Jenifer Hixson - Where There's Smoke

 

 

I reached over and secretly undid my seatbelt. When his foot hit the brake at the red light, I flung open the door and I ran. I had no shoes on. I was crying. I had no wallet. But I was okay because I had my cigarettes. [audience chuckles] I didn't want any part of freedom if I didn't have my cigarettes. When you live with someone who has a temper, a very bad temper, a very, very bad temper, you learn to play around that. You learn, this time I'll play possum, and next time I'll just be real nice, or I'll say yes to everything, or you make yourself scarce, or you run. And this was one of the times when you just run. 

 

And as I was running, I thought this was a great place to jump out because they were big lawns and there were cul-de-sacs. Sometimes he would come after me and drive and yell stuff at me to get back in, get back in, and I was like, “No, I'm out of here.” This is great. I went and hid behind a cabana, and he left, and I had my cigarettes. I started to walk in this beautiful neighborhood. It was 10:30 at night. It was silent and lovely, and there was no sound except for sprinklers. [imitates sprinkling sound] I was enjoying myself and enjoying the absence of anger and enjoying these few hours I knew I'd have of freedom. 

 

And just to perfect it, I thought, I'll have a smoke. And then, it occurred to me with horrifying speed, I don't have a light. [audience laughter] Just then, as if in answer, I see a figure up ahead. Who is that? It's not him, okay? They don't have a dog. Who is that? What are they doing out on this suburban street? And the person comes closer, and I can see it's a woman. And then, I can see she has her hands in her face. Oh, she's crying. And then, she sees me. And she composes herself, and she gets closer, and I see she has no shoes on. She has no shoes on, and she's crying, and she's out on the street. I recognize her, though I've never met her. 

 

And just as she passes me, she says, “You got a cigarette?” And I say, “You got a light?” [audience laughter] And she says, “Damn, I hope so.” And then, first she digs into her cutoffs in the front, nothing. And then, digs in the back and then she has this vest that has 50 million little pockets on it. She's checking and checking, and it's looking bad. It's looking very bad. She digs back in the front again. Deep, deep, and she pulls out a pack of matches that have been laundered at least once. [audience laughter] We open it up, and there is one match inside. Okay. Oh my God. This takes on like NASA now. We are like, “How are we going to do it?” Okay. 

 

We hunker down, we crouch on the ground, and where's the wind coming from? We're stopping. I take out my cigarettes. Let's get the cigarettes ready. “Oh, my brand,” she says, not surprising. We both have our cigarettes at the ready. She strikes once. Nothing. She strikes again. Yes. Fire. Puff. Inhale. Mm. Sweet kiss of that cigarette. We sit there and we're loving the nicotine, and we both need this right now. I can tell the night's been tough. Immediately, we start to reminisce about our 32nd relationship. “I didn't think that was going to happen.” “Me neither.” “Oh, man, that was close.” “Oh, I'm so lucky I saw you. Yeah.” [audience laughter] 

 

Then she surprises me by saying, “What was the fight about?” And I say, “What are they all about?” And she said, “I know what you mean.” She said, “Was it a bad one?” And I said, “You know, like medium.” She said, “Oh.” We start to trade stories about our lives. We're both from up north, we're both newish to the neighborhood. This is in Florida. We both went to college. Not great colleges, but man, we graduated. I'm actually finding myself a little jealous of her, because she has this really cool job washing dogs. [audience laughter]

 

She had horses back home and she really loves animals and she wants to be a vet. And I'm like, “Man, you're halfway there.” [audience laughter] I'm a waitress at an ice cream parlor. So, I don't know where I want to be, but I know it's not that. And then, it gets a little deeper, and we share some other stuff about what our lives are like, things that I can't ever tell people at home. This girl, I can tell her the really ugly stuff, and she still understands how it can still be pretty. She understands how nice he's going to be when I get home and how sweet that'll be.

 

We are chain smoking off each other. “Oh, that's almost out. Come on.” We go through this entire pack until it's gone, and then I say, “You know what? This is a little funny, but you're going to have to show me the way to get home. Because although I'm 23 years old, I don't have my driver's license yet.” And I just jumped out right when I needed to. And she says, “Well, why don't you come back to my house and I'll give you a ride?” I said, “Okay, great.” We start walking, and we get to lots of lights. The roads are getting wider and wider, and there's more cars. I see lots of stores, Laundromats and dollar stores, and emergence centers. Then we cross over US One, and she leads me to someplace and I think, no, but yes. 

 

Carl's Efficiency Apartments. This girl lives there. It's horrible, and it's lit up so bright just to illuminate the horribleness of it. It's the kind of place where you drive your car right up and the door's right there, and there's 50 million cigarette butts outside, and there's doors one through seven. And, behind every single door, there's some horrible misery going on. There's someone crying or drunk or lonely or cruel. And I think, “Oh gosh, she lives here. How awful.” We go to the door, door number four, and she very, very quietly keys in. As soon as the door opens, I hear the blare of television come out. And on the blue light of the television, the smoke of a hundred cigarettes in that little crack of light. And I hear the man. And he says, “Where were you?” And she says, “Never mind, I'm back.” 

 

And he says, “You all right?” And she says, “Yeah, I'm all right,” and then she turns to me and says, “You want a beer?” And he says, “Who the fuck is that?” She pulls me over and he sees me and he says, “Oh, hey, I'm not a threat.” Just then, he takes a drag of his cigarette, a very hard, hard drag. You know, the kind that makes the end of it really heat up, hot, hot, hot, and long. It's a little scary. I follow the cigarette down, because I'm afraid of that head falling off. I'm surprised when I see in the crook of his arm a little boy sleeping, a toddler. And I think, [gasps] And just then, the girl reaches underneath the bed and takes out a carton, and she taps out the last pack of cigarettes in there.

 

And on the way up, she kisses the little boy and then she kisses the man. And the man says, again, “You all right?” And she says, “Yeah, I'm just going to go out and smoke with her.” And so, we go outside and sit amongst the cigarette butts and smoke. And I say, “Wow, that's your little boy?” She says, “Yeah. Isn't he beautiful?” And I say, “Yeah, he is. He is beautiful.” “He's my light. He keeps me going,” she says. We finish our cigarettes. She finishes her beer. I don't have a beer, because I can't go home with beer on my breath. She goes inside to get the keys. She takes too long in there getting the keys, and I think something must be wrong. 

 

She comes out and she says, “Look, I'm really sorry, but we don't have any gas in the car. It's already on E, and he needs to get to work in the morning. I'm going to walk to work as it is. So, what I did was though, here, look, I drew out this map for you. You're a mile and a half from home. If you walk three streets over, you'll be back on that pretty street, and you just take that, and you'll be fine.” She also has wrapped up in toilet paper seven cigarettes for me, a third of her pack I note, and a new pack of matches, and she tells me “Goodbye. That was great to meet you and how lucky, and that was fun, and let's be friends.” And I say, “Yeah. Okay.” I walk away, but I know we're not going to be friends. I might not ever see her again. I know I don't think she's ever going to be a vet. And I cross and I walk away. 

 

Maybe this would have seemed like a visit from my possible future and scary, but it does the opposite. On the walk home, I'm like, “Man, that was really grim over there.” I'm going home now to my nice boyfriend. He is going to be so extra happy to see me. We have a one-bedroom apartment, and we have two trees and there's a yard, and we have this jar in the kitchen where there's loose money that we can use for anything, like we would never, ever run out of gas. 

 

I don't have a baby, so I can leave whenever I want. I smoked all seven cigarettes on the way home. People who have never smoked cigarettes just think, ick, disgusting and poison. But unless you've had them and held them dear, you don't know how great they can be, and what friends and comfort and kinship they can bring. It took me a long time to quit that boyfriend and then to quit smoking. Sometimes I still miss the smoking.