Like a lover, Charlie took a long pull off of his cigarette, and even though the thing was so hot the filter was practically melting, he was trying to enjoy the damned thing. A full time quitter, Charlie was going to quit ‘after this pack’ almost every day, and this was definitely one of those days.
Poor Charlie! Someone was always on his neck about smoking, but nobody was harder on Charlie than Charlie.
”Hey dude, spare a cig?”
Charlie stopped. Finally, someone who wasn’t going to look down at him for smoking, the type of someone who had become such a rarity to find on the street anymore. Here on the park bench was a common sight; an urban hobo, but this bold hobo was a kindred smoker, societal scorn be damned!
The bum didn’t look like the typical hobo from the park, but did have a look about him that suggested that he spent a lot of time on the benches of the city, and a look that suggested that he wasn’t going to have a lighter. Charlie handed him one of the full-flavors from his troublesome pack.
”Thanks man... got a light?”
Once well lit, the bum glanced up at the filter on Charlie’s fuming cig, scorched and flattened between anxious fingers. Charlie’s was a nervous hand, twitching with fierce worry, and the smoking hobo seemed to recognize the twitch.
Charlie then learned that the hobo’s name was Rich.
At the same time, Charlie was smoking the shit out of that cig. Sitting down next to Rich, Charlie was smoking more, but enjoying it less.
A Story About Hundreds of Nuclear Explosions
Rich couldn’t help but notice Charlie’s billowing display, and reading the smoke signals, he began to tell a tale to Charlie; a tale of nuclear testing in the deserts of the great Southwest, titanic explosions sending a plume of radioactive isotopes across the bread belt of the USA, and into the lungs of an unsuspecting population.
“Ten years, they blew that white sand into the sky, and for ten years it headed east, precipitating and settling back into the earth.”
Pointing to an imagined piece of dust, Rich dramatically went on. “Ten years, we breathed those little bits into our lungs, and for ten years, nobody dared mention the dangers of breathing those bits of metal that had settled across the nation following the hundreds of explosions in the sand, the prevailing westerly winds dutifully heaving the mess with their usual persistence, right down the pipes of the breathing masses.”
Charlie’s face-- dear Charlie! He’d turned a sickly tone, his forgotten jaw dangling in the breeze. This was a horrifying story, no doubt, and trying not to breath, Charlie’s eyes begged for the radioactive story to go away now.
Here was where Rich suggested the antidote, and it was the medicine that Charlie needed.
“You ever have a radioactive isotope settle into one of your lungs, Charlie?”
Still looking ill, still holding his breath, Charlie shook his head no.
“You ever get the smoker’s hack, Charlie? Coughing up chunks of goo from smoking?”
Charlie nodded meekly. A mischievous smile came across Rich’s face, and with a squint, he asked quietly; “You ever think that maybe those cigs are keeping the heavy metal dust out of your lungs, Charlie? Is it possible that you’ve saved yourself, and instead of keeping that radioactive dust inside of you, you get it out of there like a pro? Can I get an Ahem? ”
Charlie already looked better. Clearing his throat with a hearty harrumph, and with a handful of astronomically huge conspiracies now skipping around in his head, he held up an unlit full-flavor king-size with new appreciation, and looked at Rich with an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that these cigarettes are actually good for me?”
Rich’s smile of encouragement faded. “God hell no! Those things are designed to give you cancer... you ever see how many poisons they add to those coffin nails? A carcinogenic playlist of chemicals is needed just to make the paper burn in those fuckers.”
Rich did bum one more of those deadly cigs off of Charlie before getting up to “get back to work.” Charlie gave him the lighter, and thought about lighting one for himself, but stopped. No need for a cigarette-- just had one.
Charlie must have sat on that bench for an hour before he finally decided to light another one of his cigarettes, but new troubles had found their way to him already. Poor Charlie! That hobo had stolen his lighter.
story is original fiction, photos are mine, 2018
