Before I was born, I was on nicotine. My dad chain smoked\u2014I don\u2019t blame him\u2014it was a cultural norm. My mom grew up in smoke in England. Pregnant with me, she didn\u2019t notice my father\u2019s cigarette smoke\u2014I don\u2019t blame her either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I craved and satisfied my addiction it without knowing. All I had to do was walk into the house or get into the family car and breathe. Until I went away to college in \u201867, I had never held a cigarette. Then I found myself hanging around dorm rooms of chain smokers, just breathing it in. The moment I realized what I was doing, I pointed at a red pack, \u201cGive me one of those.\u201d A month later, I was a chain smoker too. My biggest expense was cigarettes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New Year\u2019s Eve, 1974, I quit. I still have smoking dreams. I wake and think I should be seeing the burning end, the trailing smoke; a panic dream to come out of: thinking I must have dropped the cherry among the sheets. Panic can place a memory. I have them all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also smoked pot\u2014started in \u201967\u2014so I weaned off cigs kinda easy (except for those cigarette dreams). I quit pot in \u201986 after I lied to my daughter when she told me I smelled like a skunk. No smoking anything until 2003\u2014old classmate visiting, she talked me into it. Now I smoke it a few times a month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t like the potent kind of pot we have these days, the kind that might get me out in the street yelling at cars with my panties on my head. I like the lightweight stuff. I want the easy coherent high that makes me want to eat a piece of fruit and write an essay. I like the act of rolling the joint around my fingers, using matches, cupped hands, getting comfortable in a favorite chair, tapping ash, relaxing, anticipating the smooth mindset. I take a puff and get the poison-satisfaction of smoking; inhaling smoke, blowing out a stream, watching it billow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m addicted to the physical act of smoking and I\u2019m more afraid of nicotine products than I am of cannabis agriculture. I choose the lesser of the two evils, the altered state, so I can smoke. Most of my days I don\u2019t smoke. However, every day I do crave a smoke. Asleep or awake. Every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason for abstention is freedom. But they got me young, got me before I was born. It\u2019s not on them. It\u2019s on me to abstain. I bargain with my freedom. I could do without the high, but the act of smoking\u2014hot smoke burn, two finger hold\u2014still has, still has me.
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As a boy, Richard C. Rutherford learned storytelling from coon hunters who whittled and spit, recalling moon phase, moisture, and wind (dry as a popcorn fart), black-and-tan cold-trailers, rattle-headed pups, and blue-tick tree dogs who could set down under an old oak and just go to preaching. He has daughters, so he’s a feminist. His stories can be found in Hypertext, Fiction Southeast, Red Fez, Catamaran, The Writing Disorder, Stone Coast Review, Visitant, and Cardinal Sins, among others. He has a large collection of stories.
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Before I was born, I was on nicotine. My dad chain smoked\u2014I don\u2019t blame him\u2014it was a cultural norm. My mom grew up in smoke in England. Pregnant with me, she didn\u2019t notice my father\u2019s cigarette smoke\u2014I don\u2019t blame her either. I craved and satisfied my addiction it without knowing. All I had to do … <\/p>\n