I don't want anyone to say that I've suffered. If
I were to see it in print I would be livid. To suffer. What an Idea and
what images it brings to mind.
I want no part of it.
I have
lived with God at my feet and in my heart and with Angels at each elbow
as if I were an old crotchety man being lovingly helped down the hard as
nails steps in the old courthouse.
I have smoked cigars with the Angels.
That is to say that I have been with Angels and while in their company,
have smoked a cigar. Angels would never smoke a cigar.
To create an image of them in my mind doing so
just doesn't work. How could they bring themselves to lift the brown cylinder
to their mouths. Brown! They would never have brown things in their hands,
even the brown Angels. I could see them grasping gold objects, lighter-than-pastel
objects, and at Christmas time, maybe a few red and green items.
And to see them in my imagination put a
cigar to their faint-thin lips, wetting it, wrapping it with their Untouched
tongues? Forget it!
What they'll
never know! is how I think of it.
With the Angels at my side, I have taken that smooth/rough
fellow, cradled and anchored in the niche of my hooped-around index finger,
and merely contemplated the smoking of it as I lovingly clip the little
bud-end. A ritual. A circumcision. The Angels stand by, curious. They wait
for my indulgence. I put them off, by waiting myself, and search for a really
classic and full-bodied joke to tell them while I wait. The Angels will
laugh, if I tell it correctly; something that is always possible when I
am waving a cigar around in my hand, lit or not.
They like to study me, I think.
When I am in cigar-waving mode, I am unpredictable.
I am in my own top-form territory, my own sovereign dominion, and while
they never speak to me directly, I can tell. It makes them nervous. I will
waddle around, turning suddenly to the left with a twist of my body and
the raising and tilt-back of my head and left shoulder to see who has come
by; who has spoken words that I might have some grand and shrewd come-back
for. It could be the President of the United States - even a Democrat -
come up behind me with an Uh-hum! from the Secretary of State, and I would
raise my eyebrows, cigar poised in the air to the right of my right shoulder
and swing around to see who it was that might need some quick-witted barb
to loosen their tie knot.
In
situations like this, the Angels move behind me, so as not to be seen. As
if they could! They stand close together, one's leg and whole side dipping
into the other's. When I look back at them, they try to look composed. Two
Angel bodies almost as one standing there would not necessarily be any big
deal. It's the fluttering. The little nervous fluttering of their wings
catches my eye and when they see my eyes watching their wings, POOF!, they're
gone. Chickens.
That's when I
will deign to light up. It draws them back. Any sort of fire or smoke will
do that. I believe they figure it's either an emergency or some ceremony
and don't want to miss either. It's kind of an obsession with them.
By the time they come back, I've had the
taste. And they are ever watchful for who may be in my vicinity, who may
be tempted to engage with me during my smoke.
But in the first part of the smoke I am not a threat.
I am too involved with my Macanudo to notice much other than the twirl of
the leaf against my lip, it darkening, releasing the flavor of this fruit
of rich earth; an opening curtain to the opera of aromatic dance that is
to follow.
Wait. Wait 'til I bring out the Bulldog.
Trading off the cigar to my left hand,
a mirror of the right's protective tenure, I slip - operative word: slip
- my right hand straight down into my pocket. Straight down to the bottom,
weighted down by the Bulldog, and grasp the metal thing, bringing him out,
to show anyone, the final answer to a Man's Lighter.
The Bulldog is the most stocky, tank-of-a-cigarette-lighter
you'll ever come across. Its stainless steel is worn smooth and shiney,
but the big Mack Truck insignia is as distinctive as ever and I always marvel
at how well it has held up.
It came to me across a heaping, starch-heaven plate
of steaming mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and sliced turkey in North
Platte, Nebraska. Literally. Evelyn the waitress passed it to me from the
other side of the L-shaped counter in the Pull-R-Inn Truckstop out on I-Eighty.
It belonged to Alvin T. Bourdois, pronounced Bor-dwah, from Oberville, Ohio.
Twenty-one-eighteen North Lilac Street. One-four two two-six three eight-one
oh one oh. I know because it's engraved on the other side of the Bulldog,
although it's getting harder to read.
Alvin had been complaining about his CB radio quitting on him and how expensive
they were in the truckstop store. I had pity on him after the other fellows
at the counter ribbed him to no end, asking him if he wanted any cheese
with his whine, and I asked him what he had to trade for a CB. He pulled
the Bulldog out, held it up in the air for all to see with an explanation
of what exactly it was and our counter and two counters over became dead-quiet.
This scared me. I blurted out, before another
word was said, that I had a CB and he could have it for the lighter. Well,
all eyes turned from the lighter to me, and Alvin shouted out SOLD! before
anyone could say anything.
Evelyn
the waitress passed it over to me and I told Alvin I would go out right
then to get my CB and all the wiring and left my plate of food. I walked
over to the trucker's store, bought the cheapest CB radio they had, took
it out of the box, tossing the box and wrapping and twisty-ties into the
trash, and headed back to the restaurant to give it to Alvin. I left that
truckstop in Nebraska with the Bulldog.
I've never regretted it. It lights every time.
As it lights up, I bring it to it's duty, the Bulldog
ready to burn the house down if it must. I grab hold of the cigar with a
baby's touch of teeth and my lips like a smootch and I draw in.
With several quick draws, the harvest of
Connecticut rolls into my mouth, just as it spirals into the air in front
of me. And the woods and valleys of the better part of a tropical country
clot my tongue, fill my veins with a remembrance of living as I rarely have
known it. I am at peace and at home and anyone that comes to me here had
better mind themselves.
POOF! the Angels are back to see what's on fire.
Every single time they are surprised to see it's just me with a cigar. They
seem to have no memory or expectation that they take with them from moment
to moment - something I have been wise enough to begin learning from them.
I nod to them, bid them welcome back, stick
my cigar into the cul-de-sac at the end of my mouth, and shove both hands
into my pockets along with the Bulldog. The Angels know what's next as I
begin to rock on the balls and heels of my feet, looking for trouble, and
their wings begin to flutter.
No. I have not suffered so long as I have had my
cigar with God at my feet and in my heart and Angels at my side. |
