I was reading all the posts about "Smoking" and they brought to mind an incident I witnessed may years ago, involving a cigarette. When the following was over, some of us were asked by management to explain exactly what had happened in case of a possible lawsuit. I made notes at the time for the purposes of accuracy for my expanation--and, of course, to protect myself. So, now, from those notes and my memory...

One rainy autumn night back in the latter-1970s, I wandered into one of the few casinos in Reno that spread hold'em, and was seated in the six hole of a $10-$20 game. I remember it was a Saturday night and the clock was closing in on midnight. Next to me in seat seven was a slightly inebriated but delightful 67-year-old retired schoolmarm (no bigger than a minute), who called herself, Emma. She smelled pleasantly of Jasmine perfume and was dressed to the nines. Most pronounced about Emma was a towering, honey-colored, beehive wig that matched her honey-colored high heels--and the style of the early- 1960s. If she had stood, removed her wig, and placed it upright next to her, it would have been nip and tuck as to which of them was the taller.

I recall that within two minutes of sitting down next to Emma, she had nudged me with her elbow and with a wink and a mischievous smile, confided that she kept little bags of lavender for her underclothes. I felt almost ashamed of myself. The best I had ever done for my skivvies was Clorox. I found that Emma was quite the flirt and quite the storyteller. For example, she told me she had won her late husband in a poker game. I believed her. And what a voice she had. It was surprisingly low for a woman--almost bass in tone. It sounded a lot like an air horn on an 18-wheeler. It could guide ships over a fog- shrouded sea. Anyway, she was full of quips and anecdotes, and I concluded that the odds were she'd assay out to about twelve ounces of BS to the pound--but I liked her.

Now, Emma was a chain smoker...well, sort of. She had a very long cigarette holder (something like three inches lone), and she always had a long filter-tipped cigarette lighted and affixed in the holder. But rarely did she ever take a drag; just waved the damn thing around whenever she talked--and a parrot couldn't hold a candle to that chatterbox.

According to my notes, the dealer was just completing his shuffle, when the tang of something burning filled my nostrils. It was Emma's cigarette burning a hole in the shoulder of my jacket! "Oh, my!" she had cried as she quickly jerked the cigarette away and looked from my injured jacket to my face with consternation. Unfortunately, when she moved her cigarette away from me, she inadvertently stuck it into her wig. As far as anyone could figure, when she withdrew the cigarette from the wig--the head of the cigarette remained in the hair. It was an old wig that looked good, and was kept preserved through the use of a special hair spray--but it soon became obvious that the spray was also highly flammable. Within ten seconds her hair lit up like a handful of sparklers on Independence Day!

In the eight seat was a man named, Harold. He was tall and thin with a cadaverous face and large hawk nose. He stood up, removed his hat, and used it to whack away at Emma's wig. Understandably, Emma was startled and started howling intermittenly between four-letter words. She turned away from Harold and towards me as I stood up and struggled to get my jacket off with the intention of using it to smother Emma's wig. Good old Harold up and clobbered Emma again, and her knee-jerk reaction was to kick me right square in the kneecap. And you know how that hurts! Now I'm limping around in great pain and muttering something about the ancestry of everyone present. Emma's howling went up another octave to alto; the panic rising in her inexplicably.

In seat one was another gent wearing a hat who decided to help. This guy was a genuine character. He had a face that looked like an old catcher's mitt, and he wore his pants up so high on his pear-shaped body that I reckoned he'd have to unzip to spit. He scooted around the table with his hat in hand and immediately joined Good-Samaritan Harold in beating the hell out of Emma; both of them pelting away with their hats like a runaway windmill. The fire was short live, but it still managed to turn the color of honey to black--Emma was now a brunette. Her neatly crafted wig suddenly looked more like a shredded wicker basket--all black and smoking up the joint. Apparently, Harold still wasn't convinced all was well and wound up and knocked that wig clean of Emma's head and smack-dab into the middle of the poker table where it belched once, then lay inert.

After being disturbed almost to the point of hysteria, Emma was now madder than hell and as dangerous as a teased rattler. She had more than had it with Harold and his sidekick and her eyes were flashing. She hurried to the rail while spewing every short, colorful word she could lay her tongue to, retrieved her umbrella, and was fixin' to impale ol' Harold with the silver tip of her trusty weapon. Fortunately, for the cowering Harold, Emma suddenly became aware that without her wig--she was mostly bald. Yup, hardly a hair--just enough to fasten and hold a wig precariously to her balding pate. She stopped, said something impereceptive, then found her coat and pulled a scarf from its pocket, wrapped it about her head, and slumped to a chair breathing heavily. She was done like a dinner--and so was everyone else. The panic had been allayed, and we all looked on in silence--out of breath--and no longer strangers.

The whole incident took less than two minutes.

© Copyright 2000 Reg Coalwell. All rights reserved.

Published with the permission of the author.
Reproduction without the author's permission prohibited.