What's in the Water in Midland, Texas?

Written by David B. Edwards

I was nine and my brother Larnie seven.  It was summer, and we had ridden a Greyhound bus from Texas to semi-rural Oklahoma to spend it with our grandparents, who had retired there.  Little did I suspect that this day, Monday, for me would be like no other.  We had been to Sunday school the day before, where we met a boy who for a few days was visiting his grandparents living just down the lane from us.  The boy, Tommy, sidled up to me after the lesson, knowing from our outset introductions of the nearness of his grandparents’ house to that of ours.  He whispered to me, “I have some cigarettes.”  Not quite knowing how to respond, I replied, “Congratulations.”  Tommy continued, “They’re Winstons, and I can bring them over tomorrow.”  I asked, “Why?”  Riveting me with a stare of disbelief, he stated the obvious:  “So we can smoke, of course.  The only thing is, I can’t find any matches.  Can you?”  I told him that I could take the matchbox from off the gas heater in the living room.  To further the scheme, Tommy skewed it more to his tactical advantage by suggesting that we do the deed at my place: 

“I don’t have a good place to smoke.  Do You?”

“I think so.  There’s a private place behind the chicken coop in back of the house.”

So, it was set.  Tommy would smuggle his contraband to the appointed place at ten on   Monday morning, and I would meet him there with the firepower.  Though weak in succumbing to this infernal temptation, I had enough of a grasp on its possible consequences to realize that I needed to formulate a strong domestic plan of secrecy.  For this I needed Larnie’s complicity.  Sunday afternoon I briefed him on my plan to carry out the clandestine deceit.  He was to station himself as lookout high in the big elm tree between the house and the chicken coop and watch for either grandparent coming out the back door.  In that event Larnie was to warn Tommy and me with his whistle.  One of Larnie’s talents was his powerful whistle, which could reach blocks away. 

On Monday at ten everything was in place.  I had secreted the matchbox behind the coop, Larnie had assumed his perch, and Tommy had just arrived on his bicycle with the Winston pack to join me.  He extracted two and handed one to me.  “You see,” he said, “this top part is called a filter, and it makes the smoke taste better.”  I told him, “Okay, now hold it up to your mouth and I will light it.”  Tommy did so, as did I.  I then lit my own.  As we puffed away, we both also began to cough profusely, and I could swear that Tommy was turning blue after a minute.  Even so, we knew nothing of inhaling and only did so accidentally.  My eyes started to burn and to tear, and I found it hard to breathe.  Nausea was setting in.  But I wasn’t about to let on to Tommy that I hated this stuff, and from his appearance I suspected he felt likewise.  We both slipped off the log we were sitting on and to the ground.  Oddly, I felt like we were floating in a hazy calm just before a tornado strike.  That feeling shortly proved to be premonitory.  

As we lay there looking up, after a few minutes I became aware of our large smoke volume output, and just as I was about to tell Tommy as much, my grandfather tore around the corner with ill intent as he flailed away in my direction with his thick old razor strop.  Without much discussion, he proceeded to administer condign justice to a wayward delinquent.  At that moment he appeared to me as the Grim Reaper, swinging his scythe and targeting me with determination.  My immediate self-condemning thought was why in the world would I be so stupid as to bring upon myself this terror for doing something I hated.  My erstwhile loyal friend Tommy quickly lit out on his bicycle, his plan of escape working perfectly for him.  The words “bat out of hell” come to mind.  I never saw him again.  Meanwhile, I was left to face, more aptly to butt, the punishment that I had hoped to avoid by employing Larnie as my fail-safe.  After leaving a substantial impression on my psyche and a few lesser ones on my backside, my grandfather withdrew, taking the matches with him and ordering me to throw the cigarette butts away.  He never mentioned the incident again.  

So, what happened to my brother, my early warning system?  After suffering the compulsory corporal and oral lashing through which a miscreant boy must pass, I took the earliest opportunity to debrief Larnie:

“What happened to you?  You didn’t whistle, so I got hurt.”

I had to pee, so I got down to go to the bathroom.  When I got to the back door PawPaw was there and told me to be quiet and go inside, so I did and watched him go after you.”

What could I say to him?  He had to go, and I couldn’t blame him for that.  Forever after, if I needed his help on something I made sure he went to the bathroom first.

My grandfather’s old razor strop had likely spoken eloquently and often to my father’s dorsal aspect with far more power than it did from the septuagenarian hand that addressed mine on that day.  What should have been a rite of passage turned out rather to be a rite of stoppage.  After that, in the many years since, I have never been tempted to take another puff, and for that unique day, forever imprinted on my volitional being, I am still thankful.