A SMOKE IS JUST A SMOKE

Smain lights a Barclay even though, and precisely because, he’s on the verge of expelling the meager contents of his ravaged stomach. The first bottomless drag quells his nausea as he sinks into a third-world crouch against the living room wall, his nemesis smoldering seductively between skinned knees. Damn it all to hell, he really thought he’d make it this time! Six days instantly evaporated in the smoke meandering toward his yellowed ceiling. Six edgy days estranged from his tar and nicotine coffin, but at least that lid was still open.

He hits the Barclay again, more toke than puff, and hazily recalls the sweet days of his youth and Camel no-filters in soft cellophaned packs. Now that was a smoke my friend, a real thoroughbred compared to these turds. They socked you like a locomotive at daybreak, a ‘Mickey Mantle’ homer every time. He closes his eyes and smiles his way to happier days for just a bit, and then, with the laid-back air of some 1950’s matinee idol, he taps forgotten ash onto a floor more Petri dish than anything else.

Another deep drag and he starts to analyze the disaster of his small apartment: Skeletal rattan furniture turned drunken nest for his pal Skeeter and his robust snores; a lonely tone-deaf guitar; several shoes, dingy socks and flip flops searching for mates; an unruly stack of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazines threatening collapse. Mostly he sees the bittersweet secrets of reluctant bachelorhood, random fragments of squandered possibility, and life squared.

“Skeeter…Skeeter…SKEETER! Get your ass UP!”

Smain waits for signs of life from his friend, takes another life-sucking breath from his Barclay, then expels a thick, squinty-eyed plume in Skeeter’s general direction.

“WHAAAHOOOOOOO….ack…humpf…ackkkk.”

Smain’s war cry and subsequent hacking smacks against Skeeter’s slumber and rousts him into the slightly altered state of “where-the-hell-am-I???” Smain grins at this small victory and rises unsteadily in search of caffeine.

He staggers into his kitchen, one last suck before stubbing the Barclay into the stagnant pool of his kitchen sink, and finds the jar of instant Maxwell House lurking among junk mail and Taco Bell remnants. He fills his lone sauce pan with tap water and places it on the range top…click, click, click, click, click…Damn thing won’t light! He pulls out his lighter…WHOOSH!

“FUCK!”

The rude perfume of burnt hair greets his nose, and closer inspection of his left hand reveals the absolute of yet another hangover’s hard lesson. Still, he laughs just a bit, and absentmindedly knocks another Barclay from its box. Quickly between his dry lips, hand cupped, flick, flick, effortlessly lit, another engaging first drag. His nostrils flare and shoot dragon trails of compulsion.

“Hey Schmain, bring me a cup-o-joe dude, I’m hurtin’.”

Skeeter always plunged the “ch” into the nickname Smain had self-inflicted as a kid back in the Carolinas. Smain, Schmain, it’s always the same…his well thought out replacement for “Smith,” a little incognito to assist in his escape from the ordinary.

“Hey, chill Skeet! Who’s your bitch last week?”

Smain stares across the void, mild concern spilling across his face as Skeeter withholds his usual sarcastic retort.

“Hey pal, you okay? Whata you say we hit the beach in awhile?”

Skeeter swallows his stomach’s sour objections before rasping his well-worn question;

“We gonna get some brews to take?”

Images of unraveled souls and their threadbare world skip upon the broken record of Smain’s mind, and he mutters his resignation to things in general;

“Same old shit, different day.”

Skeeter’s brow scrunches into a puzzle, not at what he didn’t quite hear, but exactly because of the unspoken ‘something’ now lying there between them like rotting carp on a river’s bank. Smain bakes from scrutiny’s flame just a bit, but quickly recovers his facade of bravado, and kicks the rotting ‘something’ into the surrounding shadows. As his trademark grin fights to the surface and erases whatever simple fears his friend had stumbled upon, he strains to hear reassurance in his words;

“Sure thing Skeet, if we can scrounge up some friggin’ dinero.”

His grin continues to drone sweet requiem for his friend, and now he hears his own voice as if from some distance;

“Water’s ‘bout ready my brother. How thick ya want it?”

Smain recedes back into the sad embrace of clutter and fermentation that is his kitchen. He measures two ripe tablespoons of promise and delivers most of it into decrepit cups, then pours in the boiled water and stirs the tonic to life. He balances the two cups and decaying cigarette against the gouge and hard grain of his life as he makes his way into the living room, smoke and steam intertwining toward some invisible destiny.

He hands Skeeter a cup as hot gray embers timber unnoticed into his own.

“What the hell, Schmain, you doing that shit again?

He waits for Schmain to shoot some ‘fallen angel’ logic his way, but hearing none, proceeds to quietly sip from his own cup of despair. He wonders about them, he and Schmain, the future, the past, how it will finally all fall together or fall apart…

“Just today Skeet, that’s all, I swear just today. Ah...af…after last night I was cravin’...I...I just really need to burn a few.”

Skeeter inspects his friend’s eyes and sees only the stammer of other truths and faded dreams staring back…And Smain, not knowing what else to do, can only look away, maybe to some long ago place before all the stiff ‘what ifs’ and subtle ‘should haves’ appeared. Smain nods in silent agreement with something…then hoists the Barclay and inhales his life.