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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
January 11, 2015
Previously unpublished fiction.
© 2015 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Smoker (2001)
© 2001 by Bud Grossmann
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A TWO THOUSAND-
DOLLAR CIGARETTE
True story. I tell nothing but true stories, but this one is truer than most; I don’t think I’m exaggerating in any way. Must have been fifteen years ago, or fourteen, I guess, when this thing happened, and I never wrote it down till now, but I did tell it many times and I pretty much always told it just this way. If I told it to you and you remember the details differently than what you’re hearing now, please speak up, and I’ll consider revising it. A basic principal of theology: no true story is ever set in stone. Now, here we go, first time in print.
Before I begin, I have to say, I have never smoked. By that I mean, I’ve never had the habit. I’ve enjoyed a cigarette now and again, you know, when it was offered, but I never smoked steady, never bought them, almost never.
After lunch on a Saturday I was sitting alone at the dining table in the house in Hawaii Kai, reading—this must have been the summer after Matthew died—and my wife, bless her heart, came up to me and set a section of the morning paper down on the table and pointed to Ann Landers, and said, “You should call about this.”
I looked at it, and it wasn’t a letter asking for advice but just Ann Landers announcing that next week was National Mental Health Week and if I would call this 800 number, I could find my local mental health clinic and get a free questionnaire to determine whether I was depressed. “Dave, I think you are depressed,” my wife said. “You should call on Monday,” she said. And I replied, “Huh!” And she said, again, “You should call.” And I said, “Vivian. Thank you.” And I went back to my magazine.
And then it’s Monday, and I really see no point in calling, but I do dial the 800 number and they give me the number of the local mental health place, on Diamond Head, and I call there and a guy asks for my name and address and says he’ll mail me the questionnaire, but I ask him could I do it over the phone, and he says no, and I ask, well, could he just fax it to me and I’ll fax it back? and he says, okay, they don’t usually do that, but, yeah, sure, he supposes he could fax it, and he does.
It’s one page, like maybe ten questions or twenty. How often do I feel such and such or do such and such, like, never, hardly ever, sometimes, rather often, always? I fill it out and fax it right back.
A few minutes later the mental health guy calls, and he says, “That was quick! You scored zero. The test says you are reporting no symptoms of depression.” And I say, “Good. I didn’t think so, thank you very much, goodbye.” But he says, “No, no, wait a minute, hold on. You know, just your asking to find out if you are depressed might be an indication that you are depressed, so maybe it would be good if you made an appointment to come talk with someone here.” But I told him, “No, thank you, I don’t think so. I was just taking the test because my wife wanted me to. Our son died a little while ago and there’s some other stuff going on, but I don’t think I’m depressed. Thank you, anyway.” And the guy says, “Okay, but hold on. Do you mind if I ask you something? Are you Caucasian?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m Caucasian. Why do you ask?”
“Well,” he says, “I thought you sounded Caucasian. You see, we have this other facility here at Diamond Head, where we conduct various kinds of research, and we have a drug trial coming up where we are comparing the effectiveness of a drug on different racial groups. We are comparing Japanese and Caucasians. We have plenty of Japanese, but we’re looking for Caucasians. It pays two thousand dollars. Do you want to hear more?”
“Two thousand dollars! Sure,” I say, “tell me more.”
“It’s going to be the first two weeks of October,” he says. “You’d have to stay here for the entire two weeks, you cannot leave, but we will provide you with a private room and all your meals, and if you complete the entire program, we will cut you a check for two thousand dollars the day you finish.”
“Can I bring my computer?” I asked.
“Yes,” he says, “that’s fine. Every room has a desk.”
So, I look at my Day-Timer and I see I have nothing critical scheduled for the first two weeks of October. “Let me hear more,” I say.
He says, “This project is to determine rates of allergic reactions to a new ophthalmic antibiotic.”
I ask him, “What’s that?” He says, “Eye drops.” And I say, “Ha! I think I’ll run this by my optometrist. I’ll get back to you.” He says fine.
I call my optometrist and she tells me, like, “Are you crazy? Why would you agree to have an unknown substance put onto your eyes?” “Two thousand dollars,” I tell her. “Yes, I heard you say that,” she says, “and how much do you consider your eye-balls to be worth?” I tell her, “Okay, thank you, I’ll let you know what happens.”
So, I ponder the advice for a couple of minutes and then call back the mental health guy and I tell him I’m seriously interested. He says, “Great! I have to ask you a few questions.”
He starts going through the questions, and one of them is, “Have you smoked tobacco in the past twelve months?” I answer, “No, not really.”
“Whoa!” he says. “What do you mean, ‘not really’?” and I say, “No. I don’t smoke. Couple months ago in the parking lot at Costco I found a pack of Marlboro Lights on the ground. It was half full, and I tried one cigarette. It was terrible. I threw the rest of the pack away. I don’t smoke.”
“This could be a problem,” the guy says. “Just a minute. I have to ask my supervisor about this.” And then I’m waiting like about five minutes before he brings me the bad news. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fischer, we can’t take a chance on this one. We’ll keep your name on file and let you know if we have other studies we might include you in.” Bummer! I whimpered and begged, but he stood firm.
Many’s the time I’ve heard people say smoking is a costly habit, but this, I thought, was a bit extreme. Still, I always try to find the bright side of a bad situation, and if I had gone blind from the eye drops, you would now be reading this story in Braille. And I bet you would think it was even longer than it is in black-on-white. ♦
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This page was updated Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 3:11AM CST.
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© 2015 by Bud Grossmann
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