Cigarette Freeze

“Why are you smoking? You don’t smoke,” I say to myself.

You don’t smoke. Your father smokes. You don’t smoke, I repeat, looking into my pristine mirror that I cleaned meticulously for ten minutes. No streaks, just smoke. “I don’t smoke,” I say, and I blow the Marlboro’s burning taste out from my chapped lips. I just came from a funeral. And my mom gave me his cigarettes. My father’s last pack. My father always said he’d quit. He said he’d always stop. Half a pack a day. Just a few a day. “You don’t even smoke!” I whisper, the tendrils of gray whispering sweet suffering and tender hearted memories. He quit drinking, but he still smoked.

I took out another cigarette from the slightly smashed pack and lit it up. I closed my eyes and thought about the day my dad made me feel better. I was moping around, feeling useless and tired. I couldn’t get up to even take a shower.

My boyfriend had just broken up with me.

“No, you don’t, you little princess,” Dad says, pulling me outta bed. “Time to go.” And we went to the pond. It was snowing. It was frozen over. He lit a cigarette and drank some old coffee from a white stained mug from his pick up truck. “Let’s have a talk on the ice, princess.”

I stop. I can’t finish the pack, my shaking hand tells me in the mirror. I can’t. He’ll want the rest. He’ll get mad that I took them. I stop. I’m only twenty, dad. Why’d you go? I still need you here. To stop me from being so young and dumb.

We’re on the ice.

And we lay down side by side.

“So…What’s going on, Amala? What’s hip?”

“Dad… I’m freezing cold. Why the hell are you asking me about what’s hip?”

He laughs. It’s hearty and rich and syrupy.

“Ah, you are such a dragon, Amala. Like Smaug. Lazy and ferocious and lonely.”

I grinned. I liked the description.

“You agree? I hear no rebuttals.”

I sigh. “You got me pretty much to a T!”

He laughed again.

“What if… the ice cracks and breaks?” I ask suddenly. I see a puff of smoke from his cigarette in the cold white atmosphere. It looks like he is an Ice Dragon… peeking from the ice… ready to set everything on fire.

“I’ll get you out no matter what. Even if I am encased in the ice. My frozen prison of everlasting torment and freedom.”

I laughed. “Weirdo.”

“I’d like it. My cigarette would be with me. Then, in a thousand years—-they’ll unfreeze me. And the first thing I’ll do…I will light up my cigarette.”

“Whatever. I wanna go ice fishing,” I said.

“I didn’t bring nothing in my truck, lovey,” my dad started. “But, we will go. It’ll be a doozy. I might let you help me dig a hole in the ice.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh. So exciting!” But I smiled anyway.

It’s like that movie Big Fish. Your dad always seems bigger than life. Badder than all the bad guys. The one who will always save you from anything. Anything he tells you, you hang on every word. Every story. Every lie. He’s your hero. He’s your ego. He builds you up. He lets you down.

In—-I inhale the burnt smoke.

Out——your father is gone.

“Boyfriends come and go. First loves…. First stings.. but, princess, know this, I’ll always be here for you.”

My dad died from lung cancer. He was only fifty nine years old. He wanted me to have them as a reminder to not do what he did. And here I am… smoking like I actually like it. I don’t. It’s making me gag. It’s making me feel like a coward. I am a coward. Always thinking instead of doing. Always dreaming instead of fighting.

I always wanted to be a writer. My dad always believed in me. “You could write for Hallmark.”

And I believed it.

Here am I—-sinking into smoke and a flurry of bad choices.

Bad choices for my school—-my career—-my relationships.

So I wrote this down. And I sense a chill in the air suddenly. Everything feels like ice. I’m encased in ice.

I close my eyes. There’s my dad. He’s hugging my tight. He’s smiling that corny dad smile. We go ice fishing. Just like he always said.

“Why aren’t you smoking, dad?” I ask him, as we bring our equipment out from his beat up pick up truck.

“I quit smoking. You ain’t gonna start, are you, princess?”

I shake my head. “I did. But I don’t think it had to do with wanting to try it. I missed you.”

“At the risk of sounding like an after-school special… or something like The Lion King…” My dad starts, and I laugh. “I’ll always be with you. You are a part of me. You can carry my spirit on in little ways. If you want to… I mean..” he ruffles my hair and I shove him, laughing, “You don’t have to!”

“I’ll write,” I say determinedly.

“You better. And it better not be too hammy. I wasn’t too much of a joke—-right?”

I shake my head. The tears flow finally.

“Never.” I say.

And I open my eyes. I open the windows and breathe.

The air does have a chill to it.

I put away the cigarettes and write down my father’s story.