Day 13
When I think of my father, I always think of cigars—the smell of them. You don’t need to see it to know one is burning. Unlike your cheap standard cigarettes, who’s odor is sharp and chemical, leaving a lingering staleness of burnt paper, its aroma was rich and earthy, with undertones of what I have come to understand as I’ve aged to be leather and chocolate. It’s thick smoke hugged and danced circles around me, coating the room like an old-world perfume.
A naturally curious child, I was eager to understand the myriad of smells flowing out of a mere stick, enticed into undertaking the first of many crimes I would commit throughout my childhood and young adult life.
One night, when my father was asleep, I snuck into his study and lifted one of his prized Cubans, which at the time were illegal and very expensive, facts I was oblivious to. Using a swiss army knife my father had gotten me for my birthday that year. That morning, he had reprimanded me for what felt like hours. His freshly shaven face glowed a bright red, resembling the tip of a newly lit cigar. What he didn’t know was that I had actually taken two, so when he sent me to my room afterward, I tasted my first cigar.
Sometimes I wish I could have unwrapped what was going on inside my father’s head. Though, I feel its complexity would have been incomprehensible for me then—perhaps even now.
My father used to say, “We are our choices.” Every seemingly innocuous decision is a chisel carving, shaping us into who we are, who we will become. We all have our rough edges, including my father. He had a longer relationship with cigars than he did with my mother, and was caught flirting with the devil’s nectar more than he should. He had never laid a finger on me other than to comb his hands through my bushy hair, or when we wrestled.
The first time we wrestled was when I turned eight. What matters is I lost. Every time. From what I can remember, my father wasn’t a big man. What he lacked in muscle and size he made up for with brains. Even when I played dirty and took a hard yank of his arm hair, he would just laugh and throw me down. I loved that laugh. We would wrestle for hours, usually calling it quits once I started crying. I hated to lose. He always told me not to cry—that men don’t cry. The only thing worse than losing to him, was finding out I would never get the chance to beat him. Because one day, he just... disappeared, like a puff of smoke. And that’s when the real wrestling started.
