Tag Archives: Smoking

For Christ Sake

3 Replies

A rainy day and I’m not bitter. I was bitter yesterday and a tad resentful but time heals most wounds and I’m feeling alright. Definitely did not go out and play guitar today, and definitely did not respond to any acting/singing/monologue improvisation suggestions.

Today with the weather and the melatonin, made for getting out of bed quite difficult. I remember Bill leaning over me, kissing me goodbye and telling me how good I looked and then back to sleep, eventually waking up to the sounds of the Electric Light Orchestra singing Telephone Line.

That brought me back to 1976, being in a car with a kid, Paul Gaulvin, who lived a block or so away from me in Rochelle Park. I didn’t know Paul Gaulvin at all and was sort of forced into being his friend by my father who worked with Paul’s father in some capacity.

Paul’s mother was driving us somewhere when Telephone Line came on the radio. The mother was the boss of that household, the father your basic milquetoast. I believe there was an older sister in Paul’s life and they fit the nuclear template quite well, Paul and his sister fighting like cats and dogs.

Ultimately Paul and I never had much in common. We experimented with cigarettes when we were 14 years old and I remember Paul buying a pack of Camels saying that they were good because they had hashish in them.

Though Paul and I went to the same high school, we really didn’t hang out with each other, he was in a smarter class and I wasn’t. I also remember the last time I hung out with Paul, at his graduation party 29 years ago, where I got so drunk that I fell flat on my back.

There I was talking to someone and next thing I knew, I was looking up at the sky. Paul’s mother made sure I got home safely, having Paul and maybe someone else walk me home over the Route 80 overpass. Last night Bill came home just in time to catch the 11:00 news.

He asked me if I had heard from my brother Frank and I said I hadn’t. I fell into the old family trap of ‘I’m always calling him. Why should I call again?’ That in turn prompted a discussion of my family, how things were different for Frank being the oldest and me being the youngest.

Basically, by the time I came of age my parents were tired of raising kids and I was left pretty much to myself. Of course I was also living a double life, a life that my family still doesn’t know about. And that’s probably how it should be.

Somethings are better off unknown.

I do recall telling Frank about some aspect of my growing up and living a secret life and that flipped him out quite a bit. That was then, this is now and I live a quiet life, content to stay at home and watch TV.

And tonight I will be watching the penultimate episode of Lost which will hopefully be an improvement on last week’s episode.

In the hallway

In the hallway


in the rain

in the rain

Da Butt

5 Replies

Ok, I have a swollen face. Well it was really swollen this morning. It’s gone down considerably. Things have improved a lot between Bill and myself. Last night I took a nap from 5:30 to about 10:00. Saw Bill and went to bed an hour later. So it was cool. Still have some ways to go but he’s working on it.

I haven’t had a cigarette in over 24 hours and that is an accomplishment. I do enjoy holding one, but no lighting. Holding one is enough. If I could get off cigarettes I would be impressed. The cigars are an occasional thing though.

I certainly don’t mind being around smokers and in midtown Manhattan, outside of most office buildings there are a lot of smokers mingling. The thing is I always liked smoking. I wanted to do it when I was just a kid. I was surrounded by smokers since most everyone smoked back then. It was alright. In junior and senior year of high school, we could smoke in out designated smoking area.

Smoking saved my butt also. In summer school between junior and senior year having cigarettes helped me win favor from the ‘cool’ kids so much so, that when the regular sessions began in the fall, I wasn’t picked on so much since the cool kids liked me. For my cigarettes of course. Having 2 parents that smoked made sure that I wouldn’t be out of cigarettes. I must have had my first cigarette when I may have been about 10 years old.

Johnny Serpone, a neighbor and I plotted out stealing a pack of cigarettes from his parents and riding down to Industrial Lane on a Saturday afternoon and have our first puffs. I barely had a puff before I was wracked with guilt and fear and rode my bicycle home, gulping in as much air and running to the kitchen faucet when I got home to drink as much water as possible.

At various points in my childhood I was hanging out with juvenile delinquent smokers. At the Boys Club which was supposed to be where boys could get away from bad influences, I went out of my way to find the bad influences. Also outside the VFW where my parents hung out. Found myself outside with some naer do wells sneaking illicit puffs. I was found out though, but I doubt my siblings remember.

Everyone smoked. It was everywhere. You could smoke in the bank, in the supermarket, movie theaters were great places to smoke. Hospitals, doctor’s offices, buses, trains, restaurants. They frowned on places of worship, though one had to wonder where they got the ashes for Ash Wednesday. Having a cigarette was a good way to meet people, and not just oncologists.

You could ask someone for a light, and perhaps strike up a conversation or more. Or when cigarettes were cheaper you could bum a cigarette from someone or they could bum from you. Nowadays, people offer you money for a cigarette, sometimes a quarter, but lately a dollar.

Me, I rolled my own. Sometimes people would ask for a cigarette and I would offer a ready rolled cigarette. More often than not they would refuse, proving that beggars could be choosers. So, it’s been over 24 hours, been holding a cigarette, not lighting it. Feels good just to hold it. I guess it’s like Baretta. All I need is a cockatoo. Or was that a typo?