The Non-Smoker

Isn't it strange how you can see a person everyday and feel like you haven't known them in years? You know, you see them at school, acting normal when they're not, or you see them on the football field picking the daisies and running away from you as though a rabid dog was on their tail. You would think I should be the one being scared, because dogs chase me more than girls, but the girl I'm thinking about thought differently. A shame though, because she thought I was actually interesting.

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

Amy's her name. Amy Bradshaw, cheerleader, obsessed with miniskirts. She had another obsession.

Every morning at the bus stop, she pretended to read Ray Bradbury but I knew she was looking at me. Or what's left of me, anyway. Tom Harvey, nerd, obsessed with cigarettes. Except I don't smoke them. What started out as an art project became an all-consuming passion to turn every person into a chain-smoker at Salisbury High. It was a money-spinner and a psychology experiment rolled into one, because of the people I attracted. They didn't care where I got them from, they just wanted the cigarettes. I told Amy that the first time I met her.

"You're sick," she said with those pointed eyes.  I used to like them. She reminded me of elves in fairytales that we all read during our nappy days.

"I like them. Like you like miniskirts. Don't we all have obsessions?" I took a cigarette out and contemplated its carcinogenic properties. Watching too many anti-smoking ads does that to you. I volunteered once to design an anti-smoking ad. It involved a gun and a person. And bullets. Lots of them. The idea was that smoking cigarettes was like shooting yourself in the head multiple times until you died. Cutting a long story short, I spent ten weeks convincing the psychiatrist that I was not a serial killer. Do I sound like a serial killer to you? I hope not.

Anyway, Amy Bradshaw thought I was weird and she left me for a bunch of cheerleaders. Her friends were crazy people. I had no idea how she could put up with their crap. Honestly, who gives a shit about fashion trends in Paris? They thought themselves as popular but I think they're better off masquerading as fashion nerds. Putting it this way, we're all born to be nerds in some form or another. We live in a culture of nerdism. The biggest movement of nerdism is called popularity. It all fits. As far as I'm concerned, popularity could go to hell because it was the most overrated form of nerdism.

Amy must have agreed with my definition because she quit them a month later and started reading Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury. I have nothing against the guy but it's pretty weird material for a self-confessed miniskirt fanatic. For the record, I must have turned down at least twenty invites to random miniskirt events from her. Maybe she would have a better chance inviting a girl rather than a boy with a fetish for cigarettes but that's all irrelevant now. I soon figured it was a front for something rather amusing: watching me.

She denied that, of course.

"You're just a paranoid bastard. I'm clearly reading Fahrenheit 451."

"Four months is an awfully long time to read that tiny book."

I let her watch me for quite a while. I really don't know why she was doing it, but I didn't bother stopping her either. Maybe she found the cigarette trade fascinating. I know I've been approached by little kids who think it's cool to interview a criminal like me. But she looked at me rather than the cigarettes. When she thought I wasn't looking, she would look at the back of my head, as though she could read my mind. There would be a strange longing in her eyes, and they would immediately dip back to her book whenever I turned my head towards her. I really didn't get it, but it amused me. Customers are all the same, but a girl who's obsessed with you is a different matter altogether.

I finally got an answer out from her a year later.

By then, we had seen each other for five years, climbing the high school ladder, peddling out the poor grades and dreaming about impossibility. We'd probably only talked a dozen times throughout that time but I thought I knew her well. She loved miniskirts and she was obsessed with me. It might not seem like much but who has time to read fist-sized biographies nowadays? That was what I learnt, selling cigarettes. Names have limits but quirky characteristic combos last forever. And they teach you about people faster than reading David Copperfield.

"Tom," she said, panting.

I increased my jogging pace. It was sunset on Barker St oval and gold lines painted the grass. The dog from Barker St chased me here before the owner could drag him back, and I thought hey maybe I'll go for a jog. I needed the exercise after all. And now Amy had just turned up.

"Tom," she said again. Her face was already red from thirty seconds of quicker breathing. And I thought my asthma was problematic.

"What?"

"I-I don't know how to tell you this." She stopped and toppled forward. I leaned to catch her. She held onto me with a vice-like grip and her eyes were dreamy, searching for mine. I averted my own and spoke to the grass.

"Spit it out, Amy."

"I like you."

I pulled her to her feet and sighed. It was my favourite way of expressing my non-surprise at anything. She took it wrongly, as all girls do, and spoke in a smaller voice.

"I know you don't like me--"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," I placed a finger on my lips, "Don't assume anything unless you know me."

"I do know you. I've seen--"

"You've seen. That's it. How many times have we talked?"

"A few times." Amy was crumpling by the second, "Look, I'm sorry for disturbing your evening jog--"

"I don't jog. That dog chased me here."

"What dog?"

"The dog. The one on Barker St. The one that chases me every time I walk past it. Don't you see it?"

"No," said Amy, her face pale. I had to give her credit for changing emotional states so quickly. Most girls got real mopey about being rejected. Or maybe miniskirts were worth moping over more than boys.

"It's black. Dark shaggy fur, like damp tea leaves. Lopes around at night and prowls by day. He makes me sad. Real sad. And I have days when I'm so sad I basically let it sit on my face."

Amy backed away, "Tom, what are you talking about?"

"The dog, Amy. He lives on Barker St. He chases me every day. Don't you see it?"

I don't know why I was talking about dogs. It seemed appropriate, because it was nearly twilight and that's when it comes roaming for me. To be fair, it's always everywhere I go but the cigarettes keep him away. As the light continued to fade I could see him more clearly. I started to shake.

"Tom! Tom, are you okay?" She scrambled to my side but I pushed her away, laughing. I'm laughing. Did caffeine make you high? I remembered sculling three cups of coffee this morning after spending the night building a cigarette tower.  

"Tom, Tom!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" I lurched towards her like a drunk and she screamed and ran for it. I let her go. I was so tired that I just fell back onto the grass and watched her run. She ran funny, that Amy. It was like she was afflicted by a thousand blisters even though she had never run a marathon. She paused by the park gate to look at me and I blew a kiss at her. I think that was the final straw. She disappeared down the steps sobbing and left me to the glares of the dog-walkers on the oval.

That's pretty much the story about me and Amy. She moved out a week later and I haven't seen her since. No one missed her. The shrink visited me and asked about Amy though. He was a sly one, the shrink, but I gave him the silent treatment. He tried to call my parents but only found an endless ringtone each time. I didn't have family and I didn't bother telling him that. I liked listening to the endless ringtone. It made me wonder if it's possible to make a ringtone out of a ringtone.

It wasn't until the accident that I finally worked out you could: in your head. It was one of the things I picked up at the hospital. That everything can happen in your head. And things do happen in your head. You see, the dog chased me again. It was a school day and I walked home and it chased me. I ran across the road and a 4WD came around the corner and smacked into me. I don't remember much about that except the nurse telling me that the dog wasn't real. The dog was me. I was imagining it, I was depressed, I was possibly schizophrenic. I liked the last label. It sounded like a
type of schnitzel I ate for dinner.

The nurse didn't say anything when I told her that. She's probably heard worse.

So yeah, here I am. In the loony ward, I think. Since my family's non-existent, they've been trying to put me into foster care. Apparently seventeen-near-eighteen isn't adult enough to let me go. For now, they're keeping me here and talking to me. We talk about football fields and daisies and dogs. I don't mention Amy. The new shrink doesn't either, although I overheard him talking to the nurse about her. Apparently I've been saying her name in my sleep. Apparently.

The only things I miss are my cigarettes.  They won't let me have any here, even though I don't smoke them. I keep telling them that but they just smiled at me and said, "Yes, Tom, but no." I think about the statement and wonder how many hearts have been crushed as a result. You can't just take away an obsession. It just makes you want it more. And I want, more than anything, to count them one by one, just like old times.

I know Amy would agree.