The Smoke Shop

My maternal grandfather emigrated from Italy. He was granted citizenship in 1938.

I have a picture of him in hunting cloths in his hometown on the southern coast. A rifle hangs from his right arm as he looks down while caressing the face of a dog whose paws lean heavily on his chest. It is an old picture and sometimes I think I see the dog’s tail wag.

He had been a prominent lawyer in Italy. However, he was unable to pass the law exams in New York which led the reticent man to be known for a humble exterior protecting a quiet rage. Grandpa was a man who wore double-breasted suits when he wasn’t hunting upstate.

Grandpa smoked.

I don’t remember too much about him. Two things stand out: our regular visits to his smoke shop and my being forced to kiss him, as he lay dead in his bed.

It was an old bed, very high with multiple down mattresses. My father’s right arm swept me up by my waist and propelled me onto grandpa's body and my cheek was pressed hard against his.

Every Thursday afternoon, I don’t know why it was Thursday, but every Thursday afternoon my mother would say, “I think I hear grandpa coming down the stairs. Oh, no that wasn’t him, because I just heard their door close. Now that’s him!”

Once, in a school play, I had to say, “Wait, I just heard the upstairs door close.”

My mother would help me with my coat or sweater. When you were that young, you had to be helped with outerwear. Grandpa, “Went to rest in God’s arms,” when I was almost seven. Our ritual was of a three to four year duration.

We took a trolley to the smoke shop. I had a favorite seat and I got it every time. It was the seat in the back that was right at the door. Actually, there were no doors on trolleys. I secretly enjoyed the breeze on my legs even in the winter.

The smoke shop was on Arthur Avenue,a famous place in old New York where a man could have his shoes shined and his hat steamed in the front of the shop while in the back his wife picked the chicken for that night’s dinner. Tools, pictures and dresses hung on the sidewalks and you could buy, hot out of the oven, bread filled with meatballs that were cooked in a family size pot and made fresh hourly with new veal, ground beef, basil, garlic, onions, grated parmesan, bread crumbs and pieces of mozzarella.

The smoke shop was dark even on the sunniest days. It had wall-to-wall wood paneling. It stunk because there was a smoking room in the back where men played Briscola, an Italian card game. I remember the anticipation of my eyes burning and was never disappointed.

It was a maze of smoke.

There was a room lined with shelves of boxes. The owner and grandpa went in while I stayed leaning at the doorway pondering the mystery of cigars. The two men stood close to each other while grandpa toyed with his large signet ring. Their bodies shifted, grandpa rested on his walking stick, taller than the owner, he looked down at the man’s face with great respect and near intrigue as the owner alternately spoke and grunted while rolling a large cigar between his thin smacking lips.

Cigars were serious business.

There was a room that I saw just a few times during the ritual between ages three and seven. There were men; sometimes one, two, or three sitting at small tables with large, dry, dirty brown leaves in front of them. One day one of the men looked up at me, smiled, and tipped his knife to his forehead in salutation.

I put my head down and backed away so the closing door would hide what I thought was their secret playground. A place, about which, I never spoke to grandpa.

When the door closed, I leaned against the wall and viewed the other three sections of the smoke shop: where they bought cigars at the counter, the private sanctuary where only one man and the owner could go at one time and the smoking room where the men looked suspiciously at each other and where the only communication I ever observed was the up and down movement of thick eyebrows and smirking moustaches while they played cards.

When grandpa was done, he would come to me without a word, touch the back of my neck, and tug my red braids in the direction of the door.

I am a child. I can see this place. I can see the men's rumpled shirts hanging away from their suspenders exposing large soft bellies. I can see the growth of beard on their faces. In retrospect, I think that some stayed many hours: Perhaps days.

Did they all look at their cigars the way grandpa did? Did they too stand in the private room; run their fingers up and down the various lengths and widths of those dirty brown sticks? When they were in this sacrosanct room, did they smell the length of the cigar with intent and discernment?

Why didn’t grandpa play cards? Why did he leave with the three cigars in his shirt pocket? Why did I never see any money exchange, only quiet talking and nodding heads? Why did he acknowledge the owner and never speak to anyone else?

Emerging out into the world was a relief because I was convinced that the smoke shop was the hell of which grandma always spoke. The trolley ride home was, at all times, crowded. Why did we go at a time when he knew that it would be crowded upon return?

When we got to our stop, I was allowed to go into the candy store and was given a treat by our neighbor Mr. Russo.

Upon the return home my mother repeated her mantra, one which I adopted by pure instinct. She would take a whiff of me. Holding me firmly by the shoulders, first whiff the top of my head, then she would grab and sniff the sleeve of whatever I was wearing and repeat, “That man, that man.” Then, for some unknown reason feel my forehead as though I was feverish and then say, “Oh, now we have to bathe you.”

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