copyright 2015, by Steven Marshall Cohen
Interview
on Ash Road, Selkirk, NY
Form
1 of 5 Forms
Due to the nature of my
assignment, at 2:00 pm on March 18, I knocked on the front door of 30 Ash
Road, Selkirk, NY, about one mile west of the Hudson River. There was no
immediate answer to my knock, but I observed candlelight inside and a current
registration car in the driveway.
I heard scuffling of
furniture on a hardwood floor. My second
knock was answered by Mr. Patrick Crushan.
When the door opened a crack for the resident to peek at me, cigarette
smoke, its unmistakable odor and bluish tint, wafted out. A lit cigarette was in Mr. Crushan’s hand, burning
end pointing toward his palm as he held it between thumb and forefinger.
When he opened the door
a bit wider, over his shoulder I could see Ms. Fidelma Clebach, who too was
smoking a cigarette, or two – I noted one burning in the ashtray on the
kitchen table and another in her right hand.
Both were Marlboro, given the open pack in front of her. I noted a pack of Lucky Strike propped
against a full ashtray, and a glance at Mr. Crushan’s hand confirmed filter-less
Lucky Strike was his choice.
My preparatory research
told me Mr. Crushan was seventy-eight and his unmarried partner, seventy-six. Both were born in this country. Neither had an arrest record; both were
current on all taxes. Neither had
attended high school or college. He was
nearly bald; her hair, thinning, could have been red at one time, but now was dull,
mixed grey and yellow. She wore a
peasant dress, faded green.
When I explained my
assignment, Mr. Cruchan opened the door only wide enough for me to step
in. He offered a Lucky from the pack in
his pocket. I declined. “Smoke your own, if you like.” I introduced myself to Ms. Clebach. She said “Pleased”.
The room contained a
small dining table in the kitchen, about six feet from the sink and stove. Patrick motioned for me to sit at one of the
empty chairs at the table. Not being a
smoker, the dense atmosphere began to irritate my eyes, nose and throat. No door was open to another room, no air
conditioner or fan circulated the air, no ventilation of any kind was
apparent.
“A bit smoky in here." I said.
“As we like it,” Fidelma
said.
“Well then, I am here,
as you know, to ask a few questions. It
shouldn’t take long. If you are ready,
let’s begin.”
Before I could read
aloud the required disclaimer statement, Fidelma started coughing with a
vehemence that rattled her entire skeleton.
She had no extra weight to cushion her.
The coughing forced her to vibrate on her hard-back kitchen chair. I thought she would choke on the combination
of tissue, phlegm and fluid she was bringing out of her lungs. After two minutes of constant coughing, she
spat into a utility bucket that was between her knees under the table. She held the Marlboro throughout - the lit
tip was threatened her fingers. When the
coughing and spitting of the black effluent into the bucket subsided, she took
a long, deep drag.
Patrick did nothing to
comfort her. He smoked his Lucky.
“Go ah-ead” said Patrick.
The “h” sound in
“ahead” was a struggle for Patrick’s lungs to produce. His throat didn’t want to articulate it. Speaking those three syllables was the first
instance that Patrick did not have a Lucky between his lips since he twisted
the doorknob.
“Sir, I’ve got to check
boxes on this questionnaire form. It’s a
bit dark in here. Do you mind if we turn
on a lamp or open a window for some light?”
“Yes, I do mind. We don’t like bright lights. But here” -
he reached for a utility candle that was on the counter near the stove. The bottom end was melted to stand it upright
in a souvenir ashtray (“Montauk – The Point”).
The wick burned enough to illuminate about one third of the page on my
clipboard. The effort of half-standing,
twisting for the reach and leaning across the table to place the ashtray in
front of me exhausted Patrick. His body
landed back in the chair with a thud. He
dragged and flicked the ash. In the
momentary still of the room, I heard the sound of his thumb nail against the
cigarette paper. Fidelma began her
violent coughing once again.
“Never use a lighter”
he said to me.
“Never!” Fidelma
agreed. She chuckled. “Especially butane. Could kill you.”
“OK then, thanks, that’s better.
Now –“
Patrick began a
coughing spasm as severe as a seizure. He
too had a steel bucket in the same position.
The color of its contents: black, dark red, needless to say bloody, with
bits of tissue (most probably lung tissue, though I did not inspect it to be
certain) floating at the top. Small
clumps of bubbles swirled in a vortex.
The odor wafting from the receptacle? I had no frame of reference - perhaps the
closest comparison was of hot, fresh driveway seal coat.
Could either respondent
inhale deeply enough to answer the questions their application would require?
Patrick said, “Son, you
can see we are smokin’ ourselves to death as fast as we can. We got no children of ourselves and we are
both only children. I got no living
parent or grandparent, and Fi knows not of her parents, ‘ceptn’ they’re from County
Roscommon, Ireland.” He paused to
recover from this exertion.
“No kin of any kind at
all. I jus’ got Pat, and he jus’ got
me. Besides that, we got Philip Morris
and this house.”
“I see.” I glanced
toward the open packs.
“Besides the cigarettes,
son. Stock. Shares. ‘Slong as we been
smokin’, we been buying stock. Nothing
else to do with the social security checks.
Deposit ‘em right to an account and buy more shares.”
The coughing and phlegm
expectorating interrupted for a few minutes.
“We buy shares with the
dividends, we buy shares with our tax refunds, we buy shares with any cash
comes along. Been doing it for more than
20 years. Don’t think we’ve ever sold a
single share.”
“Only thing he done
wrong is those damned Lucky Strikes” Fidelma said between chest heaves. “Lucky ain’t PM.”
“Started Lucky’s during
the war. Patriotic the way they changed
the package to support the troops. Bless
‘em. Smoked ‘em since 1942 – that’s more
than 65 years of being a Lucky man. No
way I’m changin’ now…”
“Guess not” was what I
managed to answer.
“Don’t matter much
really,” Fidelma said, “It’s the shares that matter. We got no one to give ‘em to. There’s got to be over 100,000 shares now – right
Pat?”
“That’s right…last time
I checked it was 132,896 shares…price was right near $20…’bout the cost of 3
packs down at 7 – 11. Altria stock –
owns Philip Morris.”
“If my math is correct,
that’s over $2.6 million dollars, with no heir – is that the situation?”
“Closer to $6 million, when
you add in the house and land…the house is for shit – no energy to keep it up,
but there’s more’n 300 acres come with it.
Goes right down to the waterfront.
Been offered $3 million for the land over and over. Jus’ got no need to sell.”
“The Hudson River waterfront?”
I asked.
He nodded and it caused
him a gentle cough. “There’s a marina at
the water end of the property. Suppose I
could ask for rent, but I never have…”
Pat was wearing Dickies
overalls. He pulled a bandana from the
back pocket and wiped his face, forehead, forearms and throat. “Too much talkin’…I’m breakin’ a sweat here.”
“Would a been more, too
– if you hadn’t made that donation to PM a few years back. Not that it matters….”
“She’s talkin’ about
counterfeiters. PM sued some Indian
tribe in New York for sellin’ counterfeit Marlboros. Well, we bought some cartons there on a trip
to the ocean. Fi knew in one drag t’wasn’t
the real thing. When PM sued them
Indians, I thought we should support the effort. Is there anything lower than a man who could counterfeit
a cigarette? Those Indians pay no taxes
either!” He spat into his bucket. The act of spitting brought on another
convulsion. Fi too had taken several
shallow breaths without a paroxysm, and now the span ended.
(I am trained to be
objective, to assume nothing and to offer no opinions about what I hear, no
matter how provocative. I invoked this
training to prevent myself from saying, “You’re here dying of lung cancer,
emphysema and god-knows-what-else -- and your wife is too -- and you donated money to the cigarette company
that’s made it possible? That has got to
be the stupidest use of money I have ever heard! Why don’t you just burn your cash” – when I
realized in fact, they were burning their cash, and making more each time they started
a tobacco fire.)
I waited again for them
to manage a cycle of inhale-exhale. I
used the time to absorb the gravity of the situation. I made some notes on my legal pad. My own breathing was being impacted. I felt
my throat becoming dry and itchy. My
eyes were watering, and I was squinting to see my QF-905 in the shallow glow of
the candle.
Fi: “Well, young man,
you’ve been here a while now and ain’t asked nothing.”
“Actually, ma’am,
you’ve answered a few questions already – finances, property ownership, family
history, motivation for the application.
It’s a very unusual application.”
“The more we smoke,
they more we make. We know we’re dying from it.
That’s what we plan to do. Silly
to spend it in a hospital on doctors who gonna tell us to quit. That’s why you’re here. It’s the only solution we came up with. You approve us, and then it happens, right?”
“I don’t approve
personally. I conduct this interview,
complete the questionnaire, record my observations, and turn it all in with a
recommendation. A committee decides.”
“Well, son, as you can
tell we ain’t got much time to make this happen. Any breath could be my last. We got an agreement between us – don’t we
darlin’? – one of these heavin’ spells does one of us in, the other does
nothing, ‘cept see to the funeral – arrangements all in place already. Gonna
be buried here on the property, out near the well. Got a nice view from there.” This exertion caused redness throughout his
forehead, face and neck. His chest
heaved.
I did not want to be on
site for the last breath of Patrick Crushan or Fidelma Clebach. Each lit up a new one, the previous still
smoldering in the filled ash tray.
“I’m feeling a bit
light-headed, from the smoke, I think.
Would you mind if I step outside for some fresh air?” I did so - heard hacking behind me as I
quickly closed the door.
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Please visit this blogspot tomorrow for Form 2 of 5 Forms.
