The Great Brain Is Back

by John D. Fitzgerald

  “Why do you want to smoke anyway?” Jimmie Peterson asked.

  “Because it makes you a man,” Parley said.

  Danny coughed again. “Cigarettes can’t make you five or six years older,” he said.

  “You fellows are just jealous,” Parley said.

  But I noticed Parley was a little pale, and he didn’t do much swimming that afternoon. Most of the time he sat on the riverbank.

  • • •

  Since Tom was putting in full days at the Advocate, I didn’t get a chance to tell him what had happened until he and Papa came home for supper. We were sitting on the back porch steps with Frankie, waiting for Mamma to call us to come to the table.

  “Parley smoked a cigarette at the swimming hole today,” I said. “Danny and Herbie took a puff, but nobody else did.”

  “Where’d he get the tobacco?” Tom asked. “His father doesn’t smoke, just chews.”

  “He used bark from a tree,” I told him.

  “The Indians always mix the bark of willow trees with their tobacco,” Tom said.

  “Parley just smoked the plain old bark,” I said.

  “Know something, J.D.?” Tom said. “My great brain has to know everything, and I’ve noticed that almost every man in town who isn’t a Mormon smokes or chews tobacco. The Mormons can’t smoke because it’s against their religion, but practically all the Gentiles do. Papa smokes his pipe and cigars. There must be a good reason why so many men smoke. My great brain will never be satisfied until I find out that reason.”

  • • •

  I didn’t learn what Tom had in mind until the following Sunday after dinner, which we ate at one o’clock as usual. Tom told me to come with him to the barn. We went up the rope ladder to his loft, then pulled the ladder up after us so Frankie couldn’t come too.

  Tom took a Bull Durham sack from his pocket.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked, because it was against the law to sell tobacco to anybody under the age of eighteen.

  “I picked the sack up in the street,” Tom said. “I put some of Papa’s pipe tobacco in it.”

  From another pocket, Tom took some toilet paper. It took him three tries before he managed to roll a cigarette.

  Tom’s cigarette didn’t look as good as Parley’s had. It was fat in the middle and small at both ends.

  Tom lit the cigarette and took several puffs.

  “What’s it like?” I asked.

  Tom made a face. “Pretty awful,” he said. “I guess a fellow has to practice to build up tolerance.”

  “Maybe men smoke to prove they can withstand torture,” I said.

  “I don’t think so.” Tom took a couple more puffs and then threw the cigarette in a bucket of water he kept in the loft in case of fire. “Don’t worry, my great brain will figure out the reason.”

  “While you’re thinking about it, want to come along to Smith’s vacant lot?” I asked. “All the fellows will be there.”

  “Thanks, J.D.,” Tom said, “but I guess I’ll stroll on over to see Polly.”

  I thought maybe Tom would forget all about smoking, but he was right when he said his great brain would never be satisfied until it discovered why men smoke. Every evening that week before he went to see Polly, he went up in his loft and smoked a cigarette. I went along and watched.

  Friday I forgot to pull the rope ladder up after me. Tom had just taken out his tobacco and papers when Frankie’s head and shoulders came above the loft. Frankie remained standing on the ladder.

  “Whatcha doing?” he asked.

  “Beat it,” Tom said.

  “You’re making a cigarette,” Frankie said. “That’s wrong.”

  “I’m only trying an experiment,” Tom said. “Now go away.”

  Frankie went back down the ladder. Tom finished making his cigarette, lit it, and blew smoke through his mouth.

  “Smoking will stunt your growth,” I said. “You’ll stop growing if you smoke.”

  “That’s silly,” Tom said.

  “Did your great brain find out why men smoke?” I asked.

  Tom took another puff on his cigarette, blew the smoke out slowly, and looked at the barn beams far over our heads. “I have an idea,” he said. “I’ll tell you when I know for certain.”

  “Bet you can’t blow smoke through your nose,” I said, “like Parley did.”

  “There’s nothing to it.” Tom took a puff and blew smoke from his nose just as Papa came up the rope ladder and stopped with his head and shoulders above the loft.

  “Put out that cigarette and come with me,” Papa ordered.

  Tom threw the cigarette in the bucket of water. We followed Papa down the rope ladder to the barn floor. Frankie was standing there.

  “Tattletale,” Tom said to him.

  “Frankie did the right thing in telling me,” Papa said. “Now, you come along.”

  We followed Papa into the kitchen, where he stopped. Aunt Bertha and Mamma were washing the dinner dishes.

  “I want you both to see this,” Papa said. “Let the dishes go and come into the parlor.”

  Mamma and Aunt Bertha dried their hands and followed us into the parlor. Papa sat down in his rocking chair. Mamma and Aunt Bertha sat in their chairs. Mamma folded her hands on her lap.

  “I caught Tom smoking in the barn,” Papa said. Then he looked at my brother. “I’m not going to permit you to sneak out to the barn to smoke. If you want to smoke, you will do it right here in the house. You may not smoke cigarettes, because they are bad for you, but you are permitted to smoke a pipe or cigar in the house anytime you want.”

  Mamma frowned. “Do you know what you are saying?” she demanded.

  “I know perfectly well what I’m saying and doing,” Papa said. “If our son is going to smoke, he is going to do it right here in this parlor.”

  Then he opened his humidor and removed two cigars. He cut off the ends with his cigar knife so they would draw. He handed one to Tom, then struck a match.

  “Smoke to your heart’s content,” he said as he held the match to light Tom’s cigar and then his own.

  Tom sat down in a chair and took a puff on the cigar.

  Frankie looked at him. “Bet you can’t blow smoke rings like Papa,” he said.

  Tom got a mouthful of smoke and then tapped a finger on his cheek as he pursed his lips. He wasn’t very good at it, but he managed to blow a couple of smoke rings.

  “I declare,” Mamma said. “Two cigars going at the same time in our parlor is too much for me. Come on, Bertha, let’s finish those dishes.”

  After Mamma and Aunt Bertha left the room, Papa smiled at Tom. “Well, Son,” he said, “how do you like it? There is nothing like a good cigar.”

  Tom gave Frankie and me a superior look as he puffed on the cigar. Then he must have inhaled some smoke, because he began to cough.

  “Don’t let that bother you,” Papa said. “You’ll get the hang of it in a little while.”

  For my money, it didn’t look as if Tom was enjoying his cigar. His face was turning pale. Then, I’ll be a cat with a dog’s head if he didn’t actually begin to turn green. He jumped up and put the cigar in an ashtray, then cupped his hand over his mouth and ran out of the parlor. I ran after him.

  Tom went to the toilet and began to throw up. He kept throwing up until his stomach was empty. Then he staggered from the bathroom. His face was greenish white and his eyes were bleary.

  Boy, oh, boy, did Tom look sick. Suddenly he turned and ran back into the bathroom. I could hear him heaving, but nothing came up. He came wobbling out into the hall again.

  “Help me up the stairs, J.D.,” he said in a weak voice.

  I half carried him up to our bedroom. He flopped on the bed and began groaning. I became so worried, I ran back down to the parlor.

  “Tom�
��s dying!” I cried.

  “Far from it,” Papa said, “but he is going to be a very sick boy for a while.”

  Mamma came from the kitchen and stood drying her hands on the skirt of her apron. “Wasn’t that rather a mean trick to pull on your own son?” she asked.

  “The results will justify the method,” Papa said. “Would you rather have him sneaking cigarettes in the barn?”

  “Of course not,” Mamma said. “I just hate to see him so sick.”

  “The sicker he is, the more he’ll hate the smell of tobacco,” Papa said.

  I ran back upstairs. Tom lay on his back and was groaning as if he were dying for sure. He was clutching the bedspread.

  “The room is spinning around and the bed is tipping over,” he cried.

  “No, it isn’t,” I told him.

  “It sure feels like it,” Tom said.

  “Maybe you’d better get undressed and stay in bed,” I said.

  “I’m too sick to get undressed,” Tom said. “Stand still, J.D. Stop spinning around.”

  “You only imagine that because your great brain is bamboozled by the tobacco,” I said. “Come on, I’ll help you get undressed.”

  It was a struggle, but I finally got Tom undressed and into bed. He kept grabbing at the bedclothes or putting his hands against the wall.

  “The room won’t stop spinning,” he complained.

  “Shut your eyes,” I said.

  Tom shut his eyes but opened them almost immediately. “That only makes it worse,” he told me.

  Mamma had come to stand in the doorway. “You’ll feel better by morning,” she said. “J.D., you’d better run over to the Reagans’ and tell Polly that Tom can’t visit her this evening.”

  • • •

  By the next morning, Tom was well enough to get up. He was hungry too. He ate a big bowl of cornmeal mush and some soft-boiled eggs for breakfast.

  When Papa finished his eggs and toast, he stood and stretched. Then he took his big watch from its pocket and looked at it. “I have time for a cigar before I go to work,” he said to Tom. “Would you care to join me?”

  “I’m never going to smoke again,” Tom said. “I’ll just go along with J.D. while he does his chores.”

  Tom and I walked out to the barn where I fed and watered our livestock. While I was fetching water for the team of horses, Tom asked, “Did you tell Polly I was dying?”

  “I told her you smoked a cigar and were as sick as all get out from it.”

  “What did she say?” Although Tom was much better, his skin was still pale. His freckles seemed larger and more orange than normal.

  “She said she hates the way cigars smell, and cigarettes too.”

  Tom nodded. “That proves it,” he told me.

  “Proves what?”

  “What my great brain figured out was the reason men smoke.”

  I poured one bucket of water into the horses’ trough, then the second. “Why?” I asked as I headed back to the pump for more water.

  “Because women don’t like it.”

  I stopped walking so suddenly that one of the buckets banged into my leg. “I don’t think so,” I told him, “or Mamma and Papa would never have gotten married.”

  “Why, J.D.,” Tom said, his voice sounding irritated, “haven’t you noticed how women smell different from men?”

  “Mamma smells of soap and baking and sachet,” I pointed out.

  “And Papa?”

  “Of printer’s ink and cigar smoke.”

  “Which smell do you like best?” Tom asked.

  “Mamma’s, of course,” I told him.

  “Now, let me explain to you,” Tom said. “When a fellow smokes, he stinks like tobacco, making him less attractive to women. That makes women a lot less interested in that fellow. Also, smoking cancels out a lot of a man’s sense of smell. Therefore, the man who smokes can’t smell a woman’s sachet or soap and such.”

  “You wanted to break Polly’s spell on you,” I said hopefully.

  “Of course not! You must have too much wax in your ears. You didn’t hear a thing I’ve been saying.”

  “I did too. I can’t help it if I have a little brain.”

  “What I mean is that it’s harder for a girl to put a spell on a fellow if he smokes,” Tom said. He spoke slowly and distinctly, as if my brain was less than donkey sized.

  “Oh, I see. If Papa didn’t smoke, Mamma could make him do anything she wanted him to.”

  “Right,” Tom said.

  “Boy, oh, boy, do I feel sorry for you,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you are under Polly’s spell forever, either that or deadly sick every night.”

  “I wish it weren’t so hard to explain things to you, J.D.,” Tom said. “I am not under a spell, and even if I were, it wouldn’t matter, because in a few weeks I am leaving for Boylestown, Pennsylvania, to go to high school.”

  “Don’t they have any girls in Boylestown?” I asked, thinking that if that were so, I could hardly wait to go there.

  “There are girls, but not at the school. And Sweyn told me that the boys at the school are not permitted to walk out with girls.”

  That was when Papa shouted to Tom to get a move on. Tom went off to work at the Advocate and I went back to my chores. But the whole time I was watering and feeding our cow, I was thinking about what Tom’s great brain had figured out about men and smoking. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The only thing I couldn’t understand was why Parley had to smoke. Parley goes so long between baths that no girl with a nose in working condition would ever want to put a spell on him.

  When I finished my morning chores, I went to the parlor. It was quiet and sort of dark because Mamma closes the draperies during the day to keep the sunlight from fading the rug. I went to Papa’s humidor, picked a cigar from it, and took the cigar up to my room.

  I sat on my bed for a while, looking at the cigar. It didn’t smell too awful since it wasn’t lit, and it didn’t look all that dangerous either. Still, I had seen with my very own eyes how sick it could make a fellow.

  I only had a little brain, but there was one thing I did know. Tom had a great brain, and Polly still was able to put a spell on him. I rubbed the cigar behind my ears and on my cheeks and wrists, where I’d seen Mamma put sachet powder. Then I hid the cigar under my mattress where I could get to it every morning without Tom or anyone else seeing me.

  Tom and his great brain had figured out the reason men smoke. Me and my little brain had figured out that I was getting closer to age thirteen all the time and that any day a girl might try to put a spell on me.

  I was not taking any chances.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Blue Lake

  I FIGURED I WOULD NOT need my cigar for protection against girls on our annual summer camping and fishing trip. We boys always looked forward to this trip. It meant ten days of glorious fishing, hunting, and exploring. We liked being alone with Papa too, away from civilization and his work at the Advocate. So we were all disappointed one evening during a supper of hickory-smoked ham and homemade baked beans when Papa announced he couldn’t go this summer.

  “I want to attend the newspaper publishers’ convention in Denver,” he said.

  Tom swallowed a mouthful of food. “Why can’t you do both?” he asked.

  “People are used to missing one edition of the Advocate each year,” Papa said. “They know a newspaper publisher is entitled to a vacation. But to do both I’d have to miss two and possibly three editions. However, there is nothing to prevent you boys from going without me.”

  Mamma shook her head. “I will not permit the boys to go alone,” she said.

  “Why not?” Papa asked. “They are old enough to take care of themselves.”

  “Sweyn D. and Tom D. mig
ht be,” Mamma said, “but not John D. and Frankie.”

  I didn’t like being told I was a baby. “I’m plenty old enough to take care of myself,” I said.

  Frankie nodded. “Me too,” he said.

  “I think they’ll be all right,” Papa said. “They can go to Beaver Canyon. There are always adults fishing there this time of year.”

  “Sweyn D. has to work at the hospital,” Mamma said, “and the others are too young to go without him.”

  “Dr. LeRoy told me I could have a week off anytime I wanted as a vacation,” Sweyn told her, “so there is no problem.”

  Mamma hemmed and hawed for a while, but she finally agreed that we could go as long as we didn’t stay longer than a week. “And, remember,” she said, “I’m counting on all of you to watch each other, and especially to look out for Frankie.”

  • • •

  Three days later we left home early in the morning. Tom was driving our team. Frankie and I sat on the seat of the buckboard beside him. Sweyn was riding his mustang, Dusty.

  At noon we stopped by a dried-up streambed and ate our lunch. Mamma had prepared a big meal of fried chicken, hard-boiled eggs, and bread-and-butter sandwiches for us, every bite delicious. Right then I began worrying. On our previous fishing and camping trips, Papa had always been the cook.

  “What are we going to do without Papa to do the cooking?” I asked.

  Tom looked as if he were disgusted with me for asking such a dumb question. “I’ll do the cooking,” he said. “I’ve watched Papa plenty of times and can cook as good as he can.”

  When we arrived at Beaver Canyon that afternoon, there were a lot of people fishing along the banks and out in the water. Instead of pulling in beside the other wagons, Tom kept going. Sweyn rode up beside us.

  “How about making camp?” he asked.

  “Why stop here?” Tom said. “Let’s go lake fishing on top of the mountain.”

  “I know there are lakes on top of the mountain, but how do you know where they are?” Sweyn asked.

  “People haul ice from the lakes during the winter,” Tom said. “All we have to do is follow their road until we come to a lake.”

  “But we don’t have a boat,” Sweyn protested.