Thursday, July 4, 2013

Independence Day

July 3rd, 2013, 11:30 PM

I'm sitting outside, looking across a wide Illinois farm horizon with the stars stretching down to the ground, clear, unmurky, but a hint of dew sparkling on white-green flood lamp lit grass, miles-distant trucks reening down the parallel interstate, and I'm about to smoke my last cigarette. Ever.

I already uttered that last independent clause about 12 hours ago. I had just finished reading the book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking and was sitting outside, still on the farm, house to myself, wearing nothing but boxer shorts, and listening to Matmos' Last Delicious Cigarette. I'd even told my mother shortly before that I was about to smoke my last, an event which I was taking to be pretty sacred and which I was told to concentrate entirely on. So there I was, eyes closed, mind fully on the task at hand, and, again, mostly naked, when suddenly a pickup truck appears next to me and my mom, aunt, and grandma pile out and bustle around. I felt a little panicky, but did my best to focus. I had decided this was my last, after all. "But the ritual was broken," said a voice in my mind, right around the creepy five minute mark of the song. The monster was still crawling inside of me.

I was good all day, not without pangs or triggers but in the mindset of a non-smoker and happy to be there. The night is difficult for me. It beckons me as always. But now I end this, and then I show the night that we can be together without the middleman. At the ellipsis, I shut off the light, commune with the night, and end six years of addiction. 3, 2, 1

...

Yes, I can say positively, without fear or feeling of loss, that that was it. The ritual was completed. I lit the cigarette, took a drag, and began, as is habit, to gaze at the stars. Then I remembered my purpose, my focus. I leaned up against the chain-link fence and stared at the cherry. "This is it," I said.

"That's what you said before, yet here you are," said the cigarette.

"Yes, but this time I'm quite sure," I said.

"But look at how good I make you feel," said the cigarette. And for a brief moment, it was true. The anxiety, the feeling of something left undone, the shaky grabbiness that had compelled me towards my aunt's cigarette case (sorry, Aunt Jenny), that darkness in the back of my mind which shines through my eyes like a coyote's reflective retinas hunting in the moonlight, all were gone and replaced with a rushing calm to the brain like a cool breeze on sunburn, an electricity down the arms and legs. For that brief moment.

"But you're the source of the unease in the first place," I said, taking another drag. It did not taste good. The buzz grew uncomfortable, the lightheaded dizziness not pleasant, but closer to the feeling of the one-shot-too-many that turns you inside out. I grimaced. "No," I said, "You're not worth the trouble."

I stared into the cherry, and it pleaded with me, linking me in time and space to countless beautiful nights with a ponderous atmosphere, standing and staring in the dark and fearlessly, lovingly, wondering, breathing, being. I took another drag and countered with visions of countless more nights of lethargy, depression, hunched over and frowning into a phone or staring with a sickened and bitter look at the ground. All at once, the sinus sponginess which had dissipated throughout the day returned. Smoke drifted into my face from the tip, stinging my eyes and nostrils. I became congested.

"We're done," I said. "I almost can't believe it, but we're really done. I'm never going to see you again and I'm not going to miss you." I almost felt mean.

"But... but the ponderous nights! The work breaks! The parties and the meeting of beautiful strangers!" The cigarette's lip all a-quiver, I wondered briefly whether I'd been too harsh. I took another drag and coughed, a deep, gagging, esophageal cough, like the body can't figure out which pipe to clear. There arose a familiar ache in the back of my throat, discrete and sub-dermal.

"No, fuck that," I said. "We may have circumstantially had some good times, but you are not my friend. You're abusive and demeaning and expensive. My mind is made up."

I dragged, then stared into the cherry. It came in and out of focus. It was not as pretty as I remembered. "This is it," I said again. No response.

Drag. Stare. "This is the end." No response.

Drag. Stare. "The last time this will ever happen." Beat.

In the dark, I couldn't tell how close I was to the filter. But then I realized I didn't care. I flicked the remainder of the tobacco out and stomped the cherry. I felt a bit weak, woozy, gross... but then I smiled, and stared up at the stars. It was over, and I liked it that way.

Happy Independence Day (12:35 AM)

1 comment:

  1. I can't decide whether to delete this post or not, now that I've started smoking again...

    ReplyDelete