet because she had The Glow and planned to leave New York for a year and two months to get rid of it. Scott Pilgrim knew she was going to leave and just didn’t think about it, because it made him sad. They had only talked about it once. Ramona made Scott Pilgrim a cup of tea and got him a blanket from her bed to dry him off. He was wet from snow and rain. They went to her room and had sex. They liked talking a lot during sex and biting each other. Sometimes Ramona would give Scott Pilgrim bruises on his arms and legs and he would touch them later and remember the sex they had.

Ramona was in love with Scott Pilgrim. She told him early on that sometimes she felt like she liked him so much that she had to stop herself from saying “the other thing.” Scott Pilgrim told her he loved her. She told him that sometimes she would whisper “the other thing” into his hair as he was sleeping or just say it really quietly. Sometimes she would practice talking to him in her bed alone. Sometimes she would say his name into the wall.

A couple nights after their dinner date, Ramona came to Scott Pilgrim’s band’s show. It was at an outdoor venue called Eureka’s. The stage area was covered. It was a battle of the bands, and there was a huge lineup. Scott Pilgrim’s band played first. Their set was okay, but Stephen’s vocals were messed up and his autotune was tuned poorly.

Scott Pilgrim had taken a Klonopin and had done a key bump of ketamine before the set, and as they left the stage he started having a panic attack. It was the first panic attack he had ever had. Scott Pilgrim had lied about having panic attacks before, they had probably just been anxiety attacks, which are different. Fans were mobbing Scott Pilgrim, he was the star of the band. He was seeing white dots and blinking really fast, stumbling. Ramona came up to him and hugged him really tight.

She grabbed his hand and they walked out of the venue and onto the sidewalk. Scott Pilgrim threw up and told her in a lucid way, “Ramona, I am having a panic attack and I need you to help me.” More sleet was coming down. Scott Pilgrim was wearing a hat with fuzzy ear flaps. Ramona told him how to breathe, placing one hand on his stomach and one hand on his chest. Scott Pilgrim started sobbing.

Scott Pilgrim didn’t want Ramona to leave. He asked her, “Why are you leaving?” He said “I love you.” He was begging. She looked at him and put kindness in her eyes for a while, but Scott Pilgrim could tell he had upset her. He kept talking, saying guilty things like he loved her more than she loved him, and that it was harder for him that she was leaving, and that he wanted to be with her and keep her company while she worked from home. He wanted to watch her light a candle. He wanted to play with her trinkets and wear her perfume.

Ramona decided to be angry at Scott Pilgrim. She said, “fuck you,” for being so willing to make her feel guilty. That was the one thing she had asked him to never do. She got quiet and then she started crying too. Scott Pilgrim had never seen her cry before. After a moment, she looked at him, and she wasn’t angry anymore. She smiled at him and said, “Thanks…” She said it as if there was an ellipsis at the end. Scott Pilgrim looked back into her eyes, and white lines were radiating from her head. She started glowing, brighter and brighter, and then she vanished.

—

Scott Pilgrim wanted to work at Casino because it would make Ramona want to be with him again. He had an interview there, and they told him they would take him on as a dishwasher and teach him prep. The waiter who served Scott Pilgrim and Ramona taught him how to chop vegetables. Scott Pilgrim had had a dream the night before that he was dragging himself through a baking hot desert.

After their first shift together, the waiter took Scott Pilgrim to a party that his friend Julie was throwing. It had no theme, it was just a party. The waiter said he would introduce Scott Pilgrim to his friend Roxy, who had fifty thousand Instagram followers and worked at a consignment shop. Scott Pilgrim asked what she looked like, and the waiter said, “White.”

Roxy and Scott Pilgrim went on a date at a fancy wine bar. He felt out of place there. Roxy was very beautiful. She wore a bandana. Scott Pilgrim had taken a Klonopin, so he was able to be charming. He told her the thing he realized about Modern Family and how Continental Airlines had merged with United Airlines. They got along, and she told him that she had not had a conversation that good in a long time. He asked her if she was in his dream the other night, but he was joking. After dinner they parted ways and Scott Pilgrim took the subway home.

Later that night, the waiter came over to Scott Pilgrim’s apartment to hang out. He wore an Online Ceramics t-shirt and Dickies. Scott Pilgrim’s roommate, Kara, was in Japan for work. He was eating cashews out of the bag, the waiter was rolling a joint. Scott Pilgrim told him they couldn’t smoke inside because there were no windows, so they propped open the door and let the cold air into the apartment. After they smoked weed, Scott Pilgrim sat on the couch and the waiter laid on the bed in his subway clothes. He was really high and started talking at Scott Pilgrim. He told Scott Pilgrim that he liked working in a restaurant because he was socially awkward and needed a structured way to practice social interactions. He didn’t strike Scott Pilgrim as socially awkward. Scott Pilgrim thought he was cocky and a slacker.

The waiter started crying. He said that he felt like nobody would ever love him because he was shy and awkward. He also was drinking from a bottle of vodka in a paper bag. Scott Pilgrim never drank but was a little stoned. The waiter looked at Scott Pilgrim with wet eyes, then got up from the bed and kissed him. He used his tongue and Scott Pilgrim kissed him back. The waiter had stubble, and Scott Pilgrim could feel it rub against his face. The waiter was still crying, and he pulled away and looked into Scott Pilgrim's eyes again. He asked Scott Pilgrim if he wanted to sleep with him. He said he had opium from the dark web and that they should smoke it. The waiter said, "When I'm around you, I kind of feel like I'm on drugs. Not that I do drugs. Unless you do drugs, in which case I do them all the time.”

Scott Pilgrim kissed him until his head slumped, and he was tired and fell asleep. So, Scott Pilgrim tucked him into his bed and curled up on the couch. Scott Pilgrim put his headphones in and watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother on his laptop. He went outside in the cold to smoke a cigarette, and when he came back in, the waiter was overdosing. Scott Pilgrim wasn’t sure what the waiter had taken, but he was seizing and foaming at the mouth. He ran over to the waiter, shook him, and shouted nonsense, trying to wake him up. Scott Pilgrim didn’t have Narcan. He called 911. Paramedics came and peeled the waiter off the bed and got him into an ambulance.

The waiter wasn’t at work for the next couple days, and Scott Pilgrim's manager said he would be in the hospital for a while.

A couple of days later, Scott Pilgrim went to his friends’ favorite bar, The Seneca. Stephen’s roommate Neil was sad because he had lost all relevancy. They had even written a girlfriend character for him, but there was too much going on. He downloaded Hinge and had Scott Pilgrim help make his profile pop. Neil was talking about the girlfriend character. She would have been into making papier-mâché dolphins. She would have worn black eyeliner and Dia De Los Muertos-themed accessories. One time she would have put makeup on Neil, but it would have been too terrifying. Scott Pilgrim showed Neil his Hinge profile, and they saw that they had gone on a date with the same girl. Scott Pilgrim went home at eleven and watched a Lucas Lee movie.





Bernard Cohen is an author based in New York City. He co-edits the online publication Charm School with his friend Vivi Hayes. his first poetry collection, “Magpie,” is forthcoming from New Publishing in 2026.