Kissing Away the Future I don't smoke any more, but that's what this story is about. I used to kiss cigarettes every day, because I liked the kiss death. Back then, I wanted to live not knowing if today was my last; like living on the sharp edge of the razorblade of life. Every day was special to me because I knew I might not have the next one to look forward to. I started smoking in the tenth grade and couldn't quit at first. Later, I just didn't want to. How I started, I forget but I do know how I finished. My best friend from high school, Benny, he smoked too. The big difference between me and him was he had a future and no one knew he smoked. If they did, he woulda' been kicked off all the teams and he'd be a loser so I kept it to myself. Benny graduated and went to University of Miami on a football scholarship. The most amazing thing about Benny was the fact that his physical condition was fantastic, even when he smoked. Now he didn't smoke the four packs a day that I did, but I wouldn't call him a light smoker. Then one day it happened, he got addicted to crack. I called him and told him to stop but he was so high he wouldn't listen. It had finally happened, he'd caught up with the wrong crowd. The mass amount of drugs took him off his game and he was kicked off the team and lost his scholarship. His grades dropped and the next year he couldn't afford college. I didn't hear from him for four years, then one day he showed up on my doorstep, surprisingly healthy looking. But I took one look in his eyes and knew he was tired of the immense spending, and the cops, and the dark alleys, and all the other crap a druggie had to put up with. "Please, Herman, please help me," he said and collapsed into my arms. I did what I could, keeping him locked in a room and slipping food in at random intervals. The doctors said that if it had been anyone else, anyone less physically and willfully strong, they would have died, but not Benny. Benny fought the drug withdrawal for months and months, and cries and howls of madness filled the small apartment for hours sometimes. I had just gotten home from the grocery store, buying all I could with my meek earnings from the department store job I held just barely, and I was walking to the kitchen. The room I kept Benny in was a small closet with a cot so the last thing I expected to see was Benny waiting for me when I turned the corner. He sat there smiling like a Cheshire cat and I feared right then for my life. Then he broke the silence, "I'm going to go to college. I'm gonna' work until I save enough money and I'm going back to Miami U to play football." Now you have to understand my surprise because Benny was now twenty-nine and work was tough to get, I shoulda' been thankful for the job I had. I'm not saying he was old, just that he was aging a little. I tried to explain to him how hard it was and how he couldn't smoke or do drugs. He just blew me off, told me he knew all that. I figured he'd show up on the steps again in a few years, and don't ask how he found me this time. Every day next week he walked out of the door at seven and didn't come back until eight so I decided he had a job and he could help pay the rent at least. Even when he left the same time the next few weeks, I still wasn't convinced. Then he bought some weights and began to work out in the living room and somewhere in there my mind started to change. I even concluded if he made it I'd chip in on the tuition a little. Turns out, in a total of only six years, he shoved it right down my throat by getting a partial scholarship to Miami. He tried out and made the football team, first string. Well, that was it, they gave him a free ride for as long as he played football for them. I can remember all the night shifts and double shifts and overtimes he pulled just to get back where he used to be and thought to myself, if that's what smoking does to you, takes you back four squares, then why do I do it? So, here I stand on the steps of Wisconsin State University, staring at the big double doors there to greet those who enter. I remember somewhere back that I wanted to go Wisconsin as a kid but I can't imagine why. All I know now is I'm here, and I don't want to go back any more squares even if it means I can't kiss death and live of the edge of life and death. Tomorrow wrestling practice starts and I just might show, I used to be quite a fighter. I'll see though, I plan to take life one day at a time, always forward.