- You'll sit in this office, and the women will be sent in to you
via the reception, Angela said when showing me around. I had been looking
for a job, I mean, almost any job after finishing my university studies
to make some money, get myself a decent apartment and so on. "Non-smoking
women only", the advertisement in the paper had said. "Quit-Smoking-Assistance,
QAS". I had got a crazy idea and called the number and said I was calling on my
girlfriend's behalf. "We need a person to interview women and girls that come
to us to get help with quitting smoking. Your girlfriend, for instance, would
ask questions in a free manner and try to come up with ideas depending on
what the woman answers. The idea is to support her in quitting, not to be
an interrogator". "Hmmm," I had replied, "my girlfriend is maybe a bit too
quiet, if you know what I mean, she's too shy for such a free and open
conversation. Are you sure, by the way, that a man can't support the women
as good as a woman can?"
I didn't manage to convince the woman I had been talking to, so I was
quite surprised when she called we a week later and wondered if I was
seriously interested. She had mentioned me at some coffee break and they had
started to discuss whether a man could maybe be even better at least
for some women. One thing had given the other, and now I suddenly was there
at my first day at my new job! The instructions were simple. Try to make
the women to make up their own minds about how much they want to quit and then
try to encourage them even more. Don't talk too much in the beginning, just make
them talk.
I started to think about all the university girls who were tired of hearing
their mothers' talk about quitting smoking, and inside myself I saw tall blondes,
cute brunettes, glad red-haired and so on, probably around 20-24 years of age
coming into my office and almost start weeping in the middle of the conversation.
Then, one of them knocked on my door and ... came into my office...
Yes, she was a cute brunette, no I mean she probably once was. Brenda McShanahan
said she was 43 when I asked her. Was THIS what I had been dreaming about? Anyway,
I had asked my employer if it was OK to use my own methods, and she had been
glad to hear I had some ideas of my own. So, I put a clean ash tray on the table.
- I want you to smoke as much as you can during the interview.
Mrs McShanahan was surprised.
- Isn't this a non-smoking organization?
- Yes, but so far you're still a smoker aren't you? So, I...
I interrupted myself when she cupped her hand over her big, red lips, inhaled
and coughed with three deep, raspy hacks. I suddenly felt some sort of interest
in her, which I hadn't felt before.
- Sorry, it's my smoker's cough, Mrs McShanahan smiled, put a cigarette between
her lips and lit it. After her first deep inhale followed by an exhale with her
head turned to the side, she again inhaled deeply to cough. Her next sequence of
hacks were even louder and raspier and the last one produced a hard and sharp sound
from inside her chest. She released her cupped hand and I took it in mine, and
looked her deeply in her eyes. Her hand was warm and humid from her coughing fit.
- Mrs McShanahan, I said, relax and think. Do you really want to quit? Take a
deep double drag and think while you keep the smoke in your lungs...
She obeyed and pulled all the smoke down with a little sound.
- Keep it until I tell you to exhale, then exhale through your nose only, I said.
When I let her exhale, her nostrils produced a cloud of smoke between us, and
I deliberately inhaled the smoke that had been in her lungs deeply.
- What did you feel, I said and released her soft hand.
- It was... (she closed her eyes) it was lovely! Oh, I love the smoke so
much. It's just my cough that makes we want to quit.
- Are you sure it's just the cough?, I asked.
- Well, the health aspects maybe too, at least a little, she tried.
- Lots of smokers never develop any lung cancer and do not get a stroke or so,
I tried to console her. About your cough, why don't you try to make peace with it
instead? Try to look upon it as a part of your body, or even as a good old friend
of yours who likes to pop up every now and then just to say hello.
She was going to say something but that good old friend had decided to
pay her a real visit. She started with a four seconds long rattling and placed
her hand on her chest so her smoky breath that was coughed out came directly
in my face and I inhaled it, of course. The rattling was followed three deep,
wet hacks and she quickly cupped both her hands up over her nose and mouth.
Her long inhale made a wheezing sound and I expected a wild coughing fit to follow,
but to my disappointment she only produced two loud, raspy hacks. I guessed it
was the end but she let her hands remain for a couple of seconds, then inhaled
again. She ended the coughing fit with two hacks that were so deep and hard so
she almost whooped.
- Is that a genuine smoker's cough, I asked curiously.
- Yes, it is. I'm very prone to almost whoop. I can do it up to four times in
sequence sometimes.
- What's your cough like, I mean do you cough in the mornings, for instance?
- Yeah, the first thing I do in the morning is to cough for over two minutes,
then I lit my first cigarette.
- Do you enjoy that first one, then? I mean, are you seriously thinking about
trying to never smoke it again?
I could see in her eyes that she wasn't that convinced anymore about quitting.
- Maybe... maybe I'll have to think about it more...
- Just what I was going to propose, I smiled. - Go home, smoke even more and
cough even more if you need to. A smoking woman is a beautiful woman, and
your cough makes you even more perfect.
Mrs McShanahan left with a proud expression in her face. She wasn't anymore
the Brenda McShanahan that had felt ashamed of her addiction and her cough,
she was now a proud, smoking woman with the right to cough as much as she wanted to.
The next woman was even older, but she had her 14-year old daughter with her.
I asked which one of them that was trying to quit smoking and the reply was
fantastic - the mother, Caren, pointed at her daughter and said "Christie" while
Christie pointed at her mother and said "Mom". I tried to keep myself from laughing.
- Wait a second, this means both of you smoke, yes? Caren nodded.
- And, I continued, let's see- you, Christie want your Mom to quit, yes?
- Yes, because I care for her and for her lungs. She's such a heavy smoker
and her smoker's cough is getting worse each year...
- It's not, Caren interrupted her daughter.
- I heard you almost cough up a lung this morning, and the morning before,
and the morning...
- Hey, let's get back to that in a minute, young lady, I laughed. - Now, Caren,
do you mean that you're here because of Christie's smoking, not because of your own?
- Exactly. I can cut down on it any day I want to, but I don't want Christie
to be a smoker.
- And you, Christie, how do you feel about it?
- I tried to quit five months ago but it felt terrible. I'm going to
be a smoker forever, but I want Mom's lungs to get some rest for at least a couple
of years now. I hate to see her pull that smoke down in her lungs when she knows
it's the smoke that makes her body cough. Without smoking, Mom would almost never
have to keep moving her hand up to her mouth and cough like she has to do now,
almost once per quarter of an hour.
Caren inhaled deeply and coughed with two slow but dark and heavy hacks.
- My cough isn't a problem for me, I'm not coughing that badly, except for
in the mornings, Caren protested. - OK, I know my cough originates from my
smoking, but still, I can live with it.
- I suppose I can't smoke in here, she continued after clearing her throat.
- Not here, and not anywhere else either, Christie said sharply.
I took the ash tray and put on the table again, totally unable to keep myself
from laughing. - Can I make a suggestion, I said. - Both of you, take a cigarette
and put between your lips, then light it and smoke. Repeat the process whenever you
like to. It's a part of my concept.
First, Christie thought it was a joke. Then, she stared angrily at her Mom with
her blue eyes. When Caren's fingers a few seconds later were holding a cigarette,
Christie looked like she was going to cry. I got an idea.
- Wait a second, stop! We'll do it another way. Let's start with Caren.
I want you to slowly put that cigarette between Christie's lips and light it for her.
- Never! I'm not going to help my little girl smoke!
- It's a part of my way of working, I said slowly and I managed to convince Caren.
Deliberately, Christie pulled deeply on the cigarette, showed her Mom the smoke in her
mouth before pulling it down in her lungs.
- Oh, your poor, pink lungs, Caren almost moaned.
- Now, put that cigarette between your Mom's lips, I said to Christie.
- What?? She said with smoke flowing from her mouth and nose.
- You heard me. Come on, try!
With a sad expression in her face, she put the cigarette she had been sucking so
hardly on between her mother's lips and Caren dragged, kept the smoke in her mouth
for a while before inhaling. She coughed with two silent, darkly rattling hacks
but no smoke slipped out.
- Listen to her, Christie grumbled. - I made her cough! Mom, please don't
cough again...
- Calm down, Christie, I went on. Look out your Mom's way of smoking.
She's an experienced smoker,
full of style and technique. Look at how she's exhaling now, after such a long
while. Her lungs are trained to keep the smoke for quite a long time, and her
nostrils love to let the smoke flow through them on its way out.
- But I just can't stand hearing her cough anymore. Everytime I hear her start
to cough in the evenings, I have to go there to watch her, or to sit down beside
her and massage her poor chest. I even dream in the nights about her cough.
- And every time I see Christie light up I want to sit down and massage her chest,
Caren added. - I see the strong smoke flow from her nose and mouth, knowing it has
been in her young, fresh lungs, and I just have to put my arms around her.
- So, you two can sit there, massaging each other's chest while smoking, then?
- Yes, it happens, Caren sighed and looked at her daughter who just dragged
on the cigarette. - I must admit you look good when you're doing that...
Christie stared at her mother. - You've never said that before, Mom...
- No, I haven't, but I've always been thinking that way. I can't keep it inside
myself any longer.
She closed her eyes. - Tonight, I'll train you in the art of keeping the smoke
in the lungs for up to a minute, as well as how to inhale through your nose,
Caren said and smiled with her eyes full of consideration.
- And you, Christie, I smiled at the girl, knowing that I had saved three smokers
this day. - About your Mom's lungs and her cough. What do you really feel?
- I'm not sure. The sound of all the... the phlegma moving inside her scares me,
but at the same time... I'm not sure I could live without hearing it every day.
It's a part of my childhood, and even if it wasn't this frequent ten years ago,
I still, inside myself, associate it with ... safety. My mother without that cough
is almost also a scaring thought...
The two women left after promising each other to never quit smoking and Christie was sure that in the future, her kids would also associate her smoker's cough with the same safety.
I looked forward to see what the rest of the week would be like...