Topic: Addictions

Author: Chris Dunn

My gas light is on, so I turn the car off and let it idle in the dark. Enough heat lingers to keep me warm, and Jill shouldn’t be much longer. Sh’s just going in to buy one of those vape cartridge dealies. She can go right to the register. As long as there isn’t a crowd of kids wanting shakes and ice cream cones, it shouldn’t be long.

A young kid wanders the parking lot approaching exiting customers for brief conversations before returning to his perch, - spanging, I assume. Worried he might spot me sitting in the car, I crane my neck around to try to see into the United Dairy Farmers hoping to gauge how much longer it will be. “Dairy Farmers”, or UDF, is a bit of a joke. Sure, they still sell a little scooped ice cream and advertise malt specials, but like any other convenient store their primary purpose is dispensing drugs – nicotine and alcohol. And I suppose you might as well pick up some coffee filters while you’re there, save a trip and only four dollars over what the grocery would charge. You know, for the convenience.

I can’t see her so I settle back hoping the kid will miss me and move on. I watch him head across the street to hassle folks at the nearby gas station, it dawns on me. This UDF has a particular significance in my own smoking history. This is the store where I had purchased my first pack of cigarettes, ones that were wholly my own. Up untill then, I had been getting by smoking Kit and Drew’s OPs, but Drew had been not so subtly hinting that that shit was getting a little tired. We were there. They were buying some. And I wanted one – god did I want one! I believe they cost $1.65 at the time. I swore that if the price ever got over $2 a pack, I would quit.

This was ten years into my addiction. I had always been a social smoker. My earliest exposure was thanks to Mark Voss. Wanting to be cool, I choked through my first few cigarettes with him in a tiny park, coincidently just a block away from where I currently live. We were 12. We got Drew involved, and when his cousin Tracy came to town. I found the knack. I wasn’t going to be the prude off on the side NOT smoking as we hid behind the grocery store being bad. Oh, those first lustful longings! I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with her, but I was certain I needed to be cool to have a chance. So, we smoked and coughed and felt sick while I tried to determine if I could see through her shirt. Of course, she wound up with Mark, and I wound up getting caught smoking by my mother. I really believed that if you put a fan in the window, no one could tell!

There followed ten years of sobriety, until I discovered Kit was a smoker. He’d gamed with us for over a year, keeping it a secret. In this circle, smoking was decidedly uncool, and he had really wanted to fit it. He fit in quite well, after college he would become my monogamous, life partner for nearly 20 years. Gaming brought us together, but it was the cigarettes which brought us close. I remember we were sitting in the parking lot of the Famous Recipe Chicken on Goodman Avenue. I had already opened the box and broken off a piece of the still hot and crispy breading – as was my ritual – when he lit up. I looked at it. Looked at the dash. Thought about my mother. Looked at him. Watched the passing traffic. Smelled the smoke. “Can I get one of those?” I asked.

How long it went from there, it’s hard to strictly say. There were periods of sobriety throughout twenty-five years or so, one lasting three solid years. I made several pacts with myself, several dares to quit, several tests, that should these specific circumstances come to pass – that would be the end of it. Until the end of this lighter… Until they hit $3 per pack... When I get back from Europe... If I get this job… Mark would join the army and move away. Kit would find true love and move out. Who knows whatever became of Tracy… But the smoking endured.

I’ve done a lot of different drugs over the years. The gateways, the hard stuff… No heroin or cocaine, mind you, I’m not an idiot. But none of them calls to me like nicotine. I could get high… Or not. I like a few beers now and then, but if you told me never again, it wouldn’t kill me. And sure, I miss our yearly rituals with LSD and others, but I’m not a young man anymore, and they can be exhausting. But cigarettes are about simplicity and community. We share and we breath and while the smoke lingers in our veins, nothing else really matters as much as it seemed to before. Sure the world will come crashing back in, but these next fifteen minutes are mine. Very centering…

Almost two years ago to this day, my mother passed away, instead of turning to nicotine, I quit. It all just seemed suddenly stupid. To be honest everything at that time seemed empty and meaningless, so I decided to seize on the opportunity and at least have one good thing come of it. Since then, I’ve been good. The odd smoke bummed from friends (Kit, Curtis, Neal) at the end of the night, shared as we recounted the finished gaming session or a handful imbibed during a night when one drink becomes several and you just want the party to roll on, sleep be damned! Other than those minor slips – which I feel will always be with me – I’ve been good.

The car door opens and Jill hops back in the car. I engage the engine and pull quickly into traffic. Jill is already puffing on her vape pen, or maybe not. I am pointedly not looking.