‘The cigarette party’
By Mike Loos.

Robby didn’t live too much longer after the cigarette party. It was early on a Saturday morning, felt like the pressure had dropped and there was clouds in the air. Pa had me fix the engine on the tractor and put mulch we made around the maple trees. It wasn’t cold, but the air felt more crisp than usual, so I kept the windows open when I drove to the store to buy a new air filter for the motor of the tractor. It was at Tom’s Mowers that I ran into Ruddy when he asked me what I was fixing to do later that night. I told him probably not a whole lot, just probably have supper and listen to the game on the radio. Might even take apart the Oldsmobile and see why she ain’t running. He was the one who suggested the cigarette party. Ruddy said “how ‘bout we have a cigarette party and get a couple cartons of Lucky Strikes and buy a bottle of Southern Comfort.” I thought he was kinda crazy.

“why the Hell not” I said.

I got back home and I fixed the tractor and laid the mulch around the maple trees. I spent the afternoon at the old brackish creek catching snook the size of tin cans, and then when I sensed it was evening and the temperature had dropped another 4 degrees I headed home and showered. Night had just fallen, and you couldn’t even see any of the sunset anymore and I was on my way to the cigarette party.

We had a wild time that night. We watched the game on Ralphie, who was Ruddy’s brother’s new big-screen T.V., the thing was about 40 inches across I would’ve bet. We had a fun time that night. We played games of poker and sipped on Southern Comfort, while smoking Lucky Strikes. Robby was the one who suggested we even make it a goal to smoke the whole 2 cartons just the 4 of us, only Ralphie didn’t smoke cigarettes so it would just be the three of us. After the first three packs, my lungs felt like they were on fire. It felt like a million ants were latching down their fangs on the skin inside my lungs. Later on, Robby thought the whole room was flashing blue and black and by the time we finished the first carton I suspect I was in a deep haze.

I didn’t remember too much after that. Not even sure if it was before or after we finished the first carton that the aliens had landed. They landed in the backyard of Ralphie’s house crushing his cycads all the way to the ground. Their ship looked like a pan, just like you often hear about in pulp magazines only it looked like the entire thing was a bright light. They took us inside and made it so we couldn’t move, and they injected something into Robby. I tried my hardest to think about busting off the table and moving my body and my arms. I believed I could do it. After a long while I started moving around and tried to punch one or two of them, and karate-chop them  in the face. Then I thunk really hard and grabbed my cool, slick, beautiful titanium smith and Wesson from my pants and pointed it at that ugly bastard and told him “say your prayers,” when all a sudden we appeared back in Ralphie’s backyard. The next morning all the cigarettes were gone and so was most of the alcohol. We knew our story was true. We all experienced it. Nobody would believe us, they all thought we were sick I suppose. Robby died two weeks after the cigarette party when his lungs locked up and his kidneys stopped working right. “Hepatotoxicity” is what the doctors said it was. But I think it was whatever those aliens injected into him.

©2015 M. W. Loos