October 15, 2002:
There's a time in her car, as her resignation is becoming more unmistakable. Cigarette ashes coat the steering wheel, the dashboard, the seats. You open a window, which turns out to be a mistake: the draft sends ashes hurricaning around inside the closed space like projectiles, into your mouth, your nostrils, your eyes.
"Ow!" You're hit. Ash that feels red-hot, like an ember, in one eye. You feel it burning. Struggle to force it out: face down, pull the eyelid in different directions, tears streaming. Real pain. She looks at you sideways with a smile curling, a smug expression which you interpret as, "You're so cute when you exaggerate..."
Young woman with small child, early 1960s. Interior of a bowling alley. She's smoking, cigarette in hand, waiving it in the air as she chats with her friends. The child becomes alarmed. The burning cigarette-tip is passing closer and closer to the skin of his sleeveless arm. "You're going to hit me with that!," he repeats, more and more desperately. "I'm not going to hit you with it," she says, impatient. But she does, and as he yelps she seems uninterested. Looks at the grownups with a smile curling, a smug expression which he learns to interpret as, "He's so cute when he exaggerates..."