I went to see my 400 lb friend Riz today. He was horizontal on his couch, his mom in his bed. They were watching “Animal Cops’ or something on Animal Planet, where they rescue abused beasts.

I sat on the couch and  made a grimace. Riz and his mom picked up on it immediately, which was my strategy.

“Something seems to be weighing on you, “ Riz actually said. This is how he talks1

  “Oh, they’re gonna make our house into a sober house,” I grumbled, eyeing a beaten malnourished puppy/dog being brought into the loving hands of an Animal Control woman. He was skittish, to say the least. I hate this kinda tv. I know some severely depressed people, like Riz, who love it because it shows them how crazy & idiotic the world, and people, can be: giving them hope for themselves.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

I have been happily inhabiting this hole in the wall boarding house room for 2 years now.

It’s small, but it fits all my books and a tv and a bed and makeshift bookcases. Oh, and my clothes, too. In an ancient bureau.

It is a male place. Three guys downstairs..and me and 'Sarge" (who has been here forever) upstairs. We barely encounter one another, and when we do it’s just “hi” or a nod. He smokes a lot and has a bit of a cough. He has a confederate flag on his wall, near his posters of the Beatles. He was in Vietnam, killed some people, and now is my next door neighbor, an endless intellectual asset as I continue my program of becoming heartily lustfully literately male. He helps.

But… 

  They are going to make this house  a 'sober house', the landlady says.

  Apparently, drunken shenanigans are going on downstairs, between the three guys who are "in rccovery".  They are falling off the same wagon together. Bumping around in the night, when I am fast asleep. I hear that outside people come in and there are drunken encounters and screaming and discontent from my fellow tenants.

  Thus this house will  need to be monitored  , made more 'decent' and , arg, 'official'. 

  Officially a 'sober house ' for men.

  No smoking of course.

……………………………………………………

“That is not fair,” said Riz’s mom from under the comforter on Riz’s bed, where she sleeps when she sleeps over, which is always these days. (“Rizzy needs me,” she says.)

  “But I am gonna get around it, K. Just gotta find a smokeless ashtray! Where the f. would I get one?”

  Riz, self-important when he advised me, which he does more than I care to admit, especially about computer stuff, said, “go to a walmart or a kmart or, hey, why not a smoke shop?”

  Excellent. Smoke shops, which you may walk into with a cig in your mouth looking for a good deal on raw bagged tobacco or filters or whatever..pipes…and of course extravagenty priced cartons of tobacco-company cigarretes…80 bucks for 10 packs…. Ten packs? Costs me less than 10 bucks, cuz I home-roll, which I encourage all u smokers to do immediately. Cut off their tax funds on the “real ones”. Pipe tobacco in a filter is harsh and strong, but not contaminated with oddball chemicals the companies put in cigs to make you addicted. This is what I hear, and believe, dammit.

“Good advice, man. Plus smoking out the window!” I said, with a hint of hope.

  ……………………………..

The reason for this post is: can anyone recommend, & tell me how to get, where, a SMOKELESS ASHTRAY, and/or AIR PURIFIER  that will totally fool the landlady, because, ha, literally I indeed have given up the “smoke” part of smoking.

……………………………………..

He sat up and addressed me. “Jimbo, one small favor from you (his favorite words!) ..can you got out to Sam’s and get me some chewing tobacco? Mom? You need a pack of cigarettes?”

Mom piped up, “No! Today is a patch day. Tomorrow too. But Friday you gotta take me to the gas station to get some cigarettes, ok, Rizzy?”

“Okay. Jim! Also some fritos. Here’s the debit card. And get yourself something, some chili or whatever. Then come back and we can have a good talk. Like one of our old ones, right?”

I stood and put on my jacket for my errand for my agoraphobic friend. ‘Anything else,’ I said, for he has the annoying habit of calling me on cell phone when I am shopping, with a new wish, like….

“Yeah. A gallon of orange juice”

“K? (Mom)” I said. “you need anything?”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh. No no, but later , next week, when the food stamps are in, we gotta make a shopping trip, ok, saint james?” she called me that despite my admonitions to treat me as a regular guy, and friend.

“Ok.”

Riz handed me the card and said, like he always did, “Don’t lose it!”