Buzz Pounds

…of death surrounds you

I hate the smell.  Cigarette smoke lingers in the apartment, and I must play outside to get away from it.  At age 5 the smoke seems almost natural, but the scar I have from running into a lit cigarette isn’t.  It hurts no worse than the time I ran into a hot frying pan or when I fell out of bed.  Most of the scars have healed, even if it they are not visible.

After 6 years in foster homes, I go back to live with my mom.  She has a boyfriend social services doesn’t know about.  They both smoke and drink.  In eighth grade I take up smoking to hang with the in crowd.  We go to the bowling alley and play pool and pinball.  We shoplift cigarettes and the occasional cigar.  I never really get the hang of inhaling.  I’d like to be an athlete.  Next year I play church league ball.  I play tennis in high school.  I’m never as good at sports as I was at pool.

I ask my mom what’s for dinner.  She asks if I could run to the convenience store on the corner and get cigarettes from the lenient counter clerk.  I’d rather not.  My step-dad, Lee, gives me a couple bucks to walk over to the drive-in.  Must be payday.  They spend the evening in the tavern; I spend it watching the creature feature.  I’m in bed before closing time.

Every day stale smoke lingers in the morning air.  On school days, I sleep on the couch until they have gone to work.  The sunlight highlights the nicotine stains in the corner of the window.  I take a shower at school, but the smell never really leaves.  My clothes are filmy, and I wonder if anyone really notices.  I don’t date.

I graduate, go to college, and become a vegetarian.  Mom offers me a hot dog.  I smoke cigars with my step-dad at Christmas.  It’s the only thing we have in common, except my mom.

Mom has another nervous breakdown.  I visit her in the Oregon State Hospital.  The halls smell of ammonia; the lounge smells like home.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed here.  I don’t see McMurphy; Nurse Ratchett rations out cigarettes.  Mom wants me to bring some, as they are the currency of the institution.  I refuse.  My uncle is not as resolute.  The carton he sent last week is gone.  I hope Mom is owed.

            My stepfather is dying of lung cancer.  He smokes non-filter Camels and takes methadone.  Methadone is used so he will not become addicted.  The cancer is terminal, and he dies a few months later.  Still smoking his non-filter Camels.

I’ve moved on.  I get that call at 3 in the morning that’s never good.  My uncle tells me that mom had some kind of accident.  She was smoking in bed and is now on life support.  I fly to Portland.  It’s my decision—we take her off the machines, and she dies of smoke inhalation.  The irony is overwhelmingly tacky.  The organ-donor people salvage what they can, and we have her cremated.  Her ashes will be spread in the community memorial garden.  Ashes to ashes . . . .  Still ironic.  Still tacky.

            My friend Denny and I visit her trailer.  Too many 40-ounce beer bottles are on the porch.  The neighbors chastise Denny and insist I enter the trailer first as the relative of the deceased.  Smoke has stained the walls, and everything feels of stickiness and tar.  I collect a few pictures of the family and of the new grandson she will never meet.  It is understood that whatever I leave will be picked over by the friends and neighbors.  I really don’t care if the television works or not.

Mom’s papers are in a box in some corner of my basement, and her jewelry is in a charcoal-colored box I made in woodshop back when I smoked.  I really hate the smell.

Dr. Buzz R. Pounds (University of Louisville) is an Associate Professor of English at Lewis University, where he teaches composition, rhetoric, and writing as well as directs the first year writing program. His interests lie in creative non-fiction and humor.