I'm Sorry You Feel That Way (21 page)

I took up smoking at age fourteen: my father’s unfiltered Lucky Strikes, my uncle’s Winstons, whatever long butts I found in the gutter or scored out of public ashtrays. In high school, I puffed on Capris. You are what you smoke, my friends and I told one another, and these were cigarettes as feminine and elegant, as long and slender, as every girl wished she could be. In college, when I smoked Camels, it was because I was strong and independent, bold. When I switched to mentholated cigarettes—Marlboro Greens, Kools, Salems—it was because I had a head cold or strep throat. Before long, I was smoking menthol all the time.

I liked being a girl who smoked, but even more than that, I liked drawing smoke into my lungs then exhaling. I liked smoking. I thought it made me look mysterious, I loved how it looked in photographs. I was grateful for the reason smoking gave me to take a break from the task at hand and loiter in front of buildings. Smoking was a way to pass the time. It was something to do with my hands. It was the pleasure that came after finishing a meal, or while driving, or talking on the telephone, or sipping morning coffee. Smoking was also a way to socialize, to bond, to connect, a perfectly good excuse to stand beside my department chair and speak to him, to introduce myself then say, do you have a light? Which he did.

Twenty minutes later, Gerry and I were downtown, walking into a bar. Three hours later, after I’d smoked all my cigarettes and he was blitzed on bourbon, he patted my hand, my hair, and told me I was very nice, he was very glad to have me in the department, would I please give him a ride home?

 

 

 

 

 

As chair of my department, Gerry Hawthorne could determine how comfortable or uncomfortable my life would be. He decided how many classes I taught, what those classes were, and the day and time I taught them.

He’d swing by my office a couple of times a day to invite me to step outside, where we talked about literature or teaching or students over a cigarette or two or three. That was when I admired him the most, those times when he’d let me feel dazzled by his insight, respectful of his smarts. When he was Dr. Gerald Hawthorne, Ph.D. When we were on campus, I asked his advice about literature or teaching or students. I went to him with questions, problems, concerns. I listened when he talked about Gertrude Stein, how she and Hemingway had been great friends, how she helped Hemingway become a great writer, and how, when their friendship ended, Hemingway changed her famous “Rose is a rose is a rose” to “Bitch is a bitch is a bitch.”

“Hemingway was cool, man,” Gerry said.

But off campus, on Friday afternoons, Gerry Hawthorne drank beer. Then he downed a shot or two of bourbon. He smoked a bunch of cigarettes, then he drank more beer. Sometimes when he’d been drinking at someone’s house, he reached the point where he wanted to crank up some tunes—the sound track to
Jesus Christ Superstar
was a favorite, though he also liked
Abbey Road, Tommy
, and early Kinks—and he instructed us to push all the living room furniture out of the way so he could dance. Gerry Hawthorne was in his young forties, a clumsy guy, inelegantly constructed, a flat butt, skinny legs, and a stomach that meant business, that gave him size and bulk and allowed him to bully his way through a crowd. When Gerry danced, which was only if he’d been drinking, he hopped on one leg while raising the other stiffly in front of him, like he was doing the monster mash. He held a cigarette in one hand and he held the other hand straight out, optimistic that this positioning would keep him balanced and upright. When Gerry Hawthorne danced, he had a very good time.

Sometimes drinking made Gerry feel affectionate toward others. It made him feel like giving out compliments.
Shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone
, he might breathe hotly in your ear,
but you’re so very beautiful! I have always had a secret crush on you!
Though he was married—Gerry had been married to his childhood sweetheart for over twenty years—murmuring such sweet nothings always made him feel like smooching. He did not discriminate. Man or woman, married or single, homely or attractive, Gerry Hawthorne would lean forward, pucker up, and plant a big kiss right on your mouth. His kisses were slobbery, his kisses tasted like beer, his breath smelled like cigarettes, his beard and moustache tickled. He’d stroke your hand, smiling fondly at you, saying,
You’re so nice, you’re my friend, I like you.

This was when I adored him the most, these times when I thought he had more personality than ten people, and was more fun than twenty. Oftentimes, Gerry wanted someone who had a guitar to get out that guitar and strum some chords so he could make up a song. One of his best compositions was called “Take Me Downtown, Dante.” It was a musical plea for our friend Dante to drive Gerry to the bars downtown so he could drink some more.
Take me downtown, Dante
, he spoke-sang in a voice that was plaintive and bluesy, a scratchy voice that made one think of hound dogs and heartbreak and pulled-pork barbecue sandwiches.
Take me downtown, please! Take me downtown, Dante! I know you got the keys!

I don’t remember if Dante took Gerry downtown that day, but there were occasions when I took Gerry to a bar downtown. There were times when I took Gerry to the liquor store to buy more bourbon. If the phone rang, and it was after last call, I got out of bed to pick Gerry up at the bar, usually when his wife didn’t feel like dealing with him, his wife was tired of his drinking, his wife told him look, Gerry, call before ten or don’t call at all.

He’d be wobbly. He’d need help out of the car. There would be a pebble in his shoe and I’d have to prop him up, lean him against something, while he attempted to take care of it. He’d be giggly. He would want to smooch, he’d want a hug, he’d want his wife. But first, he wanted a smoke. He was apologetic.
I like you, you’re nice, you’re my friend.
He needed to be guided up the porch steps and into the house. He was a big guy, oafish and uncoordinated when sober, so maneuvering him wasn’t easy.

Gerry Hawthorne was never expected to be the designated driver. If there were several people in the car, Gerry Hawthorne always got to ride shotgun. If you were driving a long distance with him, Gerry Hawthorne would insist on stopping every thirty miles so he could smoke and pee. Because I wanted him to be my big brother, my spirit guide and professional mentor, I didn’t mind accommodating him.

But if you were interested in a group activity that didn’t involve the consumption of alcohol—going out for ice cream and a round of putt-putt golf, for example, or catching a movie, or spending an afternoon at one of those paint-your-own-pottery places—Gerry Hawthorne usually refused to come along. If he did come, he wasn’t happy about it. If Gerry wasn’t happy, if he wasn’t having a good time, then things weren’t quite as fun for anyone. He didn’t necessarily complain, he just wouldn’t say much.

Except this:

Those words were bound to come out of his mouth.

And these:

Or these:

Gerry Hawthorne taps an orange ball into the hole during a round of putt-putt golf or he dabs more glaze on a twelve-inch serving platter before he decides it’s ready to go in the kiln, and you wait for the moment of feeling stupid to pass because Gerry Hawthorne just interrupted your story in the middle of it to say,
Look, nobody gives a shit.

It was the story about your bad haircut, the one that made you decide to stop going to the cheap walk-in place at the mall. You thought it was a pretty funny story—the stylist chopped your bangs shorter than a pinky nail while making snarky comments about the size of her ex-boyfriend’s penis—and other people were laughing until Gerry Hawthorne turned you into someone frivolous, someone trite, someone mundane. You might as well have been braiding your dolly’s hair or lifting the hem of your dress over your head to accept a raspberry on your tummy because in Gerry Hawthorne’s eyes, you’re a very silly little girl, a chatter-box, and Gerry Hawthorne has a history of mocking very silly girl chatterboxes, of making them cry. It’s something he enjoys, something he’s bragged about.

But the first time he does it to you, you’re caught off guard; you thought you were pals, buddies. The two of you are such good friends that when you’ve both been drinking, you fixate on each other, leaning so close your foreheads touch. You’re forehead-talkers. He must like you: when your teaching position moves from part-time to full-time, isn’t Gerry the reason? He says he is. Didn’t he make that happen for you? He says he did. He says you owe him.

But say something to him like whoa, why are you picking on me, and he’ll say he was just kidding. You need to lighten up. Quit acting like such a girl.

And as much as he likes to boast about having a mean streak, someone else’s meanness always seems to catch him by surprise. Once, at a party, you swap out his bottle of bourbon with iced tea. He’s so drunk that he puts down several shots without noticing the difference, and he keeps slamming shots of Lipton until his wife puts a stop to it.
You’re cruel,
he’ll say later.
I can’t believe you’d pick on me like that.

 

 

 

 

 

After twenty years together, cigarettes were starting to make me feel awful, but I longed for them nonetheless. They called out my name, and though I swore never again, I didn’t keep my word. Even when they became significantly pricey—inching toward four bucks a pack—I budgeted for them, cutting back instead on things like calcium supplements and Pap smears. I was hooked. Bad.

Gerry Hawthorne used Tops tobacco to roll his own cigarettes. They packed a wallop that made me dizzy and left flecks of tobacco on my teeth. When Gerry was treated for periodontal disease, the dentist had to peel back his gums to scrape away the sludge under there built up by smoking. His dentist told him he needed to quit. He didn’t.

Because his wife didn’t allow him to smoke in the house, Gerry liked to sit on his front porch, chain-smoking and drinking beer and listening to the radio. He was waiting for the deejay to play the song he didn’t know he wanted to hear. That was something else I liked about Gerry, his persistent optimism that at any moment unexpected pleasure is a possibility. Gerry Hawthorne believed in the lucky, lucky life that could mean a good parking spot or a coupon for five dollars off a carton of Camels; a pint of Jim Beam and a twelve-pack of Miller; the Kinks on vinyl; a plate of deviled eggs.

Instead of children, Gerry and his wife had ferrets, three of them. When she got mad at him, he wrote love poems about the ferrets that he dedicated to her. When she asked if he’d slow down on the bourbon, he wrote love poems about her that he dedicated to the ferrets. When she asked him to stop drinking bourbon, he agreed to drink less bourbon but not to stop drinking bourbon. Drunk, he put his cigarette out on his glasses while he was wearing them. Drunk, he fell in the street while walking home from the bar. Drunk, he fell through the picture window at Dante’s house, crashing through the window, all that shattered glass, but not a scratch on him. His wife said,
Oh, Gerry.
He said,
Lucky, lucky life.
He took a fall off his porch that put his arm in a sling and bruises on his face. Was he drunk? I don’t know. By this time he and I weren’t talking much. It was something I heard through people we both knew.

 

 

 

 

 

Over the span of almost ten years, Gerry and I must have smoked at least a hundred thousand cigarettes while standing outside Wilkinson Hall. Our nonsmoking colleagues who were forced to walk past us faked a sputtering cough as they went by. Sometimes they paddled a hand through the air and made some snooty comment about our black lungs. Gerry waited until they passed before saying who cares.

I could pretend I didn’t notice the broken blood vessels on his cheeks. I could pretend I forgot about Friday night when he got drunk and told me I wasn’t smart enough to teach literature, and besides I was fat, and my hair was big, I looked like a girl from Texas, I had my job because of him, so I owed him. Don’t shit where you eat, he said.

For almost ten years, Gerry was a significant part of my social life. I spent Thanksgivings and Fourths of July with him, birthdays and anniversaries. I played poker with him and went camping and took short vacations. How many times have I gotten drunk with him, stupid, babbling, falling-down, throwing-up drunk? How many Happy Hours turned into Happy Twelve Hours? How many times did he tell me he loved me and how many times did he look at me and say who cares?

When I liked Gerry Hawthorne, I forgave him for knocking plants off the end table and pictures off the wall. When he drank three times more than me and still insisted the tab be evenly divided, I got out my credit card. It was because of his big friendly face, his large brown eyes behind round glasses, his wide grin. At the bar, if he caught your eye, he wiggled his pinky finger. It meant,
I like you, you’re nice, you’re my friend.
I wiggled my finger back.

When I didn’t like him, it was because he said I was cheap and bad at my job, I was a show-off and not very smart, and why couldn’t I act right? When I didn’t like him, I stayed away. Eventually I stayed away more often than not. There wasn’t any particular incident that drove us apart or any specific reason why I stopped talking to him. It was more like one Friday night I looked around the room and realized Gerry wasn’t there, I hadn’t seen Gerry in a very long time.

 

 

 

 

 

In the same way, I’ve given up cigarettes.

But I dream about them.

Sometimes in my dreams, I’m smoking two at a time. In my dreams, I feel like I’m putting one over on somebody. I feel wild and rebellious and free, like I’m saying fuck you and you and you, like there’s a game, it’s a grudge match, and I’m the one winning. Sometimes, when I’m at a bar or a party, and someone is smoking, or when I’m watching a movie where all the characters are lighting up, I think,
Oh!
Just that.
Oh!
Like cigarettes are a really fun but really bad, bad boy from my past, one who was the best time ever when he wasn’t making me feel like shit. But if I smoked one cigarette, I’d smoke a pack, and if I smoked a pack, I’d smoke a carton, and Gerry Hawthorne made me feel like shit only half the time; the other half he was more fun than anyone else in the room. And even now a part of me wants to call Gerry up, ask him hey look, do you have a smoke for me and what happened between us? I’m pretty sure he’d say I need to lighten up, get over myself, it’s all in my head. Have a cigarette, he’d say. Here’s another. Let me light it for you.