Smoke Signals

"I'm glad you've made this decision."

"Thank you," I said. I didn't mean it at the time.

"Quitting smoking is a difficult undertaking for a man your age, especially considering how long the habit has been present." Dr. McDonough had eye glasses that reflected how long he had been practicing medicine. "Are you really serious about this?"

"Not really. I think it's worth considering, though."

"I see." He didn't see. "Then why, may I ask, are you here?"

"For the consideration," I said.

The examination room was not sterile. Not to say that it was unclean, but rather is was like most other rooms. There was a table, a couple chairs, a desk. These are all things typical of a living room. Everyone describes doctor's offices and hospitals as sterile, which is really just a more intellectual way of saying white. The room was white, I will say that.

My blood pressure was normal. Good news. Then he checked my pulse, ears, eyes, then mind. Though he didn't come right out and say it, I think he was most concerned with the latter.

"Well, let's talk about your smoking habits. It may help us develop a strategy for. . . um, Rory, I'm sorry, but you can't do that here."

Yes, I had lit a cigarette in the doctor's office. In part it was instinctual, but I also realized the irony of the situation and couldn’t help but capitalize on it.

"My apologizes." I put it out on the side of the examination table.

"It's alright. So, how long have you been a smoker, exactly?"

I had my first cigarette when I was ten years old, mentally and physically ripe for addiction. As I did often, I was watching a cat and a mouse on television. Jerry, that rascal, was always causing Tom trouble, leading to exciting chase and evasion. Despite his best efforts, Tom could never catch Jerry. It was like watching a master magician practice his craft. In the particular episode I was watching, Jerry ran and ran and ran, but stopped to take a break. With disregard to the danger at hand, he kicked back, closed his eyes with quiet satisfaction, and lit up a cigarette.

Why on God's green earth would he do that? I thought. Taking four or five moments contemplation, it dawned on me. Jerry, in the face of constant danger and dismemberment, needed something to control his destiny. He was able to elude certain death time after time, so it was only fair to give death a spitting chance. Maybe smoking could kill him.

Filled with a similar air of infallibility, I decided to follow in Jerry's footsteps. Certain that no force outside my own authority would be able to end me, I figured it was time to start smoking.

I probably seemed out of place at the convenience store. Anytime you see a child alone in a public place there's something odd about it. My candor and forthrightness no doubt added to the perplexity of the situation. I approached the store attendant with a five dollar bill confidently pinned in my fingertips.

"I'd like a pack of cigarettes," I said. On some level, it must have been cute.

Ray, as indicated by his embroidered work vest and graying facial hair, looked at me long and hard, the hard being most prominent. "No," he said.

My mother had taught me manners. How impolite of me! "Please, may I buy a pack of cigarettes?"

"How old are you, kid?"

"Ten."

"I'm not selling you smokes."

"I don't see why not." I went on to explain my perspective on the situation. Simply put, if a cartoon mouse can smoke, then why can't I? My argument was clear and well-stated. Plus, I continued, if I had the inclination to smoke at ten years old, it would likely still be present later in life, at a time when it would be permissible to sell them to me. In that case, why not let me take the risk now in the hopes that I'll use my better judgment to stop?

It worked.

"Don't tell your mother where you got them, okay?"

I believe Dr. McDonough was exhausted with me at this point, but he nonetheless pressed on with his inquiries. He had stopped taking notes minutes ago.

"Okay. How much would you estimate you smoke on a day to day basis?"

"An estimate," I pondered. "Somewhere between twenty-five and forty cigarettes a day, depending on the weather." It was such a nice day outside. I had to restrain from lighting up in the office again.

"So on some days upwards of two packs. That's a lot, Rory. Do you smoke first thing in the morning?"

"Of course. I like to start my days off dying."

That one really got him. Stifled for words, he began to jot down another note, but interrupted himself with a frustrated objection. "You do know it will kill you, right? At this point it's pretty much inevitable."

I disagreed. People say that smoking will kill you, but that's just not true. Cancer kills you. Emphysema kills you. When someone dies in car accident, they don't say the victim died because of poor motorist skills. They say he died in a car accident. That being said, there was always something comforting in knowing the direction in which my death was headed. Like Jerry, I knew nothing could take me but my own will, and my will was smoking.

"Good luck," Dr. McDonough told me. I have no way to prove it, but I wager he murmured something under his breath after I walked out the door. "Asshole," he probably said.

The sun made me warm and the breeze made me cool. It was just as beautiful outside as it had been when I arrived. With a spark and a deep inhale, I took in the flavorful aroma of my seventeenth cigarette of the day. One step closer to sealing my own fate. Boy-oh-boy, it tasted good.

I reached the sidewalk, beginning on my trail home, when something caught my eye. In the middle of the street, flattened and no longer breathing, I spotted a once-living creature. Intrigued, I took a step towards the striped yellows lines of the four-lane highway and knelt down to observe the unfortunate victim. It was a mouse.

"Never smoked in your life, did you?" I ask her, not expecting a reply.

She had been hit by a car.

Then I was hit by a car.

Days later, I woke up in the hospital. The luxury of getting in a near fatal accident outside a doctor's office is that the care is immediate and very professional. A nurse called an ambulance; the ambulance came and whisked me away for emergency medical attention. I suffered numerous cuts and bruises, a few fractured rip bones, and rough bump to the noggin. An EMT I wasn't sure what he meant by "legally", so I refrained from asking any questions, seeing as how my lawyer was not present. on the scene later explained to me that for a matter of thirty seconds or so, I was legally deceased.

As might be assumed, the last thing I remember prior to being driven through was asking the mouse a rhetorical question. (I consider it rhetorical because I was really the only one there.) However, if the mouse did speak English, she would have likely answered with, "No, Rory. I have not ever smoked a cigarette." To the contrary, I had. I had smoked a lot of them. Then I lived through a fatal collision. In large part, my hypothesis had been proven. If I was going to die, I'd have to create the stimulus myself. I'd have to keep sucking in smoke.

There in my hospital coffin, I thought about Jerry and how he was indestructible. No matter how many times Tom gave chase, Jerry always came out ahead. What I realized, though, during my weeks in recovery, is that Jerry had never been hit by an automobile. In fact, he had never incurred more than a minor injury. He didn't just evade death, he evaded all situations that could possibly lead to it. I couldn't avoid that car. Well, I could have opted not to walk into the middle of a busy street, but once that car came barreling down on me, I had no escape. Jerry would have gotten himself out of the way, I'm sure of it. Or, maybe he would have ended up just like his comrade who never puffed a cigarette in her life. Either way, it put things into a new perspective for me.

After twenty-three days I was released from the hospital with a clean bill of health. Much like being released from prison, I was reissued my personal belongings—a musty flannel shirt, gray sneakers, blue jeans, and a nearly empty pack of cigarettes. I jingled the contents of the flip-top box like a child's rattle as I approached the sliding glass doors. My motion asked them to open and a burst of fresh air was released into my tar-ridden lungs. To my left, the plump, young face of a little boy stole my attention. Our eyes made contact as he sat there, legs dangling freely in his waiting room chair. Without a word spoken between us, I tossed him the pack of cigarettes. Hope you have better luck with them than I did, I thought.

Once I was settled back at home, I wrote Dr. McDonough a letter. These were the words I used:

Thanks for the advice. My lungs feel better, but I have no idea how I'm going to die.