Cigarette Burn

Enter with me into a dimly lit dank bar in the middle of the city. Naturally, it is a Friday night. Outside all are hustling and bustling, shopping for a new pair of pumps with their girlfriends, passionately kissing a lover in the back of a cab, or finding one at the nearest club, but not in here. In here, the bartender's alcohol never stops pouring; the shots are thrown back like the booze is the antidote to a lethal poison that is the patrons' lives. Just a couple blocks down there is an old church, with stained glass windows of saints and statues of the virgin mother, but here in this haven, there are no saints or virgins; there is no God. All that exists is the patrons impending death, and the mixed stench of cigarettes, scotch, and failure that both hang in the thick air.

The hero of our tale sits at the bar in his usual stool. Every time he walks in, the bartender greets him by a pseudonym, for he'd never admit that the man who he was outside the bar spent his Friday nights in such a dismal place. But it does not matter who this man is on the outside world. All that matters is who he is in here. In here, he sits keeping to himself, drowning himself in whiskey. There's something he wants to forget, and of course, he doesn't know what he's hiding from has been tracking him down and is about to stumble into his very sanctuary, trapping him like a fox running from the hounds. Dogged and unyielding, his own resoluteness is his greatest quality and his greatest flaw.

Despite his grisly appearance against this miserable place, when he steps into the real world, he's considered a good-looking man. As a man of at least twenty-four years, his boyish appearance was still acceptable, but as he nears his twenty-fifth birthday, now less than half a year away, and had now graduated college, a shave and a haircut would be a proper rite of passage into manhood. For now, he relishes in his last months of young adulthood with his soft, chestnut brown hair hanging loosely in his face. When he stands, he’s near six-foot two-inches. His thin face is birdlike, with cheekbones high and pronounced, not to mention a strong, manly chin. In the outside world, his large, round eyes are deemed one of his better features, but in here, his eyes were sunken and heavy-lidded, like he hasn’t slept in years. Nicotine stains his fingers, and the ashtray next to him is filled with his burnt out stubs.

The bell on the door dings quietly as somebody enters the bar. The bartender looks up, but he doesn’t. His whiskey is all that matters.

“Hey there, stranger,” a cheery voice greets him as its body sits down on the stool next to him.

He grunts in acknowledgement. His eyes glaze over just long enough to see that the voice belongs to a young woman, around his age, with such short blonde hair and such a flat body, that if it weren’t for the feminine clothing, girly face, and the fact that a gay guy wouldn’t dare step foot in a bar like this, he wouldn’t have been sure if it was woman at first.

“Not much of talker, izzy?” she asks the bartender as she makes her order of scotch on the rocks.

“Naw, don’t mind Sam,” Carl replies. “He’s just a little bit of a grouch.”

“Your name’s Sam?” she asks, with a cheerful tone to her voice. “Well, I’m Stephanie, but most just call me Stevie.”

At this, he raises his head a little too fast. There’s a panicked look in his eyes but he doesn’t want to give it away. His face is straight, but his eyes are wider than usual. Al looks at him a slight shock at his odd behavior, but goes on to pour some more beer for another client.

“Well that got your attention,” she remarks with a sanguine smile. Despite her pixie-cut, Buddy Holly glasses, and trendier clothes, she can’t hide that fifteen-year-old girl with long, braided, sandy blonde hair who wore white blouses and knee-length skirts. That elfin face was unforgettable.

“What’s wrong, Sam?” she asks. “What’s wrong Steve?”

It’s getting harder to breathe. He wasn’t expecting this. It was impossible.

Awkwardly, he spits out, “Yes, my name is Sam.” He manages to stand up. The room is swirling in his head and he props himself up against the bar with his left arm. Extracting a box of Lucky Strikes and a lighter, out from his pocket, he leans against the bar unsteadily while he slowly pulls out a single cigarette, puts it to his lips, and lights it shakily, taking three or four tries of flicking on the lighter for it to work. The other two exchange confused glances and watch him, unsure on what exactly they are witnessing.

Well at least, that’s what they look like on the outside. On the inside, she knows exactly what she’s looking at.

“Seems like you need to lie down, Sam,” she suggests, innocently. “I could hail you a cab.”

“No, no, I can do that, without Sam­– Stevie,” he replies, hurriedly, trying to make his way to the door, calling back to the bar. “Put it on my tab Carl!”

“Will do Sam!” the bartender yells back at him.

The door closes behind him and our hero stumbles into the alley adjacent to the bar, vomiting out all was inside him.

“Are you okay Sam?”

“Leave me alone,” he growls.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the pixie replies, callously.

“It was a long time ago. I just want to forget.”

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t tell everyone!”

His stomach lurches and he tries to stand up. She steps in front of him, making sure not to tread in the acid on the ground, but he refuses to look at her.

“Because you’re dead!” he yells, hands on his knees.

Angrily, she steps forward, not caring that she’s now standing in what was once in his stomach, grabs him by the collar, and forces him to look her in the eye. “Do I look dead to you?” she screams.

“Where do you get off being mad at me?” he spits at her and pushes her off of him. “You’re the one who said that Samantha was dead.”

“What?” she asks, in disbelief at his reply.

“Don’t touch me, Steve. I’m dead! It’s all your fault, Steve! If you hadn’t left me, it would’ve never happened! That horrible man did terrible things to me and it’s your entire fault! I was a kid, Sam! I was a stupid fucking kid! How was I supposed to know that it would happen? It was movie stuff! Things like that didn’t happen in the real world! At least not to us!”

Caught up in the frustration, he kicks over a garbage can and strikes his fist against the brick wall. With a crack, it bounces off and begins to pound with pain. Wincing slightly, he ignores the throbbing ache. It’s nothing compared to the ache in his head.

“You were my friend,” she whimpers. “That’s all I needed from you.”

“I was a kid,” he repeats calmly. “The lines got blurred somewhere along the lines. I didn’t know that it would result in this.”

“But it did.”

“What do you want? An apology? I didn’t do anything wrong! At least not to you! What do you want from me?”

Silence fills the alley. He can’t even see her in detail anymore. All he sees is a shadow in the darkness, but he can still feel her eyes burning into him.

“I want your cigarettes.”

Taking a step back, he stares at her. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“You’re not getting my cigarettes.”

“Give them to me!” she screeches.

“Fine!” he yells back, digging his hand into the pocket and removing the pack. Heatedly, he shoves it into her hands. “It’s just one pack. I have at least seven more at home, and I can always buy another.”

“You’re never going to smoke them again.”

“What?”

“Stop pretending you don’t hear me!” she demands and pushes him against the wall.

With every fiber of his being he wants to just punch her in the face, but he doesn’t. He just stands there and snarls, “Why should I?”

“Because if you do, you’ll have my forgiveness. That is what you want, right?”

“What makes you think I give a damn about your forgiveness?”

She scoffs, “Please Steven, you use my name as an alias. You spend your nights in that squalor of a bar. There’s no way you’ve forgiven yourself for what happened. It still haunts you to know that somehow you’re responsible. You justify your actions. You claim that because you didn’t perform the act, you’re not at fault, but the fact of the matter is you know that if you had just been my friend, none of this would’ve happened. And it kills you inside.”

His eyes are burning and his lips whisper, “Leave me alone.”

“All you have to do is make that promise to me, and you will never see me again.”

“Why do you think I’ll honor it?”

“You will,” she states.

And he knows he will. It doesn’t matter if she physically does come back when he breaks his promise to her. Every time he puts the cigarette to his lips he’ll think of her and that will be enough to keep him away from it forever.

“I promise I’ll never smoke again.”

“Then I forgive you.”

Turning, she walks away out of the alley. His eyes follow her but he can’t move.

“Sam,” he calls out right before she steps out into the sidewalk. The streetlights silhouette her dainty figure.

“Yes, Steve,” she replies.

“I’m sorry.”

“I am too.”