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Story: ALL IN THE FAMILY- Part 1
 Author: slimv July 25, 2001 at 17:23:31 
    Ok guys, I worked on this story for two weeks. Better yet, I lived it in my mind for two weeks. I hope you live it with me.
Needless to say, my mother played an important role in why I’m like this. My earliest memories are of her smoking. I was five years old and I can remember her cooking breakfast for my father in her nightgown- a Winston dangling from her lips as she scrambled his eggs over the gas range. My father didn’t smoke, but he didn’t seem to mind Mom’s habit. Maybe I inherited these feelings from him. I should have outgrown this obsession, but its only gotten worse.
Mom is 55 and smokes about two packs a day. She says she started when she was 19 but I’ve heard my grandmother say she’s been smoking since she was 15. Grandma smoked too but she’s dead now.
I like the way Mom looks when she smokes. There, I admit it. I always have and I always will. I guess that makes me a sick. Smoking is supposed to be disgusting. It makes your breath and hair stink but I love every thing about it. My mother’s breath is sweeter than any perfume I ever smelled.
I’m not a closet smoker now but I was when this story began. I smoked my first cigarette when I was 15. It was every thing I expected and more.
I used to fantasize about smoking in front of my mother. I would imagine different scenarios with her discovering my habit. Sometimes she would catch me. Other times I would tell her. I enjoyed the look of disgust on her face as she watched me light up. Maybe I wanted to hurt her. It was her fault that I felt the way I did. I’ve seen children smoking with their parents and they always look so happy. My life could have been like that, but my mother wasn’t the kind of woman who would allow her child to smoke. It would be too embarrassing for her. What would the neighbors say?
My mother complains constantly about her habit. I once heard my father ask why she didn’t quit since it bothered her so much. Mom hit the roof and let Dad have it. In her holier than thou voice, she told my father that he didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about. She told him he couldn’t fathom the feeling of being addicted to cigarettes because he didn’t smoke, and then she’d light another Winston.
That word “Addiction” used to bother me when I was younger. I knew what addicts were. Addicts were people who needed drugs to make them feel good or even normal. I had a hard time thinking of my mother or any other smoker as an addict. Addicts were supposed to hide their habits. Junkies didn’t shoot up openly but smokers like my mom lit up everywhere. Real smokers don’t care who sees them satisfy their habits. Junkies pay cash for their drugs on dimly lit street corners. Mom buys her cigarettes at the grocery store and writes a check for them. Junkies don’t look sexy or glamorous with a needles hanging from their arm but the smoke from Mom’s lungs could launch a thousand ships.
She was young once. There had to be a time when she didn’t smoke but I just can’t imagine it. I’ve often thought of what she must have looked like at 16 running around the house in her panties carrying her cigarettes. I found a picture of her smoking. She doesn’t know I have it. Grandpa must have taken it because it’s a picture of her with my grandma. They were both smoking in the picture. I showed it to my grandma. I didn’t say any thing about the cigarette. I just asked how old mom was in the picture. Grandma told me she was sixteen and asked if she didn’t look beautiful. I put that picture in my little safe that looked like a book along with some other things that were pretty important at the time- like teeth that my dentist had pulled and a necklace that I never got the chance to give to a girl when I was in 10th grade.
Smoking is an adult habit and my mother made damn sure I knew it. She hated kids that smoked. According to her, kids that smoked were evil and ignorant. I was not allowed to be friends with kids that smoked.
The necklace that I kept in my book safe was meant for a girl that smoked. We were both fifteen. Her name was Lisa and she was the first smoker I ever kissed. She smoked Virginia Slims Light Menthols. I still remember her sweet menthol kisses. I smoked my first cigarette with her. It was her idea. She asked me to try it. She told me I’d like it. She was right. I did. I guess mom was right about girls that smoke being dangerous. Lisa was my mother’s worse nightmare- an attractive influential teen smoker. Lisa gave me a pack of her cigarettes and told me to take them home. I shouldn’t have taken them but I did and I hid them in my book safe.
I didn’t know how easily one of those little locks could be picked but my mother did. She found the cigarettes and interrogated me with Gestapo tactics. She made me talk and I named names. I told her about Lisa and my friend “Short Fred”. Fred was confined to a wheel chair. I know it sounds like a mean nickname but he’s the one who made it up. My mother made it a point to call both their parents that night. She grounded me for a month. Neither Short Fred nor Lisa ever spoke to me again. Ironically, Lisa’s parents gave her permission to smoke after mom dropped the hammer on her. Its funny how things work out. Needless to say, I didn’t quit. I just got better at hiding it.
In addition to grounding me, my mother made it very clear how disappointed she was. Her guilt was thick and it stuck to me like glue. I felt terrible about my self. According to her, I was stupid and trashy. I disgusted her. She told me all of this with a Winston dangling from her lip.
Why is it that people like my mom and Barbara can smoke and they’re not trashy or stupid? As a matter of fact, they’re the farthest things from trashy and stupid. They’re attractive and respectable members of our community. They are adult smokers.
Tammy was my next real girl friend. She was smart and pretty, and of course she didn’t smoke. I think my mom would have approved of me dating a lizard as long as it didn’t smoke.
Tammy wasn’t a smoker but her mother, Barbara, was. If I think about this honestly, one of the reasons I dated Tammy was so I could be around her mother. Any way, one thing led to another and Tammy and I were having unprotected sex and she got pregnant. We were just 16. We thought we loved each other and under the circumstances, both our parents agreed to let us marry. After the wedding, I moved in with Tammy and her parents. Todd, our first and only child was born during our junior year.
I seriously considered telling Tammy that I smoked. I halfway think she might have understood and accepted me, but then again, I was a closet smoker.
My marriage was sexually satisfying. I was at that age where I couldn’t get enough and my wife was a willing partner. I loved Tammy and I loved our son, but I always felt as if I hadn’t fulfilled my destiny. Tammy was beautiful but she didn’t smoke. I was just 16. I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life with a non-smoker. As it turned out, I didn’t have too.

End of Part 1
    
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