Decision Day: A Smoker's Story

I will try to be as prosy about all this as my English major constitution can handle. I am going to try to quit smoking (again). There, I said it. I have this diary going now, so that I can do things differently this time. The ways I have already tried don't work, and God is made up so he can't help me either.

I don't know anyone who once was as much of an addict as I am and has become a successful quitter--only lots of people who have quit many times, or who don't even think about quitting. Be back soon--gotta cook dinner after I smoke a cigarette. *Groan*

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Damn, that was some good kale and butternut squash. Too bad you weren't very hungry, David.

So here's the deal. My mother is a cancer survivor. My father is an asthmatic. They both smoke--a lot--and have since I can remember. I know mom did not smoke while she was pregnant with me, but she may as well have, since by the time I was three or four they were smoking in the house. I grew up in rural-as-fuck eastern North Carolina, where the entire local economy is based on tobacco and people sport bumper stickers that say, "Tobacco farmers are survivors, not killers." And you know, on a very important level, that is true.

Anyway, back to the sordid family medical history. I never met my aunt, my dad's sister, because she died of skin cancer before I was born. My dad's father, Grandpa Zeke, died of a heart attack when I was still a toddler. His bereaved wife, my grandmother, is currently incapacitated by a stroke, the function of which (we all know but cannot say) was to make manifest her despair, as our bodies will do. My dear, dear grandfather on my mother's side died five years ago of gut cancer while reading in his favorite white recliner after a full day of work. He was a doctor--and not some specialist either, but a military medic turned goddam bona fide family practitioner. I loved him. Shit, I loved him. Anyhow, his wife, my grandmother, had died of encephalitis when my mom was seven. Suddenly. Bam. Dead. Three young children left behind with a bunch of pretty pictures in sepia of this magical woman who had made paper dolls and written songs for money during the war...

Gus's dad and Gus are both loonies. That's my distant cousin, my former kissin' cousin. But to look at us, I wonder if there isn't some doubling back in the family tree somewhere. Anyhow, those two are totally crazy, and Gus is bound to end up in a place with clean white walls like his dad, if he doesn't off himself first.

Point being, the prognosis is not good for me. The problem with this is that I want to live to be old. Preferably really, really old--as long as I can remember my name and go to the bathroom alone. With all the genetic shit I have to worry about, it's unlikely that smoking is a sustainable part of my eighty-year plan.

I have to set this aside for now, because David and I have an after dinner date to arrange a country punk version of "Hard to Be Human" by The Mekons...

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Back again. I am on a roll this evening. It feels like bloodletting that needed to happen. Songmaking went well. I had practiced this simple little bass line so many times that I almost had it, so David seemed impressed. He is the soul of patience and other virtues. But I'll get back to him.

My little home village in eastern North Carolina was, shall we say, a tobacco-positive environment. It was expected of youngsters to pick up smoking at some point, and although I rarely hung around immediate neighbors--they tended to end up married and with child within a year of graduating high school, so I rarely found much in common with them--the force of the particular smoker-y aspect of local culture had its effect on me. I have trouble thinking of anyone from that town who isn't a smoker. And there I grew up, climbing magnolia trees, watching ants, riding horses, reading books, and often watching entirely too much television. (Once I moved out of my parents' home, I would not have a TV around me. I still haven't owned one in seven years, and have no plans to revisit that mind-suck.)

Around age thirteen, I started hanging out with older boys. I mean, to be fair, there were girls around too, but all those girls ever talked about was the boys we hung around. My cousin Derek initiated me into this weird world of future high school dropouts where guys sat around in their bedrooms, smoked pot, played video games, and stared at their tie-dyed curtains. And being thirteen, I thought that these practices must be very cool. It took me until college to enjoy smoking pot, but while associating with those boys, I certainly started (socially) smoking the occasional cigarette like I had been born to do it.

I loved the screen it provided between me and the world, me and my boredom, me and the crashing disappointment of The Other. Once I started making friends who were old enough to buy me cigarettes, it was on. I never had to be bored or anxious again! No more waiting, scratching my elbows, trying to figure out what to look at without being noticed by the wrong people in the wrong way. No need to come up with some lame excuse for why I want to go outside and get away from all these people; "I need a cigarette" is such a perfectly acceptable excuse! I never had to feel uncomfortable during those long, awkward waiting periods between the time when we arrived at some punk show (the youngest people there, and invariably, my friend trying to hook up with some boy) and when it actually started, or between sets, or on the drive home when there were way too many people in the car! I would always have something to do with my hands, a little glowing point to stare at, a slightly harsh sensation in my lungs to keep me rooted in the present spatio-temporal matrix. Or something like that.

It may not fit into this tidy narrative I am weaving. I am suspicious of my own story, because I know that nothing is so simple. Perhaps over time I will tell fifty conflicting stories that are all true. And I still haven't gotten past middle school/early high school! So many half-lies to tell to arrive back at the conclusion: it's nearly time to quit. And that's the truth, Routh. Until next time.