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Cigarette Memories

Jon Carter

    We were drunk and hungry.
Sitting in the Camry with no money, the sun blasting through the windshield onto our faces.
I could smell the liquor coming out of my skin. I wanted to vomit.
    I looked over at Kaydijah in the passenger seat and her blonde-black wig was stuck to her forehead.
Her eyes were bloodshot.
    “I’m scared,” she said.
    “Look, we need cigarettes, right?” I asked, tracing around the burning wheel with my fingertips. We hadn’t had a smoke for a few hours and we were both on edge.
    “Well, yeah. . .” she started.
    “And food,” I said.
    “Yes,” she agreed, “I’m starving.”
    “Fuck. Me too.
Let’s go.”
    We got out of the Camry and walked across the baking asphalt and when we made it through the sliding-glass doors the air-conditioning put the wind back in our sails.
We were energized for the scene. She went up to the register and asked for the cigarettes right away while I slunk off. The cashier was a skinny kid with a face scarred by acne.
The tobacco was kept behind a glass barrier, locked. I was lurking beside it, checking out the other women as they added useless items to their cart, thinking of how starving and desperate I was; feeling jealous over their middle-class frivolousness.

    The cashier went to the glass door and unlocked it and I looked over at Kaydijah and nodded.
She sprung into action, running up behind him from the cash register.
    “Sir! Sir!” She called.
“Can you get me the Newports instead!?”
    When the kid turned she played out a dramatic slip and fall. Her feet and her wig went flying up into the air and her almost bald head smacked into the floor.
It was a great show and she was laying there on the cold polished tile, moaning in pain that could have been real or faked. Luckily the kid was good natured enough to rush over to help.
We always played the ones with the kind faces. He left the glass door unlocked. I swooped in behind the chaos and opened it up and stuffed my pockets with packs of cigarettes, menthols, reds, anything I could get my hands on.
I felt myself getting greedy, soaking in the adrenaline, when I heard someone yelling from somewhere. I turned away from my score. It was the manager that was yelling, she’d spotted me.
    “Hey! Hey! You red-headed fuck! Stop what you’re doing! Put those back!” She was a heavyset old lady with curly blonde-gray hair and a strong jaw.
She was pointing at me sternly from a few registers away. The police were going to get involved if I stuck around to try and talk it out with her.
    “Baby! I got the SMOKES! run run run!” I yelled in a high-pitched voice, my arms cradling cartons of cigarettes.
Kay hopped up and grabbed her wig and was trying to secure it to her head as we flew out the sliding-glass doors, our feet rushing across the cement. We didn’t stop to see if anyone was chasing us, but I could still hear the shouts.
    We got to our tan Camry at the back of the parking lot, panting, out of breath.
The doors were locked and the keys were in my pocket. I was dropping packs of cigarettes everywhere, crushing them in my sweaty arms as I dug the keys out of my pocket in a panicked frenzy.
I finally got the door unlocked. We jumped in. I grabbed as many packs off the scorched black parking lot as I could before I slammed the door and turned the key in the ignition.
    Click, click, click.
I turned again and the motor wouldn’t crank.
I turned again and again.
    “Go, Jonny. Fucking Go!”
    “What the fucking fuck do you think I’m trying to fucking do!?” I yelled.
I turned again and the bastard finally started. I dropped gears and reversed out and nearly clipped a pursuing employee.
They slapped the sides of the Camry as I peeled away. Kay lit a cigarette and I was laughing behind the wheel like a madman, slapping the dash.
    “What’d I tell you? What’d I fucking. Tell. You?” I was ecstatic.
I cruised down Wickersham Rd and turned on Sunridge Dr, then parked the car on the street against the curb.
Kay handed me a lit cigarette and I sucked it down gratefully, exhaling the smoke into the dead afternoon.
    “You were right baby, you were right,” she said, there was a thin trickle of blood coming out from under her loose fake hair.
I’d spent a good deal of time convincing her to play her role for the greater good, but I felt sorry that she got hurt. My mouth was dry from the heat and the cigarette.
I reached under my seat and grabbed the hot rum and swilled some down. It burned my insides mercilessly. Then I handed the bottle to her. We always had liquor in those days, even when we had nothing else.
We finished the bottle and threw the empty in the back. It clanged around with the others.
    My gut growled in pain.

    “Fuck, we forgot the food,” I said.
    “Yeah baby, we did,” she said sadly.
    She worked at getting her wig screwed back to her head.
I smoked and stared out the window at the dying yellow grass, the black gate around the complex.
I looked up at the sky and the sun was an orb shooting translucent orange lazer-beams out from behind purple crystal clouds.
The interior of the car was filling with gold smoke. The windows were broken and wouldn’t roll down. I heard the muffled sound of sirens coming from a distance.
    “Well, we’ll just hit ‘em again.
They won’t see that coming,” I said quietly.
    “Baby, you’re a genius,” she said, smiling at me.
    “And don’t I know it,” I said, putting the car in gear.

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