Smoking

So Hugh smokes. (Cigarettes, that is--other stuff? Lord, I dunno.)

He started smoking at least a couple of years ago. We first began to suspect because he was spending a ridiculous amount of time in the alley. There's not a lot to do in our alley, unless you're really into garbage cans or stray cats. Then came the air fresheners in the car. Finally one night he came in and when he asked me a question, the stench of stale cigarettes on his breath almost knocked me down. "When did you start smoking?" I asked him. "I'M NOT!" he howled in outrage. Sigh.

As if I don't know tobacco breath.

I grew up amidst clouds of cigarette smoke. My dad smoked constantly and four of my five older brothers were smoking by the time they hit their teens. To see the tv I peered through a smoky haze;  washing the dishes at home meant scraping the cigarette butts out of the ketchup puddles in which they'd been extinguished during dinner;  crumpled-up Kool packets littered my life; I just assumed everyone stepped out of the car reeking of tobacco. And of course, almost everyone did.

Then, as I hit my late 20s, the smoke began to dissipate. This amazing cultural shift took place. Bit by bit, the ash trays, the omnipresent butts, the smoky clouds, the acrid-smelling clothes, all disappeared.

Until Hugh hit his teens.

When I mention to friends that Hugh smokes and that, apart from not allowing it in the house, we're not responding--no "consequences"--they recoil in horror, as if I'd casually mentioned my son was a serial killer or a child molester. But I pick my battles. Lord knows, Hugh and I fight on many fronts.  This one, however--geez, this one I'd lost long ago. While just a toddler, Hugh became amazingly adept at finding the one single cigarette butt on the sidewalk. Before I could pounce, he'd have it in his mouth in a spot-on imitation of a serious smoker. At age 4, he pronounced he was going to be a Bad Guy when he grew up because Bad Guys smoke. At age 6, he declared my brother JT his favorite uncle. "Why?" I asked, somewhat mystified, since Hugh hardly knew him. "'Cos he smokes," he explained.

So Hugh smokes.

And you know, he's still as beautiful as when he slept, smelling of rising bread dough, in the cradle beside my bed.

Tho' he doesn't always smell so good.