Smoke overeaction

Families can burn. No really, they can. I see it now, as I sit at the table. Cards are being dealt, slid across the surface until they meet their rulers. I sit between my cousins, their matching auburn hair distracting my peripheral vision as I try to train my eyes upon the cards being spread amongst the family members. I see aunt Margaret, she too has reddish hair, the color she’s passed onto her children, though unlike their thin and flushed faces, my Aunt’s lips curl with a snarl as she looks at her cards. I do not know why one would snarl at one’s cards when we are simply playing a round of family BS. The game is simple. We go around the circle and you place a card in the order of the deck. For example, if May places down a two, Charles, my brother, who sits to May’s right, is supposed to place down at least one three. Though there’s a wicked twist to the game. If Charles per say does not have a three, he can attempt a lie, and sneak perhaps a queen or six down instead, with a poker face that bars all secrets. Though, if Mom is feeling risky, she may call ‘BS’ on her dear son, though if he really did put down the supposed three, Mom is to pick up all the cards sitting face down in the middle of our familial warfare. Though, this is all hypothetical.

Da’s face sits still in silence, analyzing his cards, maybe counting down the others around him to see what numbers he’ll have to put down when the round strikes his turn. Very cold my father is, unlike Mom, who has skin wrinkles from smiling and eyes that soar around the world like a lighthouse, guiding us home. “Your turn, dear,” and his eyes melted into something almost warm as they landed on his wife.

Uncle Gat snorts with laughter at my Da’s pet name for Mom. “Margaret, you’re never calling me ‘dear’,” he fake pouts at his wife who just shoots a glare at him from across the table.

“Mum, why don’t you call daddy your ‘dear’?” My youngest cousin, Mavis widens her eyes and wobbles her lips, as she continues to try and stick her tongue far enough to reach the tip of her little, three year old nose.

I see my uncle smirk as his wife snarls. “Okay, okay,” my other cousin, Jacks chuckles as he adjusts his Columbia baseball cap to face backwards. “Let the games begin, fuckers,” and a grin falls across the college boy’s hollow cheeks.

“Jacks!” his mum shouts. “Read the damned room, won’t you?”

“I’m just trying to get ye’s attention. We haven’t even begun the bloody game yet, mum,” he scoffs.

“The boy’s right,” Da starts, still not moving his eyes from his cards. “Let’s get on with the game. Get ready for Da domination,” he says simply, like he’s stating a fact we should all be aware of.

And the game begins. Cards flick across the table, my aunt, of course is fuming with boiling rage as she is caught in another BS. Mom eagerly puts down only one card, each time it’s her turn, though don’t let her calm facade fool you, for she calls ‘BS’ on my father just about every turn, only making him more quiet until she is giddy with happiness. My cousins, Mavis, Jacks and May are playful as ever, despite one of them not even old enough to play and one a freshman in college, all three of them have the same childish nature. I on the other hand, mimic my Da, but unlike him, I have nobody calling lies on my every move, and my face feels untraceable with each card I put down. I believe I am in the lead. Then again, maybe I’ve inherited my mother’s cockiness as much as my Da’s poker face.

Once my brother’s turn is done, and the game continues to go on, down the circle of members, he excuses himself to quickly go to the bathroom. My brother is only three years my senior, age eighteen. Always curious, and forever looking up to him, I follow his trails, until he opens the hall’s window and slips out. I watch from inside, watching the crime execute in horrifying motions. My brother pulls out a lighter. I see him flick the flame on and off, his eyes possessed by the enchantment it must bring to him. Then he pulls out a little box, though it looks trashy and used, as though taken out of his pocket loads more times than today. A cigarette. A cigarette is pulled from that trashy box and Charles pops it between his lips. I see him flick the lighter on one final time as he sparks the cancer-reeking stick that hangs in his mouth. Mom told me if she dared catch me with one of those things, I’d be bound for cancer’s smoky claws, and she’s my Mom, so I take her words as gospel.

I think I just gasped. I think I literally just audibly gasped at the scene that plays out before me. I think my brother heard me. He heard me. Oh god.

“Harry?” He immediately spits it out, steps on the flicker of life that remains in the cigarette and starts running back to the window, but he’s not close enough to get me as I sprint back to the table.

I sit right back down, as if nothing has happened. “Hare?” mom asks, her eyes all concerned and brows knit in confusion. “Is everything all right? You’ve been absent for a moment there. Do you know where your brother is?”

“Uh,” I stutter, which is strange, because I’m like Da, I never stutter. “I had to take a piss,” I lie right between the cards that mask my attention.

Charles walks right back in the room, his figure shaky and throat bobbing up and down. He sits back in his earlier seat, but now, his eyes are trained on me, red bulging from where the whites should be. I see his lips moving, trying to tell me something through the silence, but all I can see is the cigarette that just moments ago hung from his lips.

I wonder what he’s thinking, if he’s disgusted with himself, or maybe he’s disgusted in me. Maybe he thinks I’m a coward. Am I? A coward? He has more years than me, but so did Grandpapa, and he too hung the cancer-sticks in his mouth, and died with their smoke. I wonder-

“Harry?” May asks from beside me, “it’s your turn,” she whispers.

“Oh, sorry,” I put down a seven, when I really should be putting down a queen or king, I don’t remember.

“Bullshit!” Jacks calls, nose in the air and eyes gleaming as shiny as his baby sister’s. I groan and pick up what was once a looming pile of cards, yet now is the deck that rests in my hands.

“You sure you’re okay, Hare?” Da asks. “You’re usually much more stealthy with your cards. And don’t get me wrong, Nephew, but you’re not usually the one to excel in these games, so something here is wrong,” Jacks’ jaw drops at his uncle’s statement and all I feel is… distant.

I recognize the movements of Charles’ silent language, “Are you okay?” he mouths.

“You’re hurting me,” I cry. “Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you hurting yourself?” and that’s the moment I realized my voice was no longer whispering and the entire table’s ears were tuned into my tears.

“Charles, what is your little brother talking about?” Mom stands up, going to rub my shoulders like how she’s done since I was in nappies.

He stays silent, his face fallen from my glazed eyes.

“Charles, goddammit!” Da loses his temper. The quiet exterior falls away and he throws his cards on the table. “What the hell is your brother trying to say?”

But he sits still. Frozen. Eyes now gleaming like mine as silent tears trace down his hollowed cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Hare,” is all that manages to leave his throat.

“The fuck do you mean ‘I’m so sorry’? What did you do?!” Da thumps his fists back onto the table, and little Mavis bursts into tears, so Aunt Margaret scoops her up from her daddy’s lap and carries her out to the yard. I wonder if she can still smell the cigarette. Or maybe she’ll see it. The crushed shell of a cigarette my brother squashed under his shoe.

“Sinclair?!” my aunt yelps from the backyard, shouting my da’s name. Again and again. And again. And again. And again. She keeps yelling, not stopping even when he calls back, so he runs outside and I wonder if he sees red.