Cigarettes

Closing the library was the best time for me. The metallic sigh and shutter of the key turning the locks and closing out the world who sough knowledge was my favorite sound next to the noises Catherine made when she was still here. She’d been gone some six months now and a new wave of emotions had struck me this morning after I had found what I wasn’t looking for but somehow decided that it needed to find me. People told me that time would heal all wounds and that these emotions would be normal, but after this morning the seething rage that had been building up seemed anything but that. It didn’t feel abnormal either. I just felt angry and that was what I was going to feel today.

The last of the patrons had left in a hushed silence. Six PM on a Friday. The ones with nothing to do rushing home where they have nothing to do. I hit the lights nearby and walked away from the front door to the circulation desk to shut off the computers. On Friday I turned things off. Not because of any specific purpose but because it was a thing I did on Fridays and even though I was foaming at the mouth in my mind, the procedures I had created for myself had to be followed.

After the monitors went to sleep I tidied up the space and put things where I wanted them to be. Not necessarily where things needed to be, but where I wanted them to be. My life was like that. A series of things that I wanted to happen – being a librarian, Catherine, cigarettes – but never needed. That is what I wanted right now at this very moment as I straightened out pens and pencils and made sure all the drawers to the desks were closed tight. I wanted a fucking cigarette.

 ***

The back door opened and closed silently. This was methodically planned so as to not alert anyone out front to your arrival or departure. I have no proof of this of course, but I like to think that the librarian before me had a penchant for espionage tendencies and precision. That he hated to be harassed by people who just wanted to know things. That maybe he deliberately had the door designed so that it was the lightest and quietest door in existence. He also picked the heaviest and sturdiest so as to keep the ignorance out of the secret way where one just wanted to get into their car and go home. Or in my case, go out and buy my brand of cigarette.

I drove from the Heights and headed towards Studewood. Summer in Houston allowed for picturesque, almost magical drives. But if you opened the window your expectations resembling anything peaceful would be met with an air designed to swallow your whole being and drown you in a humidity that only Houston natives could possibly tolerate. The heat wasn’t something to escape in this city. It was something you suffered. And in this very moment I was suffering. Cigarettes. I want cigarettes.

The drive to the store that had my brand was not far from the library. It was next to a quaint coffee shop that Catherine and I used to frequent in the mornings on our way to work and where we went our own ways for our morning commutes. She, going downtown to the job that everyone called “real” and me going to the job that everyone called “cute”. I haven’t been there in six months. I don’t plan on ever going back either. Not because it’s too painful, but rather because it wasn’t my thing to do by myself. I went there with Catherine because Catherine wanted to and with Catherine gone…

Catherine.

I wanted cigarettes.

 ***

“How?”

“How what?”

“How are you out?”

“We just are”.

Silence.

“Look man I don’t know what to tell you. We haven’t gotten any in a while”.

“OK, thanks”.

 ***

I wanted to scream but I didn’t. Of course, if I had known that they were out I wouldn’t have gone. I didn’t mind that they were out. But I could have done without having to see that coffee shop again. It stirred up things that I didn’t know I had in me and coupled with that morning’s revelation I was seething now. Not on the outside of course. My demeanor was always calm, cool and collected (although I will admit that right now it was probably like just being dead) and any emotion I had I suffered or celebrated in silence. This was no different. I drove down Studewood, leaving the coffee shop and the un-convenient store behind.

I drove in silence. There was another store that I used to buy these cigarettes from and just a little bit down the road to where I didn’t mind dealing with 6 PM traffic on a Friday evening. Studewood turned into Montrose and the greenery of the heights turned into the faded grey that once was cosmopolitan. Now it was just another reminder that the LGBT community once had a community of their own but were now simply a commodity of a gentrified community that so desperately wanted to show the world that they were tolerant.

The engine of my truck hummed along as I sat at a red light waiting to be released after a line of cars decided they wanted to waste 3 seconds of green light time. I started to feel the back of my neck get hot. I wanted those cigarettes. I wanted them as bad as not having found out what I found out this morning. God to not know now what I didn’t know this morning. God to have a cigarette. Patience I told myself. I would have them soon. No other brand would do. I wanted to do this, and I wanted to do this right. So, for now; patience.

 ***

“Yep. Sorry”.

“Sorry?”

“We’re out”.

“You’re out?”

“Yea, been out of those for a while now”.

“How”.

“Don’t know to tell you the truth. I remember I ordered them when we were close to being out before, but they never came in”.

“Like, at all?”

“Yep. Never. It was weird too, cuz they never sent an invoice for the reup either”.

“Damn”.

“You can try one of our other three sister stores in the area”

“Where are they?”

“One is down the street across from the Greek place, just two minutes down the road. Another is on Westheimer heading east and the other is on Westheimer too but a bit down the way by Dunlavy”.

“Ok, thanks”

“They may have some there, but I can’t guarantee it”.

“Alright, thanks, I’ll try those out”.

“Happy hunting”.

 ***

There was nothing happy about this hunt. I didn’t even anticipate that there would be a hunt. I hated the fact that I was on this side of town. I hated the fact that I had been to two stores for a pack of cigarettes. I hated the fact that I was burning gas right now. I hated the fact that I was upset. I hated that I let myself be upset. I hated Catherine.

Catherine. All this. This hunt for something I didn’t even need because of her. I hated that she did this to me.

Wait. Calm down. First things first; cigarettes.

 ***

I took a right. I should have taken a left. I didn’t. Just like I shouldn’t have opened that letter this morning, but I did. I should have just thrown that letter in the garbage. I should have just never checked the mail. I should have made a left fucking turn but I took a right.

Going down Westheimer heading west usually doesn’t hold any significant consequence in this area. It did this afternoon. There was an accident and because there was an accident there was traffic. An Audi was the victim of a Mustang that decided it wanted recognition in the form of dominating the left lane. The accident occurred on the left it blocked a street where one would turn. There was a cacophony of cars wanting to turn left, turn right, or go straight. I just wanted to go straight but of course, everyone in front of me wanted to turn left and everyone in the incoming lanes wanted to go straight and not let anyone pass. I was tempted to get upset about this, but I knew on any given day I would be driving straight ahead not even thinking twice about the poor bastard that was me trying to get some very specific cigarettes.

I watched each car to my left as it zoomed past me. Not one turning to look and give a sympathetic nod or look my way. Each one going about their business. Each one thinking their own thoughts. Each one breathing their own air. Each one feeling their own pain. Each one feeling their own happiness. I reminisced about when I went about my business. Feeling my own happiness. I knew it then, that I was happy. I just wish I knew that I would be unhappy now. A green car sped past me. The girl in it briefly looking my way, unsmiling. She was pretty in her cold stare. Her deep brown eyes meeting mine for a measured micro second. Vanishing as quickly as they appeared. Leaving me staring at a bar that wasn’t there anymore. An empty lot with a development sign. Another memento signaling an end of an era and the coming of an empty epoch of late stage capitalism that laid waste to communities, ideas, and people.

A honk.

The lane cleared in front of me in an instant, the time it took for a girl to coldly stare at me and for me to judge what was and what shall be cleared up traffic and I was able to make my way to a store I knew was there but never been to.

The same store, but down the street was next to a tattoo parlor it and it had all the makings of a rundown shop. The store was surrounded by cafes, gourmet restaurants and groups of people aimlessly seeking their thrills and pleasures.

I let my truck idle for a moment before I went it. Something told me that this would be a fruitless attempt at finding something long ago familiar to ease the unfamiliarity of my troubled mind.

I got out the truck and went inside.

 ***

“Yea, they stopped making those”.

“Fuck”.

“Yea, it’s been a while too. You could try the other store, but I doubt they’ll have them”

 ***

If I had turned left instead of right at the intersection of Montrose and Westheimer I would have been able to be gone home after seeing the rubble of where the store used to be and then making my way to the Dunlavy store. If I had turned left instead of right I would not have been so hopeful on my way to a store that wasn’t there to buy what I wanted. If I had turned left instead of right I would have just made a turn and not had to fight my way through traffic for a second time. If I had turned left instead of right I might not have snapped and broken down in my truck at the light. If I had turned left instead of right this small thing would have not broken me. If I turned left instead of right…

 ***

I didn’t make it home until midnight that night. I went all over the city of Houston in vain looking for a pack of cigarettes I used to smoke. Searching for a lost resemblance of a happy time that no longer was to ease an unhappy time that was right now. I circled the inner loop in its entirety and found nothing but my own introspection on the way.

Why had I looked at that letter? Why had I opened something that I knew would set me back to day one? Why had I not let the past be the past and the present be the present? I buried her a thousand times. Why did I unbury her once again?

I sat at the bar of my apartment and stared at the lonely unpacked boxes. I rested my face in my hands and sighed.

God. I needed that cigarette.