The Neighborhood Smoker
By Julie Blair Riekse

God had kissed the day tenderly. Warm breezes caressed twittering birds under a magnificently blue sky, daffodils laughed as they danced under heavy golden shawls, fuzzy white buds burst forth from trees before my very eyes.
I was in the mood to go barefoot. No, I was feeling so reckless, I wanted to run through the nearest meadow singing a ballad from “The Sound of Music.”
Instead, I was stalled in rush hour traffic talking to my twins in a hushed voice about the evils of cigarette addiction.
“Your lungs turn black,” I whispered dramatically, “then they get crusty. And dusty. And musty.”
I could see Elizabeth’s pupils dilate in my rearview mirror as she imagined the horrific scene.
I mentally patted myself of the back for adroitly avoiding the grisly issue of death while at the same time rhyming three successive adjectives. It was my aim to scare the bejesus out of my children when it came to this topic, yet I did not want to get so graphic I would frighten them to the point of night terrors.
“Oh, this is so sad!” Elizabeth whimpered. “Poor, poor Mr. Gordon.”
Mr. Gordon is our neighbor.
He is the nicest guy. Fortyish. Salt and pepper hair. Big smile. Endearing Indian accent. Always a kind word for my children.
He is also a smoker. And he smokes a lot of cigarettes.
Banned from his impeccable house by his lovely wife, Mr. Gordon puffs away on a folding chair in the privacy of his own yard.
Or at least he thinks he’s alone.
It just so happens his smoking accommodations are in clear view of my kitchen windows—where William and Elizabeth watch him puff away while they eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.
His actions bring up questions. Lots and lots of questions. In fact, we have spent entire meals discussing Mr. Gordon’s smoking habit and the aforementioned hazards of such actions.
I have tried my best to turn the situation into a learning opportunity. I’ve told my children that even grown-ups make bad choices and have to learn from the consequence of their actions.
Elizabeth, however, cannot reconcile this behavior with what she knows about Mr. Gordon—that he is friendly and kind. In the world of three year olds where the concept of opposites is being mastered, a good adult does not purposely do a bad thing.
You’re either good.
Or bad.
You can’t be both at the same time.
Or at least grown-ups can’t.
“Why doesn’t Miss Paula make him stop?” she asks.
She is literally wringing her little hands in her car seat.
“Honey, I’m sure she’s tried,” I say as I pull our vehicle into the preschool parking lot. “Smoking is addictive—you can’t stop once you start.”
Silence. She is processing this.
“You can’t stop?” she says.
“Nope, you can’t stop.”
The air is thick with her thoughts.
“Oh, poor, poor Mr. Gordon,” Elizabeth says yet again. “This is a sad thing.”
There is a sniffle. She bats at a tear.
I park the car, unsnap the kids from their car seats and we walk into the school building together.
Our teacher is waiting for us at the classroom door.
Elizabeth rushes to Mrs. Shah and tells her that Gordon’s lungs are black and musty and dusty and crusty.
Then, she bops off to her cubby to put away her red bag.
The storm has lifted.
But it is far from over.
When I pick the kids up just after noon, Mrs. Shah reports back that Elizabeth is “very concerned about Mr. Gordon.”
Sure enough, as soon as we pull away from the curb, she begins obsessing again. Elizabeth is overwhelmed by sadness. Her world—which includes only about 50 people to date—is not right and she’s powerless to fix it.
Finally, she says: “We can pray about Mr. Gordon.”
I remember that Mr. Gordon is likely Hindu. I consider throwing her this curve ball but decide enough is enough.
Somehow, I think children’s prayers are translated.

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Julie Blair Riekse is the president of the Metrocrest Parents of Multiples and a Dallas-based freelance writer. She has never smoked a cigarette.
 

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