Cigarettes.

 

Cigarettes.

 

Damn it, I need a cigarette. Rarely did I think like this. I am not one to completely lose my composure, far enough to drive me to drugs. But this week. This month. Hell, this year. It all came down to this: the sun was down, I was the last of anybody in the office. I walked past the glass box home to my boss, albeit, they had vanished like the rest of everyone else. I grimaced, my reflection haggard, unrecognizable, my thoughts entirely thin and detestable.

 

I hadn’t felt this way in a long time. I stood there, looking at the woman I didn’t know in the glass, thinking about how everything had mounted up. Things began small, and manageable, at first, until they weren’t. I started a new job, one that came with a witch (or was it a warlock?) as my boss. I thought, no problem. I’ve dealt with these types before. I’ll survive! And then my apartment flooded. I thought, no problem, I have insurance. Things could be worse! At least I have a roof over my head (and a foot of water in my living room)! I’ll survive! And then my dog got sick. Goose had always been healthy, it made no sense. I thought, he’ll be ok. At least they don’t think it’s cancer and he can come home! We’ll survive! Spoiler alert: vets in New York don’t know how to tell if it’s cancer. It was. Goose died. But I think…I’ll survive…right? Right? The witch (or warlock) almost fired me. So, fuck it. Cigarettes can’t hurt me.

 

I swayed in the elevator as it plummeted to the ground floor. Escape. You need an escape. Dear God, please let me escape. Anywhere but here. The doors slid open. I clenched my fist around my leather briefcase. The echo of my heels clicking against the stone lobby was like a small punch to the head with every step. Even the security desk attendant surveyed me, the only one here, with annoyance. I thrust myself into the 7:00 p.m. air. Frigid. Numbing. Months of pain began freezing into sharp shards inside me, festering, creeping up my stomach, into my lungs, and expanding into my chest and neck. I gasped for air. My head replayed all of my unfortunate woes on a loop with the volume on full blast. The witch/warlock’s seething words, Goose’s whimpers, the sound of flood water sloshing around my coffee table. It all blended into a warped sound ringing between my ears, sending a prickle of water to my eyes, and finally, a wash of rageful heat that melted my iciness. Anger. No longer giving a fuck. The kind of heat that could combust and light the tip of a cigarette.

 

With no sense of where I was going, definitely not home, my feet moved faster than the rest of me, as if my brain had relocated to my toes, knowing where to go and what I needed. With short huffs of air, I pushed past the ‘TGIF-ers’ on the sidewalk, strolling along to their post-work bars and cocktail hours. I was practically sprinting, but not to any bar. I rounded a corner, jaywalked a one-way, and slipped along the walls of storefronts, evading foot traffic as if I were on the run. And I was. I was on the run from my life as I knew it at the moment.

 

Please, let there be one near here. I halted. A sign. Not a sign from God, but just a sign. “Convenience Store.” I whipped the door open, my body slinking inside. Not a soul in sight. My eyes blinked in sync with the flickering of old fluorescent lights. Notes of piano and trumpet softly rang out from some type of speaker somewhere. Jazz music. Odd choice.

 

I turned to the front counter. A man in a white shirt, suspenders, with slicked back hair stood staring, arms folded, not a word. I stared back, slapping my clasped hands onto the counter.

 

“Cigarettes.”

 

His posture straightened as he raised his eyebrows. His gaze drifted slowly over me: running down my coat, my wind-swept hair, all the way to my leather briefcase. His eyes narrowed on mine.

 

“Which ones ya want?” he grumbled. His accent was that of a thick New Yorker.

 

I stared at him blankly, far past annoyed, aching for something, anything, to put me out of my misery. Marlboros? American Spirits? No… if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. It would be the nicest thing I’ve done for myself in months.

 

“The best ones you have.”

 

His eyes flashed with amusement. He unfolded his arms, nodded his head toward the back of the store, and came out from behind the counter. He walked a few paces back and stopped. Looking back over his shoulder, he nodded again for me to follow.

 

Is this a kidnapping? Maybe he’ll take me somewhere nice. It would be an escape of some sort anyway.

 

I carefully tiptoed behind him, past the racks of chips and candy, past the coolers of sodas and beer. All this for cigarettes? At the back of the store was a red steel door. This is where it ends, I thought, just for fucking cigarettes.

 

He turned to look at me. “When you’re done, just repeat the knock.”

 

I raised an eyebrow, my forehead crinkling. “Excuse me?”

 

He knocked rhythmically with his bent and bony index finger. One. Two. One.

 

The door creaked open slowly and a man with a fedora, a white button-down, and suspenders cautiously poked his head out. The man with the slicked back hair jutted his thumb at me and whispered.

 

“This doll wants the good stuff.”

 

I looked back and forth between the two of them. Doll? Good stuff? Have I wandered onto a movie set by accident? Well, now I had to know just how good these seemingly mythical cigarettes were going to be. The fedora man nodded sharply and opened the door with his arm. I was ushered in like I had discovered a secret hideout. The door shut behind me with a heavy thump.

 

Never go into a strange room behind a red door with a strange man, I thought. Too late for that. Cigarettes. Just give me some damn cigarettes. But at least I wasn’t home. Anywhere else is what I asked for. And I was getting it. I was in a dimly lit room. Wooden crates surrounded me. Bottles of unlabeled clear liquid were stacked in the crates. The room reeked of alcohol. Metal funnels lay scattered around the room. A half-empty bottle sat with the cap off and a funnel next to it on a small table in the corner.

 

The fedora man turned to me sharply. “Youse ain't a snitch huh?”

 

I let out a sigh. Exhaustion had paired with my annoyance and I couldn’t care what was happening anymore. “Sir, I just need cigarettes.” My eyes felt heavy, my skin hot, and the stench of strong alcohol burned my nose.

 

With a huff, the man walked forward to what appeared to be another door with a hidden latch. He clamped the latch and carefully pushed the door forward. I groaned. If it took this long to get cigarettes, I couldn’t imagine how long it took to get illegal drugs. I dragged myself forward following the man. He shushed me. “Keep ya voice down, ya hear?”

 

He poked his head out of the door first, before finally opening it enough for us both to squeak through. I slid into a brightly lit room with built-in cabinets all around me, some with glass casing and doors. Glass counters stood at hip level. Shelves were lined with rows and rows of bottles and jars of various shapes and sizes—all neatly organized. My eyes darted around, unable to rest. Surely, I thought, I am in a coma, dreaming. I must have been hit by a cab.

 

The fedora man slipped behind a counter and rifled through a shelf of small boxes. My head was on a swivel, unable to focus on one thing, dazed at everything it landed on: “Cherry & Tar Cough Syrup,” “Hair Grower Elixer,” “Unique Throat Confections,” “Benzedrine Inhaler.”

 

A box of cigarettes landed on the counter with a smack. I jumped. “Lucky Strike.”

 

“That’ll be twenty cents, miss.”

 

I stuttered. I was shaking. My eyes bounced back and forth from the counter to the walls, to the man in the fedora.

 

“Uh–uh, you, what?”

 

“You speak English? Twenty. Cents,” he puffed.

 

“I–I, uh, just, uh…” I clawed through my briefcase and pulled out my wallet. With my fingers trembling almost as much as my head, I unzipped the change pouch; a place I rarely touched. I shook loose one quarter, the only quarter I didn’t even know I had. I slowly passed him the quarter, dropping it into his impatient hand. His grasp closed around it. He walked to the other side of the store.

 

Lucky Strike cigarettes. Cigarettes nonetheless. I’ll take them.

 

My eyes were glued to the pack. My head was empty of all reason as to what was happening. A man in a fedora. A turn-of-the-century…pharmacy? Lucky Strikes. Twenty-cent cigarettes. If I’m in a coma, I thought, I’ll survive. Wherever I am, exactly. Maybe it’ll be a nice escape from my life.

 

“Miss, your change.”

 

I snapped my gaze back to the fedora man. He flipped a nickel into the air, landing in my hand.

 

“And remember,” he muttered, leaning forward across the glass cabinet. “Nobody likes a snitch.” He tilted his head to the back of the shop where the secret door was. “Be seein’ ya.” He tipped his hat as I backed away.

 

I kept my eyes on him, my fingers white-knuckling the pack of Lucky Strikes, as I backed my way out of the store. I felt a sense of relief. I finally got my cigarettes. But I had lost all sense of time on how long it actually took me to get ahold of them. I thought about the office, the glass box of the witch/warlock, Goose, my apartment, my shitty job. My fingers relaxed around the pack.

 

I pushed the door open with my back, a bell above my head ringing. It surely wasn’t 7:00 p.m. anymore, maybe 8:00 but the air was the same. Frigid, but about to be sweeter. I ripped open the pack and dove in, grappling a slender drug-infused bad habit to my lips. There was one problem: I didn’t have a lighter. My lungs ached to be filled with sour smoke, a blanket for the pain I was in.

 

I looked up from my Lucky Strikes, one still dangling from my lips. There were cabs. Only, they weren’t the cabs I knew. They were oddly shaped, with long hoods, and square cabins rounded at the edges, and the headlights were perfect circles. New York City traffic sounded the samewith horns blaring, only they were not high-pitched and as loud as I knew them to be; they were lower in pitch, blasting an “ahooga” sound.

 

I watched as they slowly drove by. I was frozen on the sidewalk, a sea of men and women flowing around me. Suits. Trench coats. Fedoras. Women in dresses. Fur coats.

 

“Needa light?” a man appeared beside me. A flame appeared beneath my cigarette, spawned from a silver pocket lighter. I inhaled. The pain softened inside me: the shards shrinking, the heat dying. I exhaled, the smoke drifting away, clearing my head, and carrying me away with it. Escape. You can finally escape. I didn’t question it. This is what I needed. For nothing to make sense at all. I was done trying to make sense of anything.

 

The man held a newspaper under his arm. I snatched it. “Sorry,” I mumbled. The New York Times stretched across the top of the newspaper. “Are you alright, miss?”

 

I read the date: October 27th, 1932.

 

I tossed the newspaper back to him.

 

“Just taking a smoke break.”