I QUIT

I smoked more cigarettes than I probably should have. Nevertheless, I walked to 7-11 with the average ‘uninterested in walking anywhere a block away in Los Angeles’ gait that I always carry with me, and bought pack more. On the walk there I remembered how a doctor once told me how I, in fact, was a light smoker.

A few months after turning eighteen I promptly moved to Seattle, leaving behind a the chance of acquiring cancer in a paper mill, as most of the men who had worked in them for decades had done. I cashed in whatever you could call chips and moved to the big city – the biggest city I had seen anyways: Seattle.

My first two weeks there resulted in disaster after disaster. Those first fourteen days equated to one persons life of tragedy. In fact, my first two days may have accomplished it well. On my first day I nearly died while skateboarding through traffic on my way to the local library. A fucking car hit me. My skateboard broke in two and I slid over the car hood without my sweatshirt giving me any friction to slowdown, until I hit the asphalt. Trying to get up, before realizing a car had hit me, or rather I hit a car, I noticed blood soaking through my sweatshirt – not flowing, seeping through. After getting to my feet, trying to find my skateboard (which I couldn’t see broken under the car), I noticed gawkers with their hands over their mouths, on all four corners of the intersection. Not doing anything, just standing and watching and if not watching, calling 911 on their cell phones.

In the minute and a half it took me to get up and figure out what really happened, the man in the car had already written a check to me for $500 – I asked for $600. In the moment it took to reach to a wallet and out to my hand, I held a check for $500 and a one hundred dollar bill. Hitherto, I never held so much at any given time in my life. Thank you Jeff Anderson.
The following day the Seattle Police Department shot and killed an unarmed black man with no weapon in my Carport. They pulled him over for speeding.

Two weeks later I contracted a severe case of Pneumonia. For the first time I sat in a doctors office without the company of a family member. In 10th grade I decided I would run track (until I did, I had no idea I could fail so easily at a sport). To participate I needed to take a physical examination proving to the State of Washington I was fit to run. In the doctors office with my mother the doctor asked me the standard questions.

“Do you smoke?”
I thought yes, but my mother glared over and I remembered and replied, “No.”
“Do you smoke Marijuana?”
Uh, yes I thought, nearly smiling, but replied, “No.”
“Travis, do you drink?”
Of course. “No.”
“Are you sexual active?”
What do you mean am I sexual active? I’m sixteen, of course I am. Also, does masturbation count? Can you not run well if you have had an orgasm?
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“Have you had sexual intercourse with a woman?” he asked me while my mother ogled me, really interested to hear about this one.
“No,” I replied.

Now a grown man of eighteen years, independent for a week or so and having my own case of Pneumonia coupled with scab running down my arm, I found myself able to be in a room with a Doctor one of one abandoning explicit thought. What’s to fear being a room with a complete stranger? Someone I will never meet again.

She asked, “Do you smoke?”
“Yes”
“How much,” she asked staring at her clipboard while taking notes in a very uninterested fashion.
“A pack a day.”
“Oh so you’re a light smoker”
A light smoker? What the fuck are you talking about doctor? I smoke like a chimney and you a telling me I’m a light smoker? That’s what it comes down to I guess. I’m in fact a light smoker.
“Do you smoke Marijuana?”
“Yes”
“How often?”
“Three to give times a week.”
“Are you sexual active?”
“Yes” I told her, trying to not make eye contact, cough, or smirk waiting to tell her all about if I drank or not.