A Nic of Time by Roland Goity

I met my friend Meredith that Friday at the city park, where we hung out a lot on weekdays, both of us unemployed. But the frequency of our gatherings there would cease, I informed her. I’d been offered a sales position with good salary and benefits.

“Oh yeah? What’s the company?”

“Smokefree Industries,” I said. “We make nicotine gum, patches, pills. We provide literature and sponsorship for treatment programs. We work to prevent lung cancer.”

“But, Spencer, you smoke more than a pack a day.”

Meredith didn’t know the half of it. Truth was I probably burned up three packs a day. I’d light up with my first cup of morning coffee and again every fifteen minutes, dragging off coffin nails until I brushed my teeth before bed. I smoked on the can while I read the sports pages; I smoked during dinner, cutting into my steak or buttering my baked potato. I even smoked during times of exercise, when riding my mountain bike or doing reps on the bench press.

Meredith gave me the stink eye. “Are you shittin’ me, Spence?”

“No. Start Monday.”

“They don’t care that you smoke?”

“They don’t know that I smoke.”

She leaned against our favorite oak tree and sketched meandering lines in the dirt with her foot. “So, will it be a problem?”

“Not if I can quit over the weekend.”
   
She broke out laughing which made me anxious. I fingered the back of my neck and wished I had a smoke. Quitting wouldn’t be easy.

***
Home in my bedroom I hit the floor and slid out the six cartons of cigarettes stored under my bed. Then I dragged them and my ample supply of lighters in a shopping bag to a dumpster two blocks from our apartment. I’d only be safe from them at such a distance.

That night my roommate Todd and his girl Tracy, plus a bunch of their friends, were going clubbing downtown. I’d expressed interest, too, but then reconsidered. No way would I be able to avoid the temptation of all the smoke rings and good vibes; I’d be heading down Tobacco Road without thinking. So I sheepishly explained my predicament and they seemed to understand. Todd threw me the TV remote and wished me a wonderful evening. I started watching old movies on TCM but the films’ characters were never sans cigarette. Same thing on TV Land—the Twilight Zone and Bewitched had me reflexively picking at my empty breast pocket, constantly digging for smokes. When I quit flipping channels I rifled through magazines on our coffee table, men’s and sports mags whose every other page was an ad for a cigarette manufacturer. That didn’t last long.

I jonesed for a smoke so bad I could barely see straight, so bad my skin itched like I had hives or something. I felt like pouring a double, but drinking was the one sure-fire way to start up again. Instead, I opted for Sleepytime tea. I went through kettles of boiled water and seven or eight bags of the stuff until I’d sufficiently stilled the nicotine cravings and become brain dead. I may or may not have dozed off before Todd and Tracy arrived home in the wee hours of morning. When they came in I was in a foggy state in the bathroom, peeing with the door open. Urine cascaded off the rim of the toilet and puddled at my feet. I vaguely remember Tracy using the word “disgusting.”

I stayed in bed the following day, in and out of sleep, only slipping from under the sheets to open the fridge or use the bathroom. Todd bumped into me in the hallway and said I looked like a mental patient. “Got my meds?” I asked. He swung back his long hair, pulled out a cigarette hiding behind his ear and held it under my nose. I waved him away like I was fighting a swarm of mosquitoes and stumbled back into bed.

When I awoke in the morning I ignored all the phone, email and text messages I’d received for 36 hours and counting—there were lots—and packed a sandwich and a few liters of water and headed for Mt. McGill. Under a warm cloudless sky I hiked a figure-eight loop through dense forests and over rocky ridges. 19 miles all told, a personal record. When I got home I repaired my blistered feet and took a long shower, the hot water pelting down oh so soothingly over my shoulders and down my back. And with shampoo lathering into my face, I closed my eyes and revisited all those fir trees and ferns, all those tufas and tulips I’d come across on the day’s trails. It was almost surreal how vivid the images appeared in my mind, but then the vision of a hollowed-out tree trunk morphed into a giant stogie, igniting a strange tickling at the back of my throat. And so I quickly shut off the water and toweled off.
The next day I’d start work. A new me: smoke-free at Smokefree Industries.  A weekend had gone by and I had done it. So far so good.

***
At my new place of employ, a bookish little blonde toured me around the building shortly after my arrival.

“And this is our break room. There are oat cakes and packages of dried mangos in the cupboards, Fiji waters and bottles of pineapple juice in our refrigerator. Drinks are a dollar, snacks are two. You pay over there, just drop your bills in that old-fashioned honey jar. We’re on the honor system, so if you don’t have exact change, just pay accordingly when you can.”

I forced a smile, but the room looked so drearily dull and uninviting, unlike any break room I’d encountered. In others I’d held court, chain-smoking away my lunches and entertaining all concerned with wildly brilliant ideas, critiques of the latest films and concerts I’d attended, and general good humor and zaniness. My spirit was infectious. I’d always found coffee, cigarettes and the propensity to blather worked wonders in bringing in high sales commissions. But I’d sold computer accessories and automotive products, and never worked where smoking was banned, especially in break rooms.
The woman, Christy or Misty—already I couldn’t remember, my mind softening without nicotine stimulation—introduced me to the dozen or so in the sales group, including Jeff and Alexandra, also starting that day. They soon bragged about being ex-smokers, though Jeff wore a heavy, haggard look and Alexandra gnawed on the strands of her hair every time she thought I wasn’t looking. The three of us were shown to cubicles and given HR forms to fill. “When you’re done, come back by my desk,” Christy or Misty said, backpedaling with a wave.

I completed the requested info within a half hour, although my hand shook a little as I checked “no” on several health insurance forms when asked if I smoked. I wandered back to Christy/Misty’s desk with papers in hand and peered over the tops of Jeff’s cubicle and Alexandra’s. They looked so serious, meticulously poring over the forms as if taking the state bar exam. Absurd.

Christy it was, confirming the fact when she turned as I called the name from halfway across the room. “Did I get an A?” I asked, handing in the forms. She simply looked puzzled as she put them in her filing drawer. Jeff and Alexandra joined us eventually and then we journeyed to a conference room. Christy’s conversation starters fizzled, and I tried to engage discussion with similar results. So we stared blankly at our watches and notepads, afraid to lock eyes. My cravings for a cigarette built as the day progressed, and now, amid the boredom, I wondered if only a straight-jacket might contain me. But likely l appeared composed when the sales team arrived and the meeting got started.

Mr. Charbonneau, VP of Sales, had wavy dark sideburns and a classic Valentino mustache. He looked dapper in pinstriped threads. A glib fellow about forty, he told familiar jokes that drew familiar chuckles. Such as how our new co-workers Ashley, Tom and Nick, seated around the table, had once smoked so much they’d been known as “Ashtray Ashley,” Tobacco Tom,” and “Nicotine Nick.” Then he took a serious tone and explained how important our role was in helping fellow citizens beat the devils of cancer and lung disease. Soon he nodded at Christy who hit the lights, and the man formerly known as Tobacco Tom started the video projector.

We watched a documentary-style corporate piece. It included interviews, animation, news features and product footage. It made me very uncomfortable. Months had passed since I’d worn a tie and collar-shirt until that day and with each passing shot of people smoking and laughing—especially the cartoon cowboys—I felt a queasy, choking sensation. It was surreal. Charbonneau and others interjected comments in addition to the narration but I was oblivious. All I could do was look at the curly Q smoke rising from the tip of Cruella de Vil’s extended cigarette like a baby eyeing a favorite rattle, just out of reach.
We kept watching. Soon footage appeared of sickly patients with emphysema and bronchitis, lung cancer and heart disease. Patients for whom it was too late, but people once like those who could still be saved. This was the company’s highest pursuit we were told. It was embedded in the corporate slogan:

“Smokefree Industries: Helping Smokers Quit in the Nic of Time.”

Charbonneau asked if we three sales newbies had questions or comments. Mum was the word for my reticent colleagues, and so I wanted to say something, anything. But then the hallucination struck. Like I was having an acid flashback or experiencing my first bout with dementia.
I still don’t know what it was that fooled me on that video screen—perhaps a burned-out bulb or sheet of paper clinging from static. Well after the film had turned off I saw a gloved hand of cobalt blue reach through the screen with a cigarette in its fingertips, while someone whispered my name—Spencer, Spencer, Spencer—over and over again. Next thing I knew I was being revived by paramedics in the back of a stationary ambulance out in the corporate parking lot, cold clammy sweat breaking through every pore on my body.

“You look like you’ve been to hell and back,” one of them said as I came around.

I had.

It wasn’t too hard to figure, really. I’d given the job a shot only to misfire and nearly catch myself under the chin with the kick.

***
It was late afternoon when I arrived, but there under the big oak was dear Meredith, refugee of the city park. She was sitting cross-legged as she spied me coming. Her face bore not a trace of surprise.

“Didn’t work out, did it?”

I shrugged my shoulders and dropped my gaze until she offered me a smoke.