Smokes

For a time, I sold cigarettes at a smoke shop. I had to learn the difference between hard packs and soft packs, 100's and Lights, reds and golds and menthols. I learned about rolling papers and tobacco and lighters and chew. I worked the night shift on weekends and the place was always hopping. It was a small town in Idaho, a little convenience store within walking distance from pretty much everything, and we sold cheap smokes and 40's; candy and beef jerky and packs of gum. I have a tiny scar on the inside of my forearm from when I was stocking beer and a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon exploded.

Everyone always asked for milk, and we never sold milk. I knew what they smoked and they knew me, all of the locals in this town, every last one of them, because everyone smoked. I would buy cloves and keep them in my bag and I would smoke them because I liked how they looked and I liked how they smelled, even though I never really knew how to smoke. You could still smoke in the bars, and it was dirty and romantic.

At night I was in charge of closing everything down, setting the alarm and turning off the neon lights and locking the door, and I'd check, maybe a thousand times, to make sure the front door was locked, and I'd look back and see it there, that place I loved, silent and sleeping in the dark, next to the empty laundromat with its machines going round and round.