The Alternative by D.J. OLSEN

"My dad use to bitch when he found stems in his weed," Darin said, and looked down at the long pale reed he'd pulled from a yellow can held between his knees. "Now I'm finding them in my tobacco." He tossed the stem aside, his slender index fingers returned to leveling bronze hairs of tobacco in the paper. He deftly rolled a cigarette, licking with his moist tongue to seal it. The woman beside him watched closely, gentle eyes on his hands, then his face. Holding up the cigarette, he smiled at her. "Just like a Camel, 'cept no hump," he grinned. "Want one?" he offered.

She shook her head. "I quit."

After lighting it and letting out a blue stream, he spit, then said, "Yah. My Dad always said they'd legalize marijuana. Didn't." He drew again."Now they're working on tobacco. Wanna get rid of everything cheap that gets you comfortable."

"It's really bad for you, worse than weed, really."

"Think so?" he nodded, not looking back. "Yah, guess you're right." He turned the cigarette between his fingers, watching the smoke snake away. "Just got to find something to take it's place." He looked at her. "They say it's an oral fixation," he put on a studious expression, "at least Freud did."

She looked thoughtful. "Do you want to kiss me?"

He stared at her untelling eyes. She nodded. "It's oral."

"Sure, I guess."

"Throw that away."

He looked at the cigarette, flicked it, watched the ember tumble off when it hit the street. He turned, leaning toward her. "Ready?" When their lips touched, her's parted, tongue reaching for his. Her sweetness drew saliva to the corner of his mouth. His lungs filled with her breath. They looked at each other,his jaw moved, still savoring her flavor.

"Well?" she asked.

"Sure," he answered perfunctorily, releasing the rest of her breath. He looked at her with an analitical grin. "A kiss," he mythically weighed it in one cupped palm; "a smoke," he weighed in the other. "Yah, Connie that's okay!" He looked at his watch. "Best check the labor hall. Evening jobs should be coming in." He stood, reached for her hand, "get coffee and somethin' anyway." He pulled her up from the curb, then automatically tucked the can of tobacco in his back sack.



It was almost a mile back to the temp labor office. They strolled a lower town street, shopping windows, talking. In an empty store doorway they stopped for a kiss. Passing faces caught his attention. Darin watched them, saw disapproval. As they walked on he took her shoulder, said "Kissing's like smoking. People give you shouldn't do it looks."

Connie shrugged.

That's the way it began. Darin was a common guy: less than thirty, not pretty, not ugly either, educated just enough to be downsized often. He stumbled through life as he'd tripped through college, studying everything, never learning enough to become indespensible. Slowly he decided he was best at just getting along. Productivity wasn't a big part of his life, sex wasn't either. That's why this kissing thing seemed rational to him. Like his jobs, it never really went anyplace. And that was fine with him, he guessed, so long as she was around.

When she came up missing one afternoon, things got hairy. After eating at a burro cart he couldn't find her. She'd gone to work, that morning, he'd missed her at lunch, now it was supper. He swung his back pack off his shoulder. It felt empty when he gripped it. His tobacco was lost. He counted his money. His room rent was due; he had that with forty cents left over. Enough for maybe one cigarette. He was ready to buy that single from a guy, when he spotted a woman who hung with Connie. He trotted over, grabbed her shoulders. "Look," he insisted, "I've quit smoking. I need to kiss you." He pulled her close, leaning for her lips.

"Whoa!" She backed off. "What's happening here? Smoking, kissing? Best explain." She placed her fingernails below his chest, where it would hurt if she pushed hard.

"Okay," he chuckled, explained.

She giggled one of those doubting laughs, but tilted her head,"I remember Connie saying something like that, when I asked about you two making it all the time."

He answered quickly, "Just kissing" surrendering with both hands. "So can I kiss you?"

She squinted at his little boy face and cleared her throat. "Okay, let's get to it."

After that he ventured out, timidly at first, falling in beside a familiar woman, sitting closer in a bar, watching frowns turn to conspiritous grins.

Darin overheard jealousgossip. Most whispered his game was a trick. Others tightened up, calling it assault. He turned away from those. But if they got giggly in their conversations, he'd amble over with, "Like to help a guy out?" when he needed a smoke, that is. And he heard guys trying his game. It didn't work; anyone could tell they were lying. Of course some women thought Darin was phoney. His face collapsed with injury, convincingly enough some would allow him to momentarily inhale their breath. Most of these would step away confirming, "Your the one," as if the kiss had been described. You could say he became notorious. But fame didn't come until he got busted.

He was thinking more of a kiss than a smoke. The park he wandered into for lunch was in after meal condition, litter scattered over a worn lawn, a few lingering people. His boss had told the crew to take an extra hour, so they'd work an extra hour clean up off the clock. This block of grass seemed a good place to hang out. There were benches and shade trees, sculpture, even a band stand, empty now. A few people scattered on benches were salaried type that came and went at no special hour. Darin glanced at a chubby girl, her hair piled for the office. She seemed the type that was always at the office. She was looking at him. When their eyes met she looked away; his eyes moved on to other benches, other women, wondering. It had been nearly a month since his last smoke. Jitters ceased, but not desire. His eyes moved around the park, saw the office type again, still on her bench. She looked away quickly. Darin watched. She snuck glances. Her not that heavy body 'shifted uncomfortably on wooden slats. But she made no gesture to leave. Their eyes converged. He grinned. She nodded, looked away primly. He scowled thoughtfully. Could his game ...Naw, he didn't know her, he decided. He glanced at his watch, still a half hour, he stood, started away, glanced back. She was watching him. He turned toward her. "I'm Darin," he slouched in front of her, humbly,unthreatening.

"Do we know each other?"

She stared at him. Her's were interested eyes, he thought. He sat by her abruptly, chuckled his way through his story to "may I kiss,you?" She remained motionless, until he reached out. Then she shrieked and hit. Slapped hard, knocking him clean off the bench. She screamed again, even if he was on his butt, at her feet that were kicking him. He was still in that situation when the police arrived.

Officer Korbock was substancal in size, even more so in manner. She immediately wrapped his wrists in cuffs, then looked at his petulant mouth as if that too should be confined. Once he was secure she lumbered over to the woman he'd approached. Darin saw her wide eyed accusations, hearing none of it, except the word "kiss?" and that spat from the cop. His arrest created minor intrest. Of the knots of people watching, only one or two people ventured toward the patrol car as Darin was lead toward it. He winced at them, unable to cover his identity.

The officer buckled herself in, made a coded call over her radio. She pulled into traffic with a whoop of siren, flash of lights, but drove silently to the garage behind a sad building. More gray awaited them inside, the walls, seven`floors, uniforms of the booking staff. The holding cell was even grayer. Color was added by riotious clashes of anger and clothes that pressed around him for thirty-six hours, until court.

Judge Cordova looked like a guy who hadn't kissed anybody in a long time. Darin was bone tired. Twenty-four hours of back and forth from cell,interrogation about every unsolved molestation in the past years, a line up, and three hours of trying to nap near the commode in the holding cell, had left him remorseful and fatigued.

In the court room he watched two Public Defenders sort through the dockett. He saw one hand the other a couple of papers. Their heads went together and came apart laughing. One had called his name, taking him to a corner of the shadowless court, asked a couple questions, and gone back to joke with his buddy again. Darin sat back down. Then Judge Cordova walked in. Darin stood staring at him, ready to swear he'd never kiss a woman again. It turned out Judge Cordova laughed reading the citation, a kind of remorseful chuckle. He looked at Darin, "Alright, let's hear it," a cynical god. Darin's chin dropped. Twice the judge demanded he "speak up" adding "we all want to hear this" with an amused glance around the room. So Darin told his story simple and short, never looking at the judge, feeling opinionated eyes crawling over his back, hearing snickers. At the end Cordova shook his serpentine head and tapped his pencil. "Ninety days," he paused to look at his clerk, "suspened. He turned back, "You screw-up during those ninety days, you spend it and whatever in the County." He looked at Darin with firm hooded eyes. "You won't want to kiss anybody there." He scribbled on some papers and gave them to his clerk. "I suggest you try gum," he commented as Darin slank away, counting floor tiles. That would have been the end of it; he would have laced his lungs with "Princess Nicotine". He would have been dumped aside, another joke. But there were other princesses to come.

It was hot and humid leaving the courthouse. His room was no better; sheets damp, pillow soggy. He wanted a cigarette, needed a cigarette. Rolling on the lumpy mattress he was too exhausted to get back up. Before sleep he mused about kissing, but shrank from that. Kissing was a greater health danger than smoking. A smoldering cloud saturated his mind as he tumble into a heavy sleep. Three sharp raps, his name barked at the door jerked Darin from mattress. For a second he thought he was in jail. Stumbling a couple steps to the door, he pulled it against the chain.

"Broad downstairs to see you," a roomer grunted through the crack, fussing about climbing stairs.

"Who is it?" Darin called to his back.

"Some broad, got a guy with her," voice Uminishing.

"Be there in a bit," Darin cleard his throat. Rubbing his skull, drunk with sleep, he rinsed his face over a sink in the small connecting bath, rubbed a worn towel behind splashes of water, pulled open his scarlet eyes, to look around for shoes. Sighed. They were on his feet. The door was ajar. He unhitched it's chain, looked out. "What the hell," muttering, not bothering with keys or lock. There wasn't anything to steal. Not even a can of tobacco. He immediately picked her out when he stepped into the livingroom. She was forty, tall, dressed in a long dark wraparound, white shirt and sandals. She practiced a smile and came toward him.

"Darin?" she asked, her voice coarse.

"Who are you?"

"Alicea Hunter," she paused, expecting the name to be enough. It was. Darin had read her long tabloid articles in the weekly throw away. It was a feature about celebs, at least they were after she explored the subject's bad or good luck, crimes, passions, stupidity, charm, talent, whatever quirk that drew her to them. Darin looked at the guy behind her. She looked over her shoulder, satisfied Darin identified her. "Terry Cordy. Photographer."

Darin nodded. "You're fast."

"I always have a runner in court."

"Follow me?"

"No" her head waggled. "Public record."

Darin looked at his shoes, the guy's behind her, then at Hunter. "I guess you think everybody would get a good laugh over my stupidity."

"Noooo," she cocked her head, "Not stupid," she spat the word. "Clever ...maybe...sincere. Not stupid." There was a glint in her eyes, ready to accept Darin's confessions.

"Yah. Maybe all three." He gave a crooked smile. "What do I get?"

"A couple lunches, dinners, good company for a couple days." She looked at him, crossed her arms, leaned back a little. "And more girls to kiss...if my guess rings true"


So the local tabloid got Darin, ran several columns, pictures and everything, more than what really happened. He didn't mind. Their rougish embelishments made the whole occurance bazarre, a Seinfeld ephisode. Along the streets females move to be seen by him, or they sit closer to him. "Are you smoking again?" they ask. When he answers "no" they smile.

^*"Princess Nicotine" a song by Fat Lazy