Eyes Too Deranged To Bum A Cigarette From
By Mikel K


He makes me nervous. The strong possibility exists, I think to myself, that he is sliding some of the product down his own throat, and is hallucinating, right there behind the counter. He has the look of a madman.

I've seen eyes like those before, while I was pacing the God-forsaken halls of state mental institutions; eyes too deranged to even stop their mad walk, and try to bum a cigarette from you. Eyes that had committed suicide, but failed.

Can you imagine killing yourself and not making it to hell? Can you imagine killing yourself and waking up there: a place worse than hell? They don't care about you there,though they would tell the people responsible for funding them that they do.

The lighter there is funny. It works, but you can't burn the place down with it. Residents gather around it, like Indians must have the campfire, until the Cowboys killed them all.

In jail, inmates ask each other what they are in for. In there, the only communication is to try and bum a cigarette. From a.m. to p.m. residents walk the floor, bumping into each other, asking each other over and over, "Got a cigarette? Got a cigarette?" This was back when you could smoke in there. I don't know what it is like now.

Everybody lies. Nobody has a cigarette, until smoke break; then everybody gathers around the campfire to light a smoke.

When you are a mental patient, you become acutely aware that the folks on the other side of the thick glass window are also sick, maybe not sick like you, but sick none the less. You become aware that the mad are treating the mad. The only difference is that they can smoke when they want to. They don’t have to wait until the smoke bell rings. Wait that is wrong; they are prisoners, too. They can only smoke at lunchtime, or on their fifteen minute breaks if they get breaks.

On the outside, everybody assumes that everybody is normal. You try to believe it, but guys like this one, behind the counter, at the pharmacy,make you see it differently.

You wonder how they let him so close to the pills. You know that he is like a little kid trusted with a bunch of candy, destined to fail that trust, and break into that candy; destined to stick his hand in and sample the goods that he has been trusted to watch.

Can't they see it?
Who does the hiring around here?

The madman tells me that it will be just a few minutes more.
If I still smoked, I would use the time to step outside and light up. I step outside, anyway, for a breath of fresh air. It's good to not be locked up. It's nice that I could light one up, if I wanted to.

I guess drugs were responsible for getting me locked up. Looking back on it, though, I was crazy before I did my first drug, before I took that very first drink. It doesn’t matter now. What matters now is the look on the kid’s face when I walk in the door. That smile. The kid is always happy to see dad. The kid doesn’t know dad as a violent blackout drunk. The kid didn’t see dad getting handcuffed on Friday night,
struggling with both the officer and the handcuffs; kicking the walls, punching the walls with angry fists, waking up the next morning in his own cell, in his own

blood and puke. The kid didn’t see dad on Monday

morning standing in front of yet another judge to find

out what he had done on Friday night that got him

locked up for the weekend, again.

Sick way to live. Over and over repeating

the same behavior, expecting different results. It’s

crazy, man. Who would choose to live like that? The

uncertainties that a black out drunk faces. The

certainties.

What do you care about this? Why am I

whining?

You care about cars and houses. College

educations for the kids.

There is a guy standing outside near me. He is

smoking. It sure looks good. You can stuff some really

lousy emotions with a strong filter cigarette. I won’t let

people smoke in my car. It is not so much that I mind

the smoke, but that I am scared of the smoke. It still

smells good to me. Six fucking long and hard years to

quit the shit and can you imagine that it still smells

good to me?

I used to wake up after a night on the

booze, hungover as hell, coughing red blood into the

white sink. I would curse and then crumple the pack

of cigarettes into the trash can and then head back to

the mattress to try and sleep off all the shit feelings.

Around four or five, I’d wake up and crawl to the

trashcan and try to piece together one of the

crumpled cigarettes.

I was strung out.

I started smoking for the stupidest reason.

When I was a kid, before the Surgeon General’s

warning came out saying that it could kill you, my old

man smoked a pipe and he blew these immaculate

smoke rings from his pipe. This used to fascinate me.

It was like a circus trick of some sort. In college, my

roommate, freshman year, could blow immaculate

smoke rings out of his cigarette. Getting fucked up on

a Friday, about at the end of the first six pack, I

decided that I wanted to blow immaculate smoke

rings.

My roommate taught me how to blow smoke

rings and within a week I was puffing on near a pack

a day. For over twenty years, every fucking cigarette

that I smoked, I blew immaculate smoke rings.

One trick that I employed trying to quit was to quit

buying cigarettes. “Hey, got a cigarette,” was the thing

now. I became a panhandler of filter cigarettes. I

could bum one off a three piece suit. I could bum one

off a punk rocker or skin head. I got to where I would

only ask for my brand and if you didn’t have it, I would

turn you down. Go figure.

The kid is the reason I quit. He hated it. He

was like four of five years old and he hated that his

daddy smoked and he let daddy know it. Prayer and

tooth picks were what worked for me. For a while I

was like a pack or two a day of toothpicks. I guess I

was orally fixated. Cigarettes are fucked. I wonder if

the madman has my lithium ready?

This guy smoking outside the pharmacy here

looks like he has got it made, but I know that he

doesn’t. Time is on the cigarette’s side. The guy will

enjoy the smokes for a long time, and then one day

he will realize that he is strung out on them and that

they aren’t fun anymore, but he still has to smoke

them. Having to do anything sucks.

I have to take these pink pills that the madman is

putting together for me. They keep me from running

around the mental institution bumming cigarettes. I

bet that if I ever went back into the loony bin, and if

they still let you, that I would smoke in there. I mean

what the hell, if you’re crazy, you might as well

smoke.

Don’t you think?