by Tom Upton

Created on: June 12, 2008   Last Updated: January 26, 2009

The Lowliest Of Humans

I just couldn't catch a break that day. First I'd got up early, and made it down to the day labor office by five in the morning, waited four hours, but never got called. That seemed to be happening all too often these days, and money was in especially short supply. Then I discovered that I had somehow lost the pack of cigarettes I'd had in my shirt pocket, along with my bus fare, which was tucked inside the cellophane wrapper.

It was a frigid January day, but I didn't mind the four-mile walk home as much as I minded not having my smokes. Whenever all else fail me, cigarettes offered me solace.

The sky above had the light gray cast of deep winter. There was no wind, and my breath lingered in the cool air in jolly wisps. My boots crunched over the snow that had been trodden solid in front of the small stores whose owners failed to shovel and salt. The green field jacket I was wearing, less winter lining, was barely enough to keep me warm, but only if I kept moving.

Before I had traveled two blocks, I was in the midst of a major nicotine fit. It was maddening: I had only worked six shifts in the past month, at home my refrigerator was bare and on the kitchen table was a cheery red cut-off notice from the gas company- and, even now, some stranger was smoking the cigarettes I'd lost.

I paused for a red light, and the cold air began to infiltrate my field jacket. I watched the cars and trucks pass through the intersection. I didn't envy the drivers their vehicles, in which they sat cozy and warm, listening to their stereos. But I was quite piqued to see, now and then, one of them sucking on a cigarette. That just didn't seem right.

The light turned green, and I continued on my way.

If there was an art to knowing what to do when there is nothing to do, I never learned it.
I considered stopping at an outreach mission where I could get a hot meal. It came with a price, though; you had to endure the preaching. Not that I had anything against prayer and those who resorted to it; there was just something that wouldn't allow me to believe I was desperate enough to need prayer. Then, too, the people who ran the mission generally frowned on smoking- it seemed those people frowned on everything that can offer a person true peace and serenity.

There was a group of people standing at a bus stop. I paused to try to bum a smoke. It wasn't easy anymore; smoking was so frowned upon these days. If anybody saw you smoking, they regarded you with sneers. If you asked

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