by Paula Guran
“What?”
“ ‘What’ yourself.”
“You could stop any time you want.” Seph made a decidedly magical hand gesture. “Cast a spell.”
With a defiant lift of her chin, Nana looked away.
But Seph knew how to push her buttons. “The addiction tougher than you are?”
Nana stamped her foot. “I. Want. To. Smoke.” She took another hit, blew the gray results into the air. “I like it. I like what it does. And since I’m paying mightily for the privilege of living in this dressed-up nursing home—”
“It’s not a nursing home!” They’d had this discussion a dozen times since Nana moved into Woodhaven four months before.
Nana harumphed. “Polish a turd, it’s still a turd.” She punctuated the last few words by pointing her cigarette for each.
Persephone crossed her arms in a fine, if far more slender, copy of Nana’s former pose.
“I should be allowed to smoke whenever and wherever I want.”
“You knew the rules when you moved in here. You agreed. You signed a paper.”
Nana smirked. “That’s exactly what Mr. Loudcrier said to me yesterday.” She mimicked a puppet talking with her free hand. “Blah blah blah.”
Persephone knew the name. He was the CEO of Woodhaven. She hadn’t been impressed by the self-aggrandizing ass, but he was in charge and had to enforce the rules. “They have the right to evict you if you don’t stop, and trust me, he will.” She pushed away from the wall. “Then where are you going to go?”
Nana didn’t answer.
“You better think about that before you light up again.” She left Nana with that thought and walked to her car without looking back.
Demeter snorted as the Toyota Avalon drove away, but Seph was right. Due to a fire-safety clause, that peckerhead of a CEO could authorize an eviction.
Maybe I’d give a damn if I liked it here, but I don’t.
A pair of women whose faces were in danger of being mistaken for prunes were on their way in from a stroll. Their terribly thinning hair was kept very short, tightly permed, and dyed coal black.
Looks ridiculous. Like pubic hair all over their heads.
She brought the Marlboro up.
Due to a sound amplification spell that was centered around her ears, she heard one of them whisper, “That one’s a rule-breaker. I don’t like her.”
That was how most of the residents here reacted to her. Antipathy and avoidance.
Demeter blew out the smoke so they’d both have to walk through it as they entered the building. If they did evict her, she sure wouldn’t miss any of these wrinkled old biddies in their golf shorts, plastic visors, and Velcro-fastened footwear.
Their dislike of her wasn’t even because she was a witch. They didn’t realize she was one.
Witches had come out of the proverbial broom closet twenty years before when the rest of the “other-than-humans” did. It hadn’t been easy. Her generation in particular had had a difficult time dealing with the new world. Most simply gave in to their fears. As they aged, those fears deepened.
Older humans had a tendency to not adapt to any new notion as readily as younger folks.
And prejudices ripened until they were rotten on the vine.
Still, it wasn’t bigotry working against Demeter, it was her aura. Demeter’s aura had developed a static edge a long time ago. Having lived her life regularly utilizing universal energies, this “fringe” served as both a buffer and a conduit, depending on her magical intentions. It was a blessing in that it made magic easier, but it was also a curse as her aura felt off to mundane humans.
After moving into Woodhaven the feeling of unease attached to her aura made it impossible for her to find friends.
It wasn’t simply the other residents’ aversion to her that made her unhappy, though. This place couldn’t be home. Inside, everywhere she looked she saw a walker, an oxygen tank, or ears stuffed with hearing aids. Certain halls reeked of antiseptic and piss. Outside, there was no energy in the ground. The whole facility felt barren and aged. It felt like death.
Holding the cigarette out in front of her, she stared at it, watching the smoke waft and grow thin until it completely disappeared.
She was supposed to be with her peers here, with people who moved at her pace and with whom she had common interests. “Bullshit,” she muttered to herself.
She couldn’t just wait here for her life to dissipate like that wisp of smoke.
She wouldn’t.
She had to get out of here.
But her condo was sold. Seph had pegged it. I have nowhere to go.
The nearby doors opened again and, too late, she jerked her hand behind her back to hide the cigarette. A short man in a dark suit exited—Mr. Longcrier. He was only in his late forties, but the paunch, glasses, and receding hairline added a decade. She thought his exterior was a fitting punishment for the hours he’d spent waxing poetic about his own arguably great deeds.
He gave her a stern, reproachful glare as he passed. He’d seen the cigarette.
She smiled sweetly. Got us old timers by the shorthairs, don’t you? Got us trapped ’cause our families don’t want us. Enjoy your lunch, you bombastic asshole.
Her conscience told her to listen to Seph and make the best of her situation.
But in her heart, she didn’t want to be here. She couldn’t make the best of it.
Or could she?
Could she make this place better? Could she make it suit her?
She crushed what little was left of the Marlboro against the wall. They can’t afford to throw us all out. If everyone wanted the right to smoke on the premises, I bet we could get the rules changed.
With an admittedly devious idea forming, she shuffled back inside and punched the button for the elevator. She tapped her toe until the ding signaled arrival and the doors slid open.
A trio of residents stood inside the elevator. Seeing her, they tried to exit the elevator without making eye contact.
Gushingly, Demeter said, “Oh, Diane! I was just looking for you,” as she blocked them all with her bulk.
“Me?”
“And you too, Patty and Dean.” Demeter ignored their obvious suspicion and linked arms with Patty and Diane keeping them in the elevator. “Third floor, if you would, Dean.”
“But we were just—”
“Now, now. I’ve decided to have a party.”
Not taking no for an answer, she towed them to her apartment and insisted they make themselves comfy at her dining table. She quickly served them crackers, smoked sausage, and Colby cheese, with orders for Dean to do the slicing honors.
“I’ll be right back,” she said cheerily. Demeter paused to nonchalantly set her cigarette case on the table and smile at her company before proceeding into the kitchen.
While her apprehensive guests stacked meat and cheese on crackers, they whispered back and forth about how to politely make a hasty exit. With her sound amplification spell a constant, Demeter could hear every word, even when the aggressive side of the usually quiet and meek Patty showed through. “That woman is strange and gives me the heebie-jeebies,” she whispered. “I say we knock her over the head and run before she does something . . . evil.”
Friends or not, however, Demeter was sure that politeness would keep her guests deliberating for a few more minutes—more than enough time to get her spell together.
Demeter removed a clear glass saucer from the kitchen cupboard, followed by a strongly scented black pillar candle, and a Baggie of gray sand. After pouring a neat circle of sand on the saucer’s edge, she placed the candle in the center.
Next, she selected a bottle of thunder water—water collected during a thunderstorm and then blessed in a ritual to enhance the potency—and poured the water into the saucer until it reached the gray sand.
Finally, she took a vial of Dragon’s Blood essential oil and mixed drops of the oil and water in a shot glass. Dragon’s Blood bore a powerful scent and it
gave serious oomph to any spell. Considering the size and scope of the Woodhaven Retirement Community, she added more Dragon’s Blood . . . and a few drops more for good measure.
After dipping her finger into the mixture, she rubbed it on the candle whispering,
“Dragon’s Blood on candle black
Draw forth their urge to smoke
Thunder water on and under
Infuse this candle as I invoke!”
Finished dressing the candle, she quickly whispered her way through the words of a ritual. When she mentally drew the circle for this spell-casting, she closed her eyes and envisioned the entire grounds of the Woodhaven Retirement Community. She lit the wick with a lighter from her pocket.
“All who live here are enticed,
From the top floor to the bottom.
React and share now as I say
Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”
Demeter carried her saucer from the kitchen to her still-open front door. Fanning the scent of the candle into the hall, she chanted the last line nine times. “So mote it be.” She placed the saucer in front of a return air vent, knowing it would get sucked into the ventilation and spread throughout the building.
When she reappeared at the table, her three guests had fallen silent. One by one, their gazes fell to the case she’d left on the table.
Nana reached out, reclaimed it, and opened it. Withdrawing a Marlboro, she placed it between smiling lips and lit it up. “Anybody else want one?”
Within minutes, the four of them sat at the table and each had a cigarette in hand. Demeter’s room was hazy with ribbons of smoke.
“I never smoked in my life—until now,” Patty said, taking an awkward draw on the filter.
Go on, Patty. It’ll work against those heebie-jeebies.
Diane giggled. “Seriously? Never even tried it?”
“Can’t you tell by the way she’s doing it?” Dean asked.
In answer to Diane, Patty shook her head side-to-side, then her face fell into a worried expression. Her color changed as if she was blushing, but more green than red.
Demeter stood and hurriedly grabbed a small garbage can and handed it to Patty.
“What’s this for?” As soon as she finished speaking, Patty started heaving up chunks of cracker, sausage, and Colby.
Demeter’s cigarette was pinched in the corner of her mouth as she spoke. “That.” How’s that for doing something evil? She reached out and nonchalantly lifted her cigarette case, slipping it back into her pocket.
Just then, in the hall, someone screamed.
Demeter eased away from her guests and shuffled toward the door. Just as she opened it, a wrinkly, giggling old man streaked past—wearing only his black nylon socks.
If not for the ability of paper to adhere to something slightly damp, Demeter’s cigarette would have fallen from her lips.
In a frail voice Diane asked, “Was that Emmet Johnson?”
“I think so.” What the hell is he doing? Demeter blinked repeatedly, having stopped in her tracks. Patty continued to heave and vomit behind her. Another scream resounded as she stepped into the hall. She gazed in the direction the naked man had taken. With the Marlboro once more firmly between her lips, she frowned at his jiggling pasty-white ass as he strutted onward, his arms open wide and his laughter echoing.
Emmet was a doddering and dirty-minded old fool, but he’d never done anything like this. She wondered what might have brought it on.
Then the smell hit her: burning rope.
Incredulous, she whispered, “Weed?”
Demeter started walking toward Emmet’s room. She had to make a turn near the elevators. Peering through his open door, she looked across the room, gaze stopping on the coffee table on which sat a strangely shaped, blown-glass vase. No, not a vase . . . it was one of those pot-smoking things. What were they called? Bongs.
With an angry frown, she entered the apartment. Next to the bong there was a plastic pill bottle. Demeter picked it up, read the label, and learned that Emmet had a prescription for medicinal marijuana.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” She knew Emmet had glaucoma; she hadn’t known he smoked pot to treat it.
From behind the closed door of the room on the opposite side of the hall, she detected a boisterous round of laughter. With a twitch of her finger she adjusted the spell that allowed her to amplify sound. She replaced the bottle and left Emmet’s room to listen at the other resident’s door. She could make out three distinct voices whispering and giggling.
Could they be smoking weed too? She reached down and turned the knob slowly, then opened the door just enough to peek in.
Inside, the two old women she’d seen earlier returning from their stroll were sitting on either side of Gerald Clampet, the third floor’s not-so-secret Viagra dealer. This room also smelled of burnt rope and rings of smoke billowed around them. One of the ladies put her hand on Gerald’s chest and puckered up. He leaned into her.
“No, Gerald, kiss me first!” The other woman grabbed his chin and turned him toward her.
“No, me, Gerald!” The first let her hand fall to his crotch.
Demeter shut the door in disgust and backed five shuffling steps away from it.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
She snorted.
I didn’t know there were any folks here who had medicinal pot.
She was still staring at that door, trying to figure out what to do when screams sounded again. She spun to see Emmet Johnson’s “Johnson” flopping this way and that as he strutted back toward his apartment.
“Demeter!” His arms spread wide in greeting.
“Damn it, Emmet, where are your pants?”
“In my room, of course.”
“Put them on before one of the nurses sees you!” With all the dour humorlessness of a cross school marm, Demeter jabbed the air to point Emmet toward his door. This was not what she’d wanted to happen. Not at all.
“Help me get my pants on, babe?”
“Get your ass in there and keep it there, you dirty old man!” Demeter grabbed him by the arm and shepherded him over his threshold. “And put your damn pants on.” She shut his door with a bang and headed down the hall as fast as her waddling steps could carry her.
She leaned against it, panting. I have to redo the spell. I have to re-word it to specify tobacco and not marijuana. What rhymes with tobacco besides whacko? What about marijuana? Hmmm . . . share-a-sauna? Neither would make a good spell rhyme. Cannabis? Man-abyss? She groaned again as she made the turn at the elevators—and stopped dead in her tracks.
“What in Hell . . . ” she mumbled.
Lost in her own thoughts she hadn’t noticed the music, but as she made the turn it was impossible to ignore Sly and the Family Stone’s “I Wanna Take You Higher” or the throng of people filling the third floor hall. Most were dressed as they always were, but some had dug out tie-dyed shirts. A few had donned black turtlenecks and berets.
Just then, the elevator dinged. She twisted around as it opened, and two women she recognized as first floor residents maneuvered their wheelchairs from the elevator. “I haven’t heard this song in ages,” one said to the other.
Demeter backed away to let them pass. She had enough to deal with. She couldn’t let more people get to third floor. She hurried to the elevator, kicked her tennis shoe off, and shoved the toe into the track of the doors, wedging it deep. She watched the doors roll almost shut, then pop open again.
Satisfied, she pressed through the crowd, advancing toward her apartment. She heard snippets of conversations, mentions of anti-materialism and Dali paintings, of Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan. Some man incredulously asked another, “You’ve never read Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception?”
She narrowly avoided getting slapped as Emmet Johnson, now wearing pants—but only pants, threw his arms wide and declared, “Hell, Irene, I was wading shirtless in the Reflecting Pool in D.C. at the 1970 Honor America Day Smoke-In!”
A
few feet from her door, she encountered Diane and Dean. Patty stood between them with her fingers clamped on a half-smoked joint. There was a lazy look of bliss on her face.
Diane asked, “Don’t you feel better now?”
“Oh yeah. I sure do,” Patty said slowly, drawing out the word do. “I Scooby-doobie-doo.”
“It always helps with nausea,” Dean said. “I used to smoke it when I took chemo.”
“It always made your mouth dry, though,” Diane added. “And you were always so hungry.” She noticed Demeter. “Oh there you are. We wondered where you ran off to. Your party idea was fantastic! How did you get the whole floor involved?” Her arms lifted as she spoke and she started dancing. Was that The Twist? A moment later she stumbled and sidestepped. There was the sound of a clattering dish as she plopped down on the floor.
Patty burst out laughing.
“Are you okay?” Dean stepped forward.
“Yes, just help me up!”
Dean wrestled her onto her feet. She turned to see what she had bumped. “Who put a candle in the hall?”
The bottom of Diane’s shirt was on fire.
Demeter rushed forward and began smacking Diane’s rump to put out the flame.
Diane shrieked. Dean grabbed Demeter by the arm. He jerked her backwards. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Demeter pointed at the flames.
Dean bellowed and started smacking his wife’s behind. “Hold still! Hold still!”
Patty remained motionless the whole time, shoulders jumping in mute laughter.
The shouting caught the attention of those nearby. Curious heads turned and, except for the music—which had changed to “Everyday People”—silence settled into the hall.
Demeter threw her arms up and shouted. “This party is over. All of you go back to your apartments!”
Patty wedged the joint in the corner of her mouth and put her hands on Demeter’s shoulders. “Go to your room, you old bat. We’re having fun.” She shoved Demeter so hard she backpedaled over the threshold.
Demeter stood in her living room, stunned, as her three former guests traipsed merrily down the hall.
It’s my spell. It’s running amok.
She thought back over her wording. “Smoke ’em if you got ’em,” was, to her, not only clever but a good way to get around the rules of magic. A practitioner was never to cause harm to or to interfere with the free will of another person. She had assumed that if there were other smokers on the premises they would not harm themselves further, nor would this interfere with their free will as they were already smokers.
