Samuel Krapels

Camel

Grandma Trinna was the last of her kind, no allergies, no phobias, living on a diet of Dunkin Donuts coffee, Skittles, and Tall Boy Twisted Teas, dying at the whopping age of 105. The rest of us were aging like Greek yogurt, developing phantom allergies and addictions accompanied by knee surgeries, Mediterranean diets, and colonoscopies, resulting in an at-best medium quality of life. My own mid-twenties marked the onset multiple aggressive intolerances that required a full overhaul of the foods I tended to eat. I was twenty-eight when Trinna died, with an okay job, but no health insurance. My physical health was kept at a relative stasis via sobriety and meatlessness.

Trinna’s house was a duplex that was slowly emptied—my mom was on sabbatical and went through every article of clothing, every book, every heirloom with the repeated mantra, do you need this, do you need this, do you need this? Towards the end all Trinna could do was gasp, taking shuddering inhales before the exhales dripped out of her like a twisted rag. When she died, there was a mad dash on the part of the whole family for certain heirlooms, ornate flatware, a certain pocket watch, first edition books of Appalachian home remedies or personal accounts of old ladies who relayed the signs of impending rainfall.

Trinna herself, though, left each of us a box with our names on it. Mom got the keys to the house. An uncle got a key to a safe with a bunch of loose cash in it. A cousin with a baby on the way got a big box with an ancient dollhouse. My cousin’s artist kid got a traveling easel. Mine had a pack of Camel No filters. Inside the pack was a single cigarette, with the words don’t make it a habit written on the lid. Thanks, Grandma. My teenage addiction issues made me a cause of great concern, even though I’ve moved into my late twenties, and the tinnitus-feeling of alcoholism had subsided to a dull hum. Her gift didn’t shock me, anyways. I was the homeless, childless queer, no space for nice things and no one to protect but myself.

Anywho. Trinna was in the ground and there was a small barbecue in the backyard of what was now my mother’s house. Little kids from two different families ran around in circles, shooting each other with water guns and dying horrific imaginary deaths. One set of kids was entirely barefoot, wearing what was functionally painting smocks—each one of their nails had a different color of the rainbow that chipped from hours spent in the dirt. The other set of kids wore head-to-toe under armor, their skin clean and hair carefully molded into a spotless crew cut shape. The adults were either side of this broad spectrum as well—my mom looked smart in a blazer and a black skirt, my uncle was in his Levi’s and undershirt that sometimes functioned as a dish towel, their sister’s hands were covered in dabs of blue paint. My cousins were under a pergola, playing some mind-meltingly difficult board game that I’d opted out of.

Want some company? Myra had found me, as she usually did, walking away from the group, down the driveway and onto the dirt road. I shrugged, and we walked silently. Eventually I put my Camel into my mouth and lit it. Myra raised her eyebrows—I triple checked her pronouns in my head, which seemed to change with the seasons. On that day she was in a long denim dress and combat boots, her protected feet a potentially unintentional homage to her goth days. You probably don’t have to smoke that.

I shrugged again, it seemed important to her. I’d managed to quit smoking in my teens, which turned out to be harder to shake than liquor and pills, but I figured one wouldn’t hook me again. What did she give you again? She showed me her fingers—costume jewelry, ostentatious rings and bracelets, the cheap stuff Trinna wore to the grocery store or to church. Those are kind of cool—but before the L in cool came out of my mouth, a sensation pulled me off my feet and thunked me down on a soft, malleable ground.

It was still hot, but a different type of hot than the funeral. In front of me was the ocean, pristine and blue, not a soul to be seen around me. My legs were short and chubby, and at the end of them were tiny feet with yellow flipflops. To the right, a pudgy shoulder covered in blotchy sunscreen. There were sounds to my left, and then a large, fleshy appendage brought a white cylinder into my mouth. An unseen force held the back of my head, so I had no choice but to inhale. This breath sent me sputtering and spitting, and I could feel it, something in my throat that I couldn’t get out. Hot, wet tears fell down my cheeks and suddenly the whole day was ruined, the sun was too hot, the sand was too rough against my skin, and a warbled noise came out of my throat, scratchy and wounded, but I pushed it as hard as I could, releasing into the sky and the ocean, for all to hear.

In an instant I’m off the ground, hoisted under my arms and my nose is digging into a warm mass of skin, both hard and soft. Hair falls in my face, long, reddish brown strands that smell like home, and I bury myself into it, the skin, and I feel the vibrations within, the words that were thrown over her shoulder, don’t give the baby a cigarette, you fucking idiot. I try to follow where her voice goes, and I see a man, bald on the top of his head and whispy grey strands running over his ears. His legs are long and skinny, and his shoulders were broad, but he had a pronounced beer gut, which he covered with both hands as he laughed and laughed. Then he waved at me with two of his fingers and shrugged comically, before picking the cigarette out of the sand and waving to me again. I decided in the moment that I hated this man and probably always would.

I was buckled into the front seat and the lady held my chin and looked into my eyes. We’ll get you some water. Then she ran around to the driver’s seat, and we drove down the road. Don’t make it a habit, alright, and she winked at me, and there in that car, the air was clear and cool, and the sun didn’t burn. A smile bloomed out of me like a flower, rising from my belly, through my throat, and out my mouth. A noise accompanied my grin, a wheezy laugh, riding the hotness and coldness of the day like a wave.

I landed back in my own body with a thud. Myra’s still talking, and I had to remember how to take big steps, independently. My bones felt so long, even the blood pumping through my body felt unbelievably fast. She gave me a look and said, you alright?

I nodded, but then it was Myra, who I could share certain things with. I think I just met our great-grandparents.

Her eyebrows went up, oh, really? What was Great-Grandpa like?

The memory of that old cigarette burned in my lungs—Trinna’s heirloom was still in my hand, which I subconsciously brought to my mouth and pulled. It tasted breezy and cool, like the surface of a frozen lake. He seemed like a dick.

She mulled that over, sounds like the men in our family. What about Great-Grandma?

I remembered the feeling of being held, enveloped, and sharing our secret smiles in the car. She seemed exhausted. The summer was almost over. As we turned around and headed back towards the house, we passed a few RVs, retirees in sprinter vans, hikers taking days off the Appalachian Trail to buy PopTarts and go to the pride parade. Myra was due back at grad school in Baltimore in about ten days, becoming a social worker or a psychologist or something else. I’d probably be at my mom’s for a few weeks before figuring out where to go next. A girlfriend from college bought a condo in Arizona and said I could stay with her for a bit. I’d have my own room and bathroom and could work on her back porch while she went to teach high schoolers. This dude I had sex with off and on as a teenager said I could crash at his dry cabin in Maine before it got winterized for the season. It’ll be antlerless moose season, he told me in his head-to-toe real tree, shaking his shoulders to me when we ran into each other at the Mobil Gas between our childhood homes. There were a couple couches to sleep on in New York and Boston. Sophie’s choice.

I put the dead cigarette butt back in its carton. In Trinna’s backyard, the little kids had tired themselves out and lay in the grass, watching the clouds go by, speaking to each other in their mysterious little language of movie quotes and facts read from encyclopedias.

The other cousins were gathered around the big table on the porch, watching a Youtube video on one of their smartphones and guffawing, laughing at the impression of a political figure therein. When the video ended, they discussed it animatedly, quoting it to each other and contorting their mouths in their best comedic impressions of the comedic impression. The group of them wore mismatched outfits, button-down shirts that were too big, blazers that were too small, flowery sundresses that looked nice, but weren’t funeral ready. They all had bags under their eyes and looked like they hadn’t seen the sun in some time. The boys had patchy stubble going down their necks and little grey hairs sprouting out of their scalps. They’d told me about their new word salad positions, executive producer, head of marketing to associates, social management specialist.

The boomers stood by the camp grill, which was now basically dead, one sad little trail of grey smoke pouring into the sky.

I’d been trained to consider what my emotions were as they were happening, honoring them one by one. Seeing how they stained the fabric of the tapestry inside my solar plexus. What landed me in this moment was an overwhelming sensation of being sick of funerals. Trinna, Dad, Dad’s sister, one of Mom’s brothers, those kids from my high school, more friend’s parents than I could count. I turned to Myra and I was about to ask her if we were cursed. But she beat me to it, running a my shoulder blades, telling me we’re too young for all this death. Then she walked over to her little brother, laying down next to him in the grass. I could see something escape from her mouth as she released herself into the Earth, like the knob of grief that sat within each of us was moving up through her body and into the air, mixing with the smoke.

 END

Sam Krapels is a fiction writer and yoga teacher based in Brooklyn. You can find his work in The Taborian, Ouch! Collective, and Fleas on the Dog.