A week before I was hired at Defector, I decided to quit vaping. This was kind of a while ago now, but I still have good days and bad. Today is a good day; I haven't even needed a patch today. Yesterday was a rough one. On rough days, I will go buy one single shitty poverty cigar—the brainchild of the Phillies' owner's dad, the Black & Mild wood tip. This is a multi-pronged strategy: I love wood tips, but I rarely smoke a whole one in a sitting, no matter how hard up I might be. Also, everyone around you will think less of you if you do this. A key feature of cravings is self-loathing, and it sort of feels deserved that people will see me: a questionably dressed yet ostensibly grown woman smoking a cigar that is usually purchased with coins. Weakness ought to feel like weakness.
Last night, I had already smoked through my cigar of the day. Since my trip to New York, I'm staying with my aunt and uncle in La Crosse, Wis. for a little while before I drive the rest of the way back from to Tacoma. As the evening pushed forward, I was putting on an impressively brave face for them. Across the river in Winona, a thunderstorm had rolled in, lighting up the sky brilliantly, and the air was so thick you had a real sense for what was clapping back together when the lightning left its jagged vacuums. My aunt and uncle are big nerds (complimentary) about weather. They have a little plane and are spending their retirement bouncing around America with only Mother Nature to play defense. I'm a curious sort, so I leaned into that, hanging on every word they spoke. I begged them to explain more about how the wind played tricks on a small aircraft. I was desperate for distraction from the withdrawal. But after a while they got tired and turned in for the night. I couldn't take my car to satisfy my craving, because that would involve noisily opening the garage, which would be an embarrassing reveal of me making a whole trip to collect a second John Middleton product in just one Thursday. So I would go on foot.
La Crosse is a really beautiful place. After the last ice age, the whole area was a several-mile-wide river, carving out the valley between Grandad's bluff and the cliffs on the other side of the Mississippi River, in Minnesota. Thunder in the distance echoes back and forth off the sides of the canyon.
I sprained my knee just before I quit smoking, so the mostly healed joint welcomed the half-hour walk to the 24-hour Kwik Trip. My lack of movement, combined with needing something to chew on all day, has gained me a full 30 pounds in the last two months. The streets were dark, comforting.
I stumbled into the Kwik Trip. The guy on shift stood in the back corner, cleaning the slushie machine. I snagged a pink sugar-free Monster for Friday morning and hobbled up to the counter. I surveyed the options on the back wall, considering just buying a whole pack of menthols voluntarily. In New York, the loosie laws don't allow for my emotional support poverty cigarillo, so I ended up buying a pack and then a second of Parliaments. It's fine. On the way out I had thought it serendipitous that my quitting coincided with acquiring my dream internship, to keep my spirits up. The moment it actually started, I had to grapple with the fact that my shit isn't always good, and when it isn't I feel like a pitcher who has lost feel for the offspeed, throwing heaters harder and harder to petulantly cope with my own inability to deceive.
"Hey kid, without shoes I can't help you."
I looked around, sort of dazed. I knew he meant me, I knew I was barefoot, and yet it seemed baffling that at one in the morning he might be taking issue with this. There wasn't another soul in sight—nobody to bear witness to him brandishing store policy at me, nobody to narc if he were to serve me and my loose dogs. If any other person in the world were here, they would support me in my position. I didn't really even want to be barefoot! I just didn't think about it that much. I own shoes! It's my own business if I want to employ them or not! The giant stacks of donut boxes looked back sympathetically.
I wandered out into the parking lot, suddenly noticing just how much the asphalt had been abrading my soles on the way over. Every step felt burning hot. I sat down at a park bench and stared out into space. I debated going back there and trying to explain myself: that I was from out of town, that the Midwest is supposed to be nice, that I needed a win here, that I would come back tomorrow and throw broken spark plug porcelain through his window. I thought of half a dozen very clever and cutting ways to tell him he's rotten and I wish him ill.
I got up, and I began walking up the street to where the map said there might be another gas station. My feet were on fire from the asphalt. I aimed my shambling through the grass lining the sidewalks when I could. I was wearing terracotta sweatpants to go with a Captain Morgan Spiced Rum promotional Hawaiian shirt that I had seam ripped the logo-embroidered breast pocket off of, because I was just interested in the print's rather impressive parrot density. The second and third gas stations were where the map said they would be, but both were closed.
I took a wrong turn on the way back to the house. I was sort of waddling at this point, not unlike a bunny from the Max & Ruby cartoons. It took me another hour or so to finally find my way back. I passed out on the living room couch, too tired and hurt to want anything anymore.
