Thank You for Smoking

At first he didn't recognize the extraordinarily awful taste in his mouth, nor did he have a clue as to where he was. Wherever it was, it had a spectacular view of Washington. He was on the Arlington side, this much he did know. The dawning fact that he was surrounded by identical tombstones, and many thousands of them, suggested that he was somewhere in Arlington National Cemetery. Then he was able to identify the revolting layer of scum on his tongue. Slivovitz. The residue of glass after glass after glass of it. Yes, it was coming back now: he had ended the evening singing Serbian fighting songs shoulder to shoulder with the waiters and kitchen staff. Somehow he had driven himself to Arlington Cemetery, and had gotten himself over the fence. His ripped trousers and the acute pain in his right kneecap implied that this had not been smartly done. But why Arlington?

That came back to him too. He had come here to kill himself.

He liked Arlington, sometimes came here on a nice day, just to stroll and check out who was who. There were over two hundred thousand people buried here, which was a lot of dead people, though it wasn't, it occurred to him uncomfortably, even half one year's smoking casualties. He remembered deciding not to kill himself at his apartment so his cleaning lady wouldn't have to find him. He remembered the speedometer hitting 110 mph and aiming for the concrete pillars of the overpass, but chickening out, just in time, when he remembered that the car had an airbag and he'd probably end up a quadraplegic for the rest of his life, and an extremely bitter one at that.

At which point he looked up and saw Arlington national cemetery. Why not? There was no rope in the trunk, so he decided to hang himself with the jumper cables. There they were, by his feet.

He picked them up. They felt kind of rubbery. He didn't relish hanging himself with the equivalent of a bungee cord. He saw himself bouncing up and down, his head banging against the branch.

He considered. The Metro stopped at Arlington. He could clamp the jumper cables to the third rail. Seven hundred fifty volts should do the trick nicely. That would give the headline-writing bastards material.

His watch showed 4:23 a.m. The trains weren't running yet. He stood, wincing from the pain in his knee, and hobbled up the hill. He could see a flickering light not far off that turned out to be the eternal flame on President Kennedy's grave.

Who better to share his final moments with? One young victim to another, cut off in the prime of life.

Whoa.

Hard to he to yourself in a cemetery.

Let's be honest, kid—Gomez O'Neal seemed to be doing the voice-over for what was left of his conscience—you're a washed-out, forty-year-old snake-oil vendor on the payroll, until recently, of people who sell death for a living. On the Karmicfood chain, you're somewhere between a sea slug and eel shit. You've fucked up two careers, one marriage, and two good friendships. Just think what you could have accomplished if you'd lived to a ripe old age.

So — a tragic career, happily cut short.

He stood at the fringe of the gravesite, apprehensive about being stopped by the park police.

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But there were no signs of police, so he walked closer to the flame, which glowed warmly in the predawn chill.

A rusde in the bushes. Movement. Oh God — did they let Dobermans patrol on the loose?

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For a man who wanted to die, he was awfully scared. He hobbled over to a bush opposite and crouched and hid.

A bum stumbled out of the bushes. Nick peered. He was layered with rags, and seemed enormous and hunched over, like an apparition out of a Grimm fairy tale. The bum coughed. A great, deep baritone volcano of a cough — one of our clients, for sure — and then spat in Nick's direction. It landed with a vile, liquidy splat.

His pulmonary ablutions done, the bum reached into his pockets and after much rummaging produced a bent cigarette stub. He stuck it in his mouth and rummaged for a match. The search went on for quite a while; he seemed to have about a hundred pockets in all those layers.

No match.

He walked over to the eternal flame, got down on his hands and knees, and lit his cigarette.

As epiphanies go, a mixed signal.

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by heather holloway