Smoke Signals

was the year his parents uprooted him and his sisters
from their Manhattan penthouse to live in a three
room flat in the Old City of Jerusalem
and enrolled him in a Hassidic yeshiva.
He often remarked he began smoking
Noblesse as an alternative to choking
his study partner.
His half pack a week became a full
Marlboro pack habit four years later
when his parents discovered Scientology and yanked
them all to Malibu. Putting aside his surfer shorts and
board, Dov managed to cut down to one or two a day
when he made his escape to Harvard two years later.
He only added three or four a day when his parents,
now Episcopalians, called to say they were changing
their last name to Maxwell just so they wouldnt
sound too ethnic.
In every photograph of
Youre anti-Semitic Jewish-Episcopalians now
Dov there was a
Mother? Hed drawled into the telephone with that
cigarette dangling from
curious mix of Yiddish accent and Californian beach
one hand or the other.
speak he had developed. He heard the slightly
It wasnt really unusual;
superior voice of his mother admonish him to not be
after all he started
insulting as he reached for the pack of Pall Malls on
smoking at 12. That

Smoke Signals
the bookshelf in his
kitchenette and
signaled Lucas for a
light.
..After all Maxwell is not that different from Mizrahi.
She said with the edge of determination.
Right, Mother, it does start with M, he breathed out
a cloud of pale grey smoke that matched the Boston
morning, but count me out.
Dov only went back to a pack a week when his
younger sister announced she was now a practicing
lesbian, he kept wondering about the practicing part.
Smoking really started taking up a serious amount of
his time once he realized he was in love with his older
sisters husband, Martin.
Finding that there wasnt much use for a major in
Renaissance Poetry he took a graduate degree in
Renaissance Art as well and met Ludivico in Rome
during his post-doc studies. Nothing much came of it
except incredible sex and cutting back to post coital
smoking three sometimes four Davidoffs a day for
two years- it was incredible sex.

Smoke Signals
Flying home for his
sisters funeral, his
hands shook until he
could light up again. To
settle himself Dov
squeezed into the
impossibly tiny airplane
john and just sucked on
an unlit Camel.
He stood at the window overlooking Paris and deeply
inhaled the last Gitane in the pack, watching the
reflection of a sleeping Martin rather than the white
city spread out before him. Then a strong arm
encircled his waist and drew him tightly against curly
chest hair. Martin bent to kiss his neck and turned
him softly. You really need to cut back, Martin
whispered against his lips, its like licking an ashtray.
Years later found him hiding in the attic of the
Georgetown townhouse they were rehabbing and
smoking the ancient Lucky Strikes he found there right
after he found the condom in the bathroom trash.
Martins tears broke him down. Dov had never seen
him cry before.

Smoke Signals
Smoking was out of the
question at the
hospital. Several large
pictograms of an
encircled cigarette with
a red slash through it
made it pretty clear
that the nurses if not
the local police and
perhaps the armed
forces would descend
on him if he dared to
light up in the ICU. With
the infinite wisdom of
any other ten year old,
their daughter held his
hands, tightening every
time Dov began to
tremble as the two of
them stared through
the glass at Martin
lying so still.

Smoke Signals
Yesterday, walking from

Turning up his collar to the early spring rain he

the fresh grave, Dov

concentrated on not falling apart and made a mental

bummed a Kool from

note to get a pack of his own.

one of Martins cousins.