Chew!
As a teenager, he was terrified he’d encounter his parents on the street. They’d kill him if he got caught. They’d never speak to him again. It was the worst thing he could possibly imagine — so bad, in fact, that he couldn’t possibly imagine it: just some foggy fin de siécle, in which he’d approach from one direction, and his mother or father would approach from the other … and then nothing.
Which is not to say he didn’t occasionally act a little reckless. He never smoked in their neighborhood … except when he did. He never lit a cigarette while exiting the building and crossing Amsterdam Avenue – where his mother could easily spot him from her bedroom window — except when he knew for a fact she’d be washing dishes. Still, most of the time he was careful.
So careful, in fact, that he devised a technique: whenever he stepped outside, he’d turn in the direction he meant to go, and inspect everyone within ten feet; then he’d peruse the faces of people twenty feet away; then those at a range of thirty feet; then forty. Then he’d start walking — still focussed on the traffic forty feet ahead of him — while expertly drawing and lighting a cigarette. Pedestrians fifty feet away drew within forty, where they met his inspection; those forty feet away drew within thirty, already considered and accounted for; those thirty feet away drew within twenty; those twenty feet away drew within ten; and those within ten feet passed from his periphery. For however long it took to smoke his cigarette, he kept vigil — the butt dangling from his side, where he could easily discard it (like releasing a balloon — only, in the opposite direction) and substitute a piece of Big Red.
That’s what he was doing now, as they sauntered south on Columbus Avenue — a modest-sized group, bound for an empty apartment. It was the summer after his freshman year of college, a balmy July night: the sidewalk was crowded, smelling pleasantly of sweat and exhaust fumes. His high school friends laughed and joked, and he gazed contentedly into the middle distance, until — without even thinking — he breathed the word:
Dad.
There he was, less than half a block away. His father was a tall man (stature he didn’t inherit), and he tottered along, head and shoulders above the rest. Where could he be coming from, on his way to where? Oh, Jesus: it was real. It was happening.
So now he conducted the well-rehearsed drill (while his friends playfully shoved each other; saying things like, “No, fuck you”) — abandoning all tension in his fingers, and dropping his smoke to the ground. Gum, he thought next, snaking his left hand into his shorts pocket and withdrawing a piece wrapped in tinfoil. Only rarely did he litter: the tinfoil drifted to the sidewalk, too.
And then he chewed. Never in the history of mankind had anyone chewed like that before. Chew! he screamed into the echo chamber of his mind. CHEW! Thirty feet, twenty feet. His friend hawked and spat on the pavement, dragging a hand across his mouth. The apartment they were bound for had a balcony, where they could sit and smoke and drink with impunity, and hurl large chunks of ice from the freezer, listening to the explosions caused deep in the alleys, below. His father was only a few feet away, now: he trained his eyes on the ground and counted, one, two, three, four — preparing to look up, feign surprise, and stop.
He looked up, feigned surprised, and stopped. His father did not. In a moment, he’d passed from sight, never having noticed.
It wasn’t until much later that he’d light a fresh cigarette — seated on the balcony, in the rapidly diminishing twilight. Even then (still shaky), he cupped a palm over the cherry — a bivouac to shield its glow — and stared into the lit windows of all the adjacent apartment buildings. In the army, he’d read, snipers watch for cigarettes at dusk, and target the embers, using scopes that range a mile or more. He cupped the cherry and waited.
