The Smoker

The Smoker

         Johnny Haversham stared up at the water-stained ceiling of the local county jail as he lay on the bottom cot in his four-man cell. His home-away-from-home. This was his third offense, and he knew that made him a bane on society. Someone who had to be put away for his own good, for the good of all.

         His schooling in his crimes had begun one day behind Leighman's General Store in Wichita, Kansas. At the ripe-old-age of fourteen, he began his life of crime. A delivery man dropping off a supply of prepackaged tofu & sprout sandwiches had looked around nervously as he took one final puff, then carelessly tossed a nearly full cigarette off to the side of the back entrance. Johnny had been looking for empty cans to supplement his new bike fund when the smoke rolled to a stop at his feet. Picking it up, he'd taken a quick look around, and seeing the coast was clear, put it to his youthful lips and tentatively inhaled. This had produced an immediate choking, hacking cough, and the world had started to spin.

         Now, as he lay in his bunk, the thing he wanted more than anything was another one. How long had it been? Three agonizing days without a smoke. A smoke and an ice cold Coca Cola! Unfortunately, most of the soda producers had gone under the first year congress had slapped a two-dollar-a-can tax on all drinks containing high sugar levels. The average lower to middle class workers simply couldn't afford to buy it anymore. He cursed the wretched woman, the librarian, who had turned him in. She'd seen the illegal cigarettes in his duffel bag when he'd carelessly dumped it next to the first row of books. Johnny'd been looking for a book for a class he'd enrolled in at the Wichita Community College, but now, that was all a past dream. With this being his third strike, that made him a felon, and he'd never again be permitted to set foot in a place of higher learning. Kansas law also mandated a sentence of no less than 5 years for third-offense smoking violations.

         The man on the cot above him was a four time loser, a child-molester, but he felt relatively sure he'd receive a light slap on the wrist, possibly some counseling and an extended stay in a halfway house, where he could hang out and swap stories with his other sexual pervert buddies.

         His two other cellmates were both in together for buying black-market beef, which had been outlawed two years earlier. The United States Government had decided this was necessary to protect its citizens from making unwise, unhealthy decisions. The Calorie Police, a division of the FBI, had caught them red-handed with a stolen semi-trailer full of hamburger. It had an estimated street value of 1.5 million dollars, which meant they could be facing ten to twenty years, easily.

         "Chows on, guys," an emaciated older man said, pushing a small food cart down the corridor between the cells. This was Charlie, the jail's trustee. Johnny wasn't sure exactly what he was in for but knew he'd been here for over a year. There was some rumor that he'd previously been arrested four times for not carrying the required F.H.I. ( Federal Health insurance). He watched as Charlie slowly made his way down the row, finally reaching his cell at the end and sliding four orange trays under the bars.

         Johnny sat up on his bunk and slid his legs over the side. Stretching his arms over his head first then making his way over to where the trays sat on the dull-gray floor, he plucked a faded napkin off of the top of one and stared down at the contents with dismay. "Wonderful," he said in a mocking tone.

"Yeah," his cellmate, Vince said, peering over Johnny's shoulder. "My favorite, imitation eggs and tofu bacon. Mmm ... mmm ... mmm!"

"Darn chicken and pig lovers," Johnny spat, throwing the napkin back over the tray and shoving it back through the bars. Oh well, he thought sarcastically. When I finally get out, I'll be so thin, I'll qualify for the lowest insurance premiums.

         Johnny and the other inmates looked up as the door at the end of the cell-block once again opened, and a guard ushered in a tall, bearded man wearing the standard-issue orange jumpsuit. His feet were still shackled, and he wore a lopsided grin as he shuffled along in front of the guard. His eyes had a vacant look, and he seemed to be somewhere else, faraway, recalling some fond memory, perhaps. They'd already heard through the grapevine that this dude would be housed here until his trial, and after sentencing, he would likely be sent to the maximum-security prison upstate for the long-extended-haul (life-without-parole or Death Row). Supposedly, his seventy-two year old mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, her second round. Her case had taken nearly six months to come before the H. C. B. C (Health Care Benefits Commission, or The Death Panel as many called them). By then, her cancer had gone from Stage 1 to Stage 3, so after her doctor had submitted a course of treatment, nearly seven months later, the panel had decided in the interest of both patient and country, no treatment was deemed necessary, and his mother had died five months later. Enraged by the shabby treatment his beloved mother had received, he had calmly walked into the nearest F.H.I. office and blown away thirteen people. He had never been arrested for any other crimes, and had up until that fateful day been a model-citizen.

         Johnny looked at the forlorn man as the guard locked the cell door behind him. His leg irons still on, he slowly made his way to his bunk and simply sat on the edge staring out of the bars. He wondered about all the men here, what their lives had been like before, whether they had kids and families that missed them. He wondered how all of this had happened, how they had all been asleep when their liberties had slipped away, one-by-one.