The Return of Dr. Blacklung, Part 2

Return of Dr. Blacklung
by slimv2001@yahoo.com

Part 2
TEN YEARS LATER


To smoke or not to smoke?  That was the question Jimmy Rogers had been asking
him self since he was 12 years old.  Seven years later at the ripe old age of
19, he was still asking him self that question.

Curious as he was, he had refrained from trying out of respect and fear of
his parents and now his wife.  His parents had a mixed marriage meaning his
mom smoked but his father didn't.  They had a good marriage and were married
to this day having celebrated their 23rd anniversary two months earlier.

Growing up, Jim had never known his father to nag his mom about her smoking.
It never seemed to bother him.  It didn't bother Jim either.  But it did
bother her.

At 41, Connie Rogers had been a smoker most of her life having started when
she was 12.  Jim had trouble believing there was ever a time when his mother
didn't smoke.  Like most heavy smokers, Connie had a love/hate relationship
with her cigarettes.  Jim lost count of the number of times she tried to
quit.  Her longest stint without a cigarette lasted almost two weeks and was
the result of a hypnotic suggestion.  Both Jim and his father remembered that
time as the worst two weeks of their lives.

It became Connie's mission in life to protect her son's virgin lungs from the
evils of cigarettes.  She lectured him continuously on the hazards of
smoking, pleading for him to learn from her mistakes.  She forbid him to have
friends who smoked and smoking girls were strictly off limits.  Why? -
Because they were stupid sluts.  Any young girl who would defile her body
with toxic fumes was beneath her son.  But that was then and this was now.

Jim could barely see the Christmas tree through the thick haze of smoke that
hung in the air.  How could three women make so much smoke?  He looked at his
mother who seemed like such a lightweight compared to his wife, Tammy, and
Linda, her mother.

Like mother, like daughter, tragic figures indeed.  Both these beautiful
women were victims of Dr. Blacklung.  First he abducted the mother and then
he abducted the daughter.  Poor Tammy was only 8 when she was kidnapped.

Like he did to her mother, Blacklung held Tammy hostage for almost a year,
forcing her to smoke unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes.  Like he did with her
mother, he released her once she developed a 10 pack a day habit.

Jim looked over at his father in-law, Jack Torrance as he did double duty
lighting his wife and daughter's cigarettes.  He would spell him in a moment.
But for now he was content to sit on the couch with his father and watch the
three women smoke as he pondered the situation.

His mother had welcomed Tammy in to their family with open arms.  After all,
she smoked through no fault of her own.  She hadn't done this to her self.
She was a victim.  And she encouraged her son to be tolerant of his wife's
addiction.

Tammy's family had reservations about the marriage.  Her parents thought 18
was too young for marriage but they realized her habit would steal many years
from her.   Jack also questioned whether Jim could support his daughter's
addiction financially as it cost him almost $14,000 dollars per year per
woman.  In the end he agreed to subsidize his daughter's habit.  Jack stopped
by every Saturday with seven cartons of Pall Malls.  It was Linda who had the
most to say about Jim marrying her daughter.

She was concerned because Jim didn't smoke.  How would he be able to love and
comfort her daughter if he didn't smoke?  Jim had been the first non-smoker
Tammy had ever dated.  But for some reason she felt comfortable smoking in
his presence.  In ways she couldn't explain she liked the idea of a mixed
marriage.  After all it worked for her parents and it worked for Jim's.
Besides that, she was pregnant with Jim's baby.

Needless to say, Tammy smoked through her entire pregnancy.   Most doctors
have a fit when their pregnant patients smoke but those rules didn't apply to
Tammy.  Like her mother, she was so addicted to nicotine that she risked
going into shock if she didn't smoke enough.

Their daughter was born two months ago, small and nicotine addicted but
otherwise quite normal.  Jim watched as his wife picked their daughter out of
the bassinet and held her to her breast.  That was Jim's cue and he got up to
help.

Tammy had both hands busy with the baby so Jim picked up her pack of Pall
Malls and placed a cigarette between her lips and lit it for her.  Tammy
clenched it between her lips and pulled hard as her daughter nursed from her
nicotine laced breast.  It was Jim's job to remove the cigarette from his
wife's lips before the ash grew to long and chanced falling on their
daughter.  He helped her smoke five cigarettes before his daughter drank her
fill.

Jim took his daughter and burped her while Tammy blew smoke in their baby's
face.  It looked evil and sick but it was an act of love.  Without nicotine
laced milk and second hand smoke their daughter would go through the pain of
withdrawal.

It was getting late and all the presents had been opened.  Soon Tammy's
parents would leave but Tammy and Jim would stay.  They had lived with Jim's
parents since getting married and were saving for a house of their own.

Jim looked around the room and drank in the sight.  Only the women were
smoking and they were so possessive with their habits.  All was right with
the world as long as their men bought and lit their cigarettes, but the world
would turn upside down if any of their men so much as looked the wrong way at
their cigarettes.  

These men, and Jim was one of them, were to love their wives and support
their addictions but they were never to join them in a cigarette.  All three
were smoking martyrs.

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