Waiting on a Change
March 30th, 1998 Posted in EssaysI am smoking quickly, impatiently; watching the streetlight as if my stare alone will convince it to change ahead of schedule, piling up cars and surprised motorists into heaps on either side of me as I scoot across to the butcher. It is only 5:00 and hardly late, but the sun is setting early, the wind is cold and biting, I am nursing a cold that makes my body ache, and I can think of nothing I’d rather do than get home as quickly as possible.
My only errand after work today is to go to the market for meat and bread, since it was closed the day before. That done, I can go home. I am a block away from the market now, smoking a cigarette that certainly isn’t helping with my cold, watching a light that has decided to never change.
“I ain’t had no f—in’ smoke all day, man, you know what I’m sayin’?” he says conversationally, enjoying the stubby cigarette as if every tobacco fiber were an individually wrapped gift.
I am about to respond like I always do to complete strangers who attempt to engage me in casual conversation: with something rote and bland enough that they’ll rethink whether it’s worth the bother. In this case, I am about to go with “I know what you mean,” when it occurs to me that I don’t.
I’ve been desperate enough for a cigarette sometimes to go rooting through my own ashtrays at home, looking for a sufficiently unsmoked butt. This in itself has drawn strange looks from anybody I happen to do it in front of, as if I was looking through a bowl of fruit for something weighty to put up my own rectum. I can understand their horror; smoking is a filthy habit to begin with, and I can’t imagine it improves upon an already grimy image to go rooting through my ashtrays like a whiskery vagrant. As low as I’ve stooped, though, I’ve never actually made a dash for a cigarette that was smoked by someone else, as that would mean putting something in my mouth that’s had at least a token acquaintance with one of a total stranger’s orifices, and maybe more.
Instead, I respond with “I hear that,” which seems safe, since I’ve been in a position to certainly feel like grabbing butts off the ground during a feverish nicotine fit, anyway, even if I didn’t actually give in to the impulse.
He smiles and nods. This is as sure a sign as any that I should give him a cigarette, as most intentionally pathetic displays are. If ever I were to feel indulgent, it would be now, as I’ve just bought a pack ten minutes ago, and have entire rows of the lovely little things staring up at me. But I’m also aware that this pack will soon be gone, and I don’t know how I’m going to afford another one. I could very well be scooping up boot-printed, crumpled butts myself this time tomorrow. I hold off.
I think about telling him that I’ve got a cold, and he might catch it by smoking the cigarette. But then it strikes me that anyone willing to pick something off the street and put it in their mouth, no questions asked, isn’t terribly likely to give my warning a second thought.
“M——-ckers always be givin’ me looks like I’m crazy, pickin’ smokes off the ground,” he says, reading my mind. I roll my eyes, as if to say, “Pshh. Judgmental idiots. Here, pass that butt over.”
“Course,” he adds, “I got AIDS, so like I’m worried about catchin’ somethin’, you know?” He chuckles.
I have to admit it: it’s a pretty good point. If you’ve got a terminal disease at age twenty-five, I couldn’t think of a more sensible philosophy than to throw caution to the wind. Still, I can’t help but wonder if having AIDS and being homeless before thirty might indicate you’ve had a pretty cavalier attitude all along that might have contributed a little to your current state of affairs.
The light changes. I give him a smoke after all. He takes the lovely little thing for the prize that both of us are in a position to know it is.
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