Curtis Smith
I smoked my first cigarette at eleven, and by fourteen, I blew better smoke rings than my mother. In the shadows behind the bowling alley, I’d lift my chin, the rings sent adrift with a motion half-gag, half-kiss. The other girls asked me to teach them, but their sad attempts only made mine shine brighter. On still nights, my rings lingered above our heads, each a fading halo. Tommy Smith, with his muscles and sleeveless denim jacket, was the one who gave me the nickname Ringo. Little Ringo Starr. I rolled my eyes, but the truth was I liked being noticed, especially by the older boys. Boys who knew how to get beer. Boys who laughed a little too loud and weren’t afraid of getting into a fight if a fight was what the night called for. Boys like Tommy Smith.
***
“Be careful,” my mother said. She meant the bowling alley—the stories she’d heard. She warned me about boys, the things they wanted and the lengths they’d go to. “I know,” I told her.
She ground out her cigarette. “No. No you don’t.”
***
That summer, the summer I turned fifteen, I babysat for the Daltons. Afternoons mostly, the humid lull between the start of Mrs. Dalton’s hostess shifts and Mr. Dalton’s return from the plant. Sometimes I lifted a cigarette or two. Sometimes, as little Emily Rose napped, I sat on their bed and leafed through the dirty magazines in the nightstand drawer. Some of the pictures made me queasy, but those were the pages I kept coming back to. When Emily Rose woke up, I’d take her for a walk. The neighborhood girls dropped their jump ropes as we neared and asked if they could take a look. They leaned over the stroller, cooing. How cute! How cute!
***
We crowded around the bathroom’s dull mirror, fixing our hair and slipping into the tops our mothers wouldn’t let us wear out of the house. We bought sodas at the snack bar, and when our drinks got mixed up, we sorted them by the straws’ lipstick hues. In the game room next to the snack bar, Tommy Smith played pinball. The wriggle of his hips and shoulders. The slap of his hands. His curses as his last ball drained. Later, my friends and I smoked in the alley. Fireflies, the dumpster’s stink. The stars above lost. I leaned against the brick, and in my bones, the thunder of falling pins as I blew two, three, four rings in a row. The older boys in the shadows, a bottle passed. Tommy Smith stepped toward us. A sloppy smile as he blew a smoke ring that floated through mine. He exhaled another, an ashy lasso, and with a snap of his fingers, he bent the ring into a heart. “That one’s for you, Ringo Starr.”
***
I was nine the night my father held a butcher’s knife to my mother’s throat. They used my 911 call on a cable-TV special about domestic violence. I guess I sounded cute and scared. My mom had the program on VHS. As I talked, they showed a school photo with a blurred face. Only the photo wasn’t me. One day, I taped Hannah Montanna over the show. I told my mom it was a mistake, but that’s not the truth.
***
When Mr. Dalton returned from work the Friday before my birthday, I asked for my pay. He was late, and he smelled the way my father used to when he came home from the bar. Mr. Dalton held the folded bills in his hand, but when I went to take them, he didn’t let go. He grinned. “Come on now, honey. You have to work harder than that.”
***
“Sure,” I said when Tommy asked if I wanted to head out for a smoke. His car, he said, shelter from the storm, he said. My friends arguing over which song to play next, shadows in the jukebox light. Tommy reached for my hand, and I didn’t walk out, I glided. The feeling like I was in a movie, a woman boarding a train or a boat.
We ran to his car, his sleeveless denim held over our heads and our shoes splashing through the puddles. His car smelled like cigarettes and saddle soap, and hanging from the rearview, a necklace with a cross. He sparked his lighter, and in the shine, I noticed his eyelashes were as long as mine. Runoff blurred the windshield, the world erased, and when we spoke, we raised our voices above the rain’s drum. I told him about babysitting and how tomorrow was my birthday. “Sixteen,” I lied. Tommy said after graduation he might go to trade school. Maybe the Marines. We cracked our windows, but the smoke stayed with us. I grew dizzy, and in a quiet moment, he leaned close, a kiss, his lips waiting until mine parted, a touch of his tongue before he pulled away. “Happy birthday, little Ringo Starr.”
A desert in my throat, and I wished I had my soda, the straw topped with cherry lipstick. In me, the need to speak, the fear of what silence might bring. “Your smoke rings are so good.”
“I’ll teach you.” He cupped my chin, a soft squeeze until my mouth puckered. “Just relax.” His hand slid to my neck. “And loosen up here.” His hand lowered again, pausing at the base of my throat, my blouse’s collar pushed back. The rain harder. Lightning flashed, and in one moment, the boy who stared into my eyes was Tommy Smith, and in the next, he wasn’t. Not a stranger—no—but someone familiar. Someone I’d been expecting all my life.
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Curtis Smith has published over 125 stories and essays, and he has worked with indie publishers to put out five story collections, two essay collections, one book of creative nonfiction, and six novels. His most recent novel is The Lost and the Blind. His next novel, Deaf Heaven, will be published in May 2025.