1000 Tiny Fires

Sometimes on the freeway I see cars that don't otherwise grab my attention until the hand comes out of the window to flick the ash off a cigarette.

Sometimes I see kids or baby seats in the back.

***

"Yessir, this little car is only one year old, with 10,000 miles. Gets great mileage, still has warranty left, and was driven to bingo every Saturday night by a grandmother. She lit 1000 tiny fires in this car while she owned it, though, so it comes with a free air freshener..."

***

Fire is what made us human, or at least a big part of it. We could cook and provide warmth, and it was good for keeping away the predators who didn't care about the size of our superior brains, because we were mighty tasty and easy to catch.

We could cook, make bricks, and eventually impose our will on metal.

It wasn't all so utilitarian though; we had some fun with fire. Who discovered that tobacco leaves created a smoke that's pleasant--to some--to inhale when burned?

So we lit up. We smoked and smoked. We did it across the globe. It was a commodity in Indian settlements and prisons. We blackened our lungs, but we had fun doing it.

***

I guess I was seven or eight when I found this pamphlet about the health risks of smoking. It was awful.

I ran inside, crying, to give my chain-smoking mother the news. This is going to kill you! I don't want you to die!

"Not everyone who smokes dies" was her response.

It's long been one of my favorite memories of her.

***

The blackness is inside and out. The internal combustion engine changed everything, took our use of fire to productive new levels. How many tiny fires did it take in our cars and jets and chemical plants to scorch the sky? Now there's such a level of muck up there that every summer our children struggle to breathe, and the heat our sun gives us gets stuck in this insulatory nightmare.

***

We make this choice, right? We decide to light up, to take a drive, to put a little particulate-filled air in our lungs or our atmosphere.

I was pondering all of this yesterday, driving home past the apartments at the edge of my neighborhood.

On the first floor, a young pregnant woman stood in an open door, exhaling cigarette smoke.

We're not all given a choice.

***
***

Oh, I'm actually not feeling particularly bad or blue today. I just figured it was time to pry that out of my head and put it somewhere else.

Took Wolfboy to see the Hulk movie last night. He took full-blown ear protection by way of those headphone-lookin' things. He loved the movie. There was a little more blood than I'd remembered. I'd cover his eyes and he'd say, "Dad... I can see through your fingers."

He said that the injury to "Mr. Blue" was the grossest thing he's ever seen.

But I knew he was in his element when, after the first Hulk scene in the bottling plant, he turned to me with a wide-eyed smile and gave me a thumbs up.

***

And now, a clip from "Mr. B Natural," as riffed by the classic cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000.