The Day I Quit Smoking

The Day I Quit Smoking

By: George Gonzalez

Today I quit smoking.

That’s all I can think about as I sit here chewing on the end of my pen ferociously wishing it were injecting my lungs with sweet nicotine or at least succeeding in quelling a dedicated smoker’s oral fixation.

Today I quit smoking.

I can’t stop my leg from tapping out a morose code of misery. I’m staring at a woman bent over in the middle of a circle of women (all bent over as well, all wearing togas and moaning as they touch themselves to the scene behind them) her double D’s bouncing beautifully as a statuesque bald god made of what looks like concrete plows into her from behind and all I can think is:

Today I quit smoking. 

That may not seem significant to you. Let me explain.

I have been smoking rather prolifically since I was ten years old. I am now thirty. Addicted is putting it lightly.  I can easily rip through a carton in two days, one if I have a presentation due. I smoke at every meal at every sporting event at every trip to the park with the kids. As I sit in a movie theatre I dart my eyes at my watch and ascertain a lull time in which very little will progress throughout the plot. Fuck non-smoking airplanes. They are hell incarnate.

What I am trying to say is that cigarettes and me are as one. We live and breathe for each other. At the end of a hard day they’re there to help me relax. After sex or a good meal they are there to draw an exclamation point. I would sooner quit eating then quit smoking.

That’s not to say that I haven’t attempted it about a billion times. I remember the last time I tried. I was sitting at home, the kids were asleep, my wife was finishing up in the kitchen, and our cat, Cornelius, was sitting on my lap. I always hated that horrible hairball and that day he decided that he was too old for a litter box. Cigarettes and I had been forcibly torn apart for an entire week at this point and when I felt that warm liquid pour out over my leg the entire world lost its color. The living room was black and white and all that existed was this cat and myself.  Consequences and responsibility had not traveled with us.

I remember afterwards, staring at the TV screen perplexed, wondering why smoke billowed from its hollow face. Why sparks shot from it and crackled to the floor and why my wife was screaming. It was a mess in there; fur and blood covered the jagged slivers of glass that had managed to hold on. We told the kids he ran away.

So, you may ask, what’s so different about this time? Well yesterday I came home to an empty house. On my dining room table there were three items: a picture of my wife and our two beautiful little girls at the zoo last summer, a pack of Camel Filters, and between the two, written on a yellow legal pad, the word CHOOSE. 

I smoked that entire pack in an hour and went to sleep.

Whilst I sit at my dead end cubicle surfing Internet porn my eyes dart at the time at the corner of the screen. It’s a habit I’ve developed: there is a smoke break close at hand. I can sense time ripple around me like a blind anglerfish sensing its prey swim through the water. As one approaches me my stomach tightens and mouth becomes dry.  I am simultaneously hungry and thirsty. The desire is insatiable.

Luckily Lucy, always assiduous, plops pounds of ornamental paperwork before me blocking bodacious bosoms from view. My mind is wrenched away from my pain until she smiles at me and I notice, with pangs of jealousy, the nicotine stains on her teeth. No wonder she’s always so cheery. I smile back but avoid showing my teeth. My smile is full of acid and I can feel it dripping at the corners carving canyons of dimples into my face.

She turns on her hoofed feet and walks back towards her office, her little fluffy tail wagging with jubilation.  I push the stack against the wall where it can hang with the rest of the mountains of tree corpses littering my desk and turn my mind back to quietly suffering.

My stomach rumbles as I fly away from Naked Chicks Taking Huge Dicks and open up my email. It’s long passed lunch but I refuse to eat. Meals sadden me so. I can still taste my breakfast from this morning: bacon and eggs and toast all made to perfection at Danny’s Diner, as they are every morning. Except today was different. Except today the eggs tasted like gooey mucus the bacon was stiff sand and the toast tasted of clay no matter how much butter I applied to its surface. My after breakfast cigarette, endowed with the power to melt together the delicate seams of a good meal, absent, I left Danny’s Diner unfulfilled and angry. Who could I blame for the travesty that was that breakfast? Who could I sue for destroying my favorite meal of the day?

I stare down the list of boldfaced names screaming unopened on my email list and find one amongst the thousands that isn’t “work related.”  It’s an email dated last night from my friend Rick. To say we’re friends is an understatement. I’ve known the guy since I was born I think. We grew up next door to each other; our parents were always at odds.

Arguments over property lines, noise, Christmas decorations and once whether or not his dad had been looking a little too closely at my mom as she sunbathed seemed to further solidify our fondness of each other and our hatred of them.

A stolen pack of Marlboro Reds from Rick’s dad was my first encounter with my mistress. I did not respond to it as Rick did: with heaves and coughs and retching galore. I loved the taste immediately and the energy and confidence and euphoria I experienced could not be beat.

The email read simply: I can’t remember what today is but I’m sure its something important otherwise why the fuck would I be writing to your bitchass?

Ah Rick, how I do miss your douchiness.

Well Happy whatever. You should be getting something in the mail. Just a gesture that says Die Quick! Save the rest of us a lot of anguish. LOL. Have a good one dude.

I smile as I fly away from my email and open Barely Legal. Lucy, with her golden teeth shining like a beacon for all those lost in a tumultuous sea of enduring agony, disrupts my thoughts as I feel her tits rub against the back of my shirt. I turn my head in time to be attacked by her lips, her tongue a slippery giant within my mouth. All I taste is Marlboro Smooths.

I pull away and grunt: “Not here,” and turn back to my porn. On the screen are two girls in pigtails sixty-nineing on a Beauty and the Beast bedspread. The entire room is painted cotton candy pink.  I usually cringe at this point in anticipation of her voice but today I invite it like a masochist eager for his punishment.

“Well fuuuuck you theeeen. “

As a child a stray dog attacked her and her vocal chords had never fully recovered where it had bit down and shook her like a rag doll. As a result when she speaks her voice is low and tends to reverberate within her throat making an uncomfortable braying sound like that of sheep.

“Jewwwwdith waaaants to see you.”

Everything in my body clenches at once at the sound of that woman’s name. Judith. I often imagine her sitting in her high backed crimson office chair with a pitchfork in one hand and a headless baby in the other, its stump showering her with blood. Why did I have to be called into her office today of all days? Did I do something horribly wrong in a past life to deserve this? Was I at some point Hitler?

I automatically open my desk drawer although I already know what I’m going to find. There’s my wallet and cell phone and an empty space reserved for my therapist. I grab my cell and tuck it in my pocket hoping the reassuring bulge is enough to hold off a nervous breakdown. I pop two small squares of nicotine gum into my mouth and slap on a fresh patch. It does nothing to quell my anxiety. Fuck my life.

My hands are sweaty and they slip on the doorknob as I attempt to open the gates of Hell. I rub my hands on my slacks and let out a sigh as I open the door. There she sits hunched over and scribbling furiously. I could never get use to the horrible smell of sulphur that hung stale in the air now it plagues me with every eruption that bursts forth from her monstrous horns. The blinds are drawn and the room is cast in darkness except for her huge red oak city of a desk which is illuminated by a single lamp.

She lifts her head as I walk in and motions me to sit on one of the tiny seats in front of her desk. I sit quietly and look around the room nervously all the while feeling her eyes burn into me through her horn-rimmed glasses. Evaluating me like a bug she should have squashed a long time ago.

“Do you know why I’ve asked you into my office today?” she asks.

I pretend to think of an adequate answer and reply, “Nope.”

She sits back into her winged chair and is immediately swallowed by darkness. “I got a call from the police today Clark. They wish to speak with you. Now you know very well that I do not condone criminal behavior in my workspace. Your work has been unsatisfactory to put it lightly and don’t think I am not aware of what’s going on between you and dear sweet Lucy. Now you know that I am a patient and merciful woman Clark but you are testing my generosity. Now, out of the goodness of my heart, and of course to save you a lot of grief, you and your Family that is, I am giving you a chance to explain yourself.”

She leans forward and looks deep into my eyes and, in a failed attempt to look motherly and caring, squints her eyes, lays her hands palms up on the table and says, “Now tell me what is this all about.”

“What is what all about exactly? I don’t follow what the problem is here. Now if you’re asking me to work harder okay I’ll do that but this stuff about the cops and Lucy.” I shrug in what I hope is an incredulous manner.

She looks at me, licks her fangs, and shakes her head as she returns to the darkness at the back of her chair. “Well then Mr. Winston it seems there is no more for us to discuss here. If you would quickly clean out your desk and leave this office that would be much appreciated.”

A steady torrent of anger, fear, disgust and indignation floods me and before I can think straight I stand up, grab her lamp, and throw it against the wall.

“Are you fucking crazy…” is all she has time to say before I bellow, “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?! TELLING ME HOW I SHOUD LIVE MY LIFE AND WHO I SHOULD FUCK! IF I COULD FIND YOU RIGHT NOW IN THIS DUNGEON I’D RIP YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!”

It’s only when I pause to breathe that I hear her pressing numbers on the phone. Security: a duchy boss’ best friend. I slam the door behind me as I leave the room and run to Lucy’s desk. I grab her by the arm and drag her away from her work and into the copy room. She yelps and starts pummeling me with her fists but none of this registers. I need something, anything, to keep me sane.

“Stop it you whore. I’m giving you what you want,” I whisper into her ear and half of me wants her to keep fighting, half of me wants to take her by force. But as my lips find her neck and I press her against the copier she relents and invites me in by hiking her skirt up and over the infallible curvature of her ass.

“Ohhhh, Claaaaark!” she brays in ecstasy.

I’m ramming myself into her time and time again eager for the warm embrace of her pussy. Ready to be catapulted away from this world full of problems and layoffs into one devoid of everything but carnal pleasure. Ah the voyage of an orgasm. But my valiant efforts are thwarted by a limerick of Date Rape bellowing from my pants pocket.

I groan, pull out, and bend over my pants.

I pull out my phone and stare at its face: UNKNOWN.

“Try to stay quiet. Could be my wife,” I say as I thrust within her and simultaneously answer the phone.

“Clark Winston here.”

“Gooood you eeeeeeven aaaaaaanswer the phone like aaaaan aaaaaaaaasshole!” Lucy says.

I roll my eyes and continue pounding her.

“Yes Mr. Winston this is the NYPD. Um…are you sitting down Mr. Winston?”

The man’s voice is hoarse and somber. It jars me slightly, the real world is trying to slip in it seems. I squeeze Lucy’s tit through the softness of her cardigan sweater with my free hand and say, “Yes. Why what’s going on?”

“Your wife is Lillian Winston?”

I stop at the sound of her name. His voice is telling me too much.

“Yes.”

“And father of Leslie and Naomi Winston?”

I swallow hard. My throat is dry. I know what comes next and the answer catches in my throat. Suddenly I don’t want to know.

“Mr. Winston?”

“Yes?”

“Answer the question please.”

“Yes.”

“I regret to inform you that we believe we have found the bodies of your wife and daughters. They were murdered Mr. Winston. We can fill you in on more details when you come in to identify the body. I’m sorry for your lo…” but that generic excuse for sympathy is lost on me.

The phone leaves my hand, flies the length of the room, and shatters on the wooden door to my left. I wrap my arm around Lucy’s neck and squeeze her close to me as I ram my cock into her asshole as hard as I can.

“Owwww! Claaaark stoooop!”

Her yelps and squeals do no more then further incense me and I lay into her my nails clawing at the scars running up and down her neck, my lips pulled back in a grimace, my face red and sweaty and every muscle tightened and swollen: I look like a steroid ridden, coke consumed madman bent on killing Lucy with my cock one vicious thrust at a time.

As I come I lift her off the ground by her neck. Her feet kick as she begins to lose consciousness and only after every drop has been spilled, only after all the anger is drained, do I let her crumble to the floor in a heap.

She lies there crying, her panties around her ankles and ass still sticking up in the air. There is a trail of blood leading from her asshole down her leg. I pull on my pants and run away, hiding my face from curiously close encounters of the office kind.

I run out into the windy evening and I can feel my attention pulled in a million directions. There are things wrestling for priority within that gelatinous mess I call a mind but as I run towards home I see a gas station snuggled between a bar and a pizza parlor and it shouts out my main objective like a platoon leader leading me to battle: Newports! Only 5.99! Pall Malls! Only 5.30! ASK FOR OUR TWO FOR ONE SPECIAL!

“Yes sir!” I exclaim and with a salute I enter into a Candy Land fit for a god. I approach the register, the possibilities attacking my optic nerves with colors and promises.

“How can I help you?”

Reds, Smooths, 27’s, Filters, Turkish Gold, Crushes, Winchesters, Winstons, Parliaments. My mouth waters as I stare upon the bountiful feast before me.

“Sir?”

“Yea I’ll have a pack of the Filters.”

I pause to think while he reaches behind him towards the Filters and quickly ask, “You wouldn’t happen to have any two for ones of those?”

“No,” he says placing the pack on the counter. Of course not. They never do.

“That’ll be 6.50.”

I reach toward my pocket and only then do I realize my heinous, gut wrenching, soul-destroying mistake.

I left my wallet in my desk.

I contemplate grabbing the pack and bailing. But no, I’ve done enough today to constitute a few years in jail. My mind tries to bring up an image of Lucy wailing on the floor, her braying echoing throughout the small copy room but a new, crisp idea thrusts itself to the surface and pushes that one to the back where it can hang with the grief I refuse to acknowledge.

The club next door! it shouts and before I know it I’m standing in a dark room at six in the evening hunting for my Moby Dick. The dance floor is empty although the mildly enjoyable Lil Wayne brainchild Lollipop is blasting at full volume.

I saunter over to the bar, my eyes peeled and nostrils flared, and lean nonchalantly against it. Up and down the bar I count only ten men: the early fish sitting to their first drink at the watering hole just trying to relax after a hard day’s work. They sit close together in pairs of two or three and pay me no mind. A cigarette should appear any moment now to quell the misery of a nine to five job. That’s when I’ll attack.

“Buy you a drink handsome?”

I turn towards the voice to find one of the ugliest women I’ve ever seen. Her proportions are all wrong. Her chin is much too big, her brow line protrudes like that of a Neanderthal and her cheekbones look like they belong to Sylvester Stallone. Her hair is long and tangled and her makeup is smeared at the ends giving her the look of a disgruntled prostitute. The only thing that seems to fit is her huge duck beak, which though a bit wide, proportionally fits her otherwise giant head.

But another look around the bar convinces me that this mission might take a bit of patience, none of the fish seem to be biting yet.

“Yea okay I’ll take you up on that.”

“Any kind of preference sweetie?” Her voice is harmonic and singsong to the point of ridiculousness.

“Just that it has alcohol,” I say with a smile. There goes that acid again.

She orders two triple shots of Jose Cuervo Especial and swallows hers in a single gulp before I have a chance to protest. She looks at me with red, watery eyes and lets out a monstrous burp.

“Ha ha. Excuse me.” She motions towards the hulk I have sitting in front of me and says, “C’mon baby. Do it for me?”

Now I do not care about doing a single thing for this heifer but I’ll be damned if I let this horny bitch out drink me. It’s burning lava as it makes its way down my throat and into my empty stomach sizzling with satisfaction as it accommodates itself in its new home.

I burp loudly and say, “Thanks but I don’t think I’ll have any more.”

She looks down at her fingers as they attempt to untangle her hair and says, “Okay. If you can’t handle it we can just talk.”

Three triple shots of Jose Cuervo Especial later and I’ve forgotten why I’m here.

Somehow I’ve fallen onto one of the incredibly uncomfortable stools littered around the bar. Everything is out of focus and everything seems too disheveled. Too cacophonous. Too…blah. Everybody Hurts by R.E.M blasts through the speakers and I watch as two men, hand in hand, make their way to the dance floor.

The bartender’s wearing makeup! my mind keeps screaming at me. But none of that makes sense. The woman keeps talking my ear off, everything from where she was born to her first boyfriend to her first cigarette—

Wait! my mind screams. I look around rather haphazardly. By now I should have smelt something, by now I should have seen a cig. And then I see it; plastered right above the bartender’s head in plain sight are the words No Smoking! Fuck my life.

I lay my head on the cold, clammy wooden bar and groan. Tears threaten a deluge from a place deep inside me I’ve been struggling to keep closed for years. Everybody Hurts isn’t helping. 

“What’s wrong honey?”

I struggle to thread together a comprehensible sentence and it comes out: “Cigarettes. Nowhere. Why? All I want. Cigarettes.”

“Is that all baby? You like Crushes?”

I raise my head slowly and nod.

“Now aren’t you the cutest thing in the world?” She reaches into her cleavage and pulls out the magical black box emblazoned with the words Camel Crush. I reach for them but as soon as I do she pushes them back between her tits.

“Not so fast baby.”

I sit there, my hand reaching out into space stupidly; my face clouded with what I know is desperation.

“First I need you to do something for me.” The strength of her hand as it pulls my lips towards hers is immense and no matter how hard I try I cannot slip away. Her mouth tastes of tequila. I can feel her lipstick smear over my lips. “Meet me in the guy’s bathroom. Last stall down. You’ll get your cigarettes.”

She stands up and all of a sudden she seems too tall. She’s immense, massive, my mind tells me but still I stand and stumble over to the guy’s bathroom. It’s still early and the whole thing is empty. Yellow fluorescents flicker on and off and attempt to illuminate miles of linoleum floor smeared with brown and black.  I find the last stall and open the door.

On the other side is my lady bent over the toilet, her ass a white beacon showing me the way to relief.  I pull down my zipper, pull out my cock, and move towards her when I see it. The piece de resistance: a scrotum hanging rather lackadaisically between her massive thighs.

“Take me!” she, he, it screams and I realize that its much too late to back out now. The cigarettes are right there. I’m so god damn close.

So, I’m ashamed to say, I give it to him.

His ass feels slimy and wet as I go in. Heat blasts from his anus in torrents. I’m fucking the Sahara Desert on a rainy day.

I try to keep my erection by thinking of fucking my wife or Lucy or any of the millions of girls I surfed through today but he is too much of a distraction. The singsong voice is gone and replaced by a bellowing behemoth yelling, “Yeah fuck my brains out! Give it to me hard baby! Fuck me crazy!”

And I lose it. All at once I smell his sweat and I feel the stubbly hairs he couldn’t reach on his ass. I want to throw up. I want to die.

“What’s wrong baby? Don’t I turn you on?”

My head is spinning and the only thing I can focus on clearly is the pack in his cleavage.

“I just need something,” I say and with lightening fast reflexes I pluck the pack from within his cleavage.

“No!” he yells as I open the pack and find…nothing.

“Maybe I smoked the last one already,” he says looking back at me sheepishly.

And just like that I’m sober. No amount of alcohol can weather my rage.

I reach up, grab his mess of hair and shove his head into the toilet.

“You like that baby?! Huh?! You fucking like how I do you craaaaazay?!”

I quickly substitute my hand for my foot and relish the sounds of air bubbles popping along the surface of the water as he struggles for breath. His body is in a state of panic writhing violently in all directions and still I smile. Until his last breath I feel that acid creep down my face except now I embrace it, now I enjoy the carving of my dimples. I am vaguely aware that I have an erection.

Finally he lies still in a heap on the floor and I sit on the wet linoleum, my knees pressed against my chest, rocking back and forth. What I need is a solution. What I need is beautiful relief.

And that’s when I remember my emergency pack at home. There must be at least one cig left in there.

My shoes squish as I leave the bar.

Ten blocks, a flight of stairs and a sweaty pair of underpants later I open my door and am met by the sweet perfume of Djarum Blacks. Oh you sumptuous whore you. 

I run towards the crackling sound like a man lost in a cave for years running towards a glimpse of light. It smells like Christmas, it sounds like the fourth of July.

“Happy Birthday douche bag”

It’s Rick sucking the last of the life out of the end of a Black in my kitchen. His other hand is tucked behind his back.

“I guess you’re wondering why I’m here.”

“It’s been a long day man. Just give me a ci…”

“It just happened okay! All of it. I don’t remember when it got so bad.”

He throws his cigarette into the sink and embraces me. I feel something heavy in his right hand beat rhythmically against my back.

         Through sobs he says, “It was her. I just couldn’t get her out of my mind. Everything about her was perfect. I was consumed. I couldn’t get enough. “

What he’s saying is slowly seeping in. My eyes dart to the cigarettes and I say, “Wait, before you finish just let me…”

“You know my wife dude. Bitch incarnate. Bane of my existence. But Lily. She listened. She loved me. You have to understand.”

His weight is too much for me to bear. All the strength is going out of my body. And there, not two feet away, is my elixir.

“It started a few weeks ago. When you killed the cat remember?”

He laughs here, his voice shaking, his cheer tainted with sobs.

“She was so fucking mad. Livid I guess is the right word. Beth was gone and we held each other and cried over your addiction. One thing lead to another…”

Classic soap opera. I should have known. I want to push him off of me and lunge for my cigs but I can’t. I’m much too weak.

“And then she showed up yesterday with your kids at my doorstep asking me to choose. Threatening to tell Beth. I just lost it. I dragged them all inside and started pummeling them with my fists. She just couldn’t be reasoned with and they just wouldn’t stop with the crying. You have to understand. I had no choice. They tried to run away and so I grabbed the fire poker. I tried reasoning with them Clark understand me I tried to reason!

“And then Beth came downstairs yelling about what that racket was and on and on and on and bitch and bitch and bitch and I…I couldn’t take it. I went for the gun in my desk and I shot her. I shot her and I shot her and I shot her. I even killed Bobby man.”

         “You killed your dog?”

“He wouldn’t stop barking!”

He’s stuttering now and sobbing uncontrollably.

He wails: “That’s when I ran! I left my house and my wife and everything behind and I just ran.”

He’s trembling and I can feel a wet spot on my shoulder from where he’s drooling on me. I’m disgusted, I’m repulsed, I want him off me.

“Please forgive me Clark.”

The gunshot is loud enough to make me jump and his body goes limp against me. I slowly take two steps backward and let him slide off me his blood painting my shirt and tie dark red. Blood is born from his head and begins to populate my tile floor with an urgency that spurs me to action.

I grab the pack and feel it imbue me with its wonderful majesty. A glow seems to erupt from the pack as I lift away the lid but once again I find myself staring into emptiness. The asshole smoked EVERY cig. Fuck my life.

The little strength and will I have left is gone and I crumble to the ground, my stomach tearing itself to pieces in a furious fit, and throw up all over Rick. Eggs and bacon and toast cover his face but its not enough. I hold his head in between both of my hands and with the heel of my shoe I mash his face to a pulp. I drive my foot into him until his features are no longer distinguishable. Until blood runs out of a collected black orifice I’ve created in the middle of his face.

Grief has me in a strangle hold and I sob and wail and scream, Rick’s gun held to my temple, in a fetal position on the kitchen floor. I cry for the wife I neglected, I cry for the kids I took for granted. I cry for the life I wasted chasing happiness and avoiding everything that was ever at odds with that.

Rick’s blood embraces me and lulls me into a sense of quiet detachment. I am no longer me. I am this gun and it is my purpose to be fired. Just as it was once my purpose to be smoked and loved and enjoyed momentarily, now I stand for quick and permanent relief.

As I cock the gun there is a knocking at my door.

I pop up from the ground in a hurry and swing open the door inviting my sexy wife and wonderful loving daughters in with a tight embrace.

“Sir, what are you doing?”

It isn’t my wife. It isn’t my kids. It’s a UPS deliveryman and I just finished covering him with my best friend’s blood.

He notices the gun in my hand and his eyes widen to the size of planets. I motion for him to drop the box and leave. He does just that.

I pick up the box, wrapped in brown paper, and bring it back to my living room. I set it on my table and read the tag: To the best friend a guy can have Happy Birthday Fucker! – Rick.

I rip off the paper and open the box and when I see what’s inside I laugh and with a flick of my wrist return the gun to my temple. The acid is running down my cheeks evermore and I imagine myself melting, the skin falling off me in shreds.

What sits in front of me is a carton of cigarettes.

But today I quit smoking.

Austin, TX

Feburary 28th- March 2nd 2009