Fresh Pack of Smokes
Fresh Pack of Smokes
Cassandra Blanchard
2019
Copyright © Cassandra Blanchard, 2019
all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, [email protected].
Nightwood Editions
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editor: Amber McMillan
cover design: Angela Yen
typography: Carleton Wilson
Nightwood Editions acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Government of Canada and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
This book has been produced on 100% post-consumer recycled, ancient-forest-free paper, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based dyes.
Printed and bound in Canada.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Blanchard, Cassandra, 1987-, author
Fresh pack of smokes / Cassandra Blanchard.
Poems.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-88971-352-9 (softcover).--ISBN 978-0-88971-142-6 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS8603.L35314F74 2019 C811’.6 C2018-904790-9
C2018-904791-7
for my family
There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave—under the deep deep sea
– Thomas Hood
xxx
I must have turned a thousand tricks over those six years, you name it I’ve done it, the perfect whore, young-looking so the men buzzed around me like bees on honey, you have no idea how many men see working girls for a quick blow job in the car after work before going home or taxi drivers or stockbrokers, all kinds like the author of children’s books or the man who was a politician in Native self-government or probably your boyfriend or husband, there are the real cold mean ones and the okay ones who were not that bad and I mostly had middle-aged married white men and I guarantee that you know someone who has paid for sex; once I did a blow job where he blew his load in exactly three seconds or the vampire-looking dude with a foot-long boner that made me almost piss myself, but it’s always been strictly business, I’ve been around the block for sure. At a Québécois rehab centre, there was the gender rule, no breaking gender, as in no fucking with either gender and of course I broke that rule multiple times, at night when everyone was asleep I would slide into bed with my woman and quietly make her cum, I couldn’t not do it and it didn’t help when a chick would get a crush on me, I guess I had to break the rules, it felt so good to be bad—I’ve never even been on a date before, it has always been straight to screwing, I guess it would be nice to go out for dinner rather than sleeping with someone in secret, for two years we were together, the violent psycho and me, the pushover, but damn we clicked in the sack and everywhere too like in a semi or on the bus or outside, the only time we got along was when we were fucking, this bitch was a sociopath, I swear her eyes had nothing behind them but even though I was in danger around her, she made me feel safe and made me feel like I was losing the hamster wheel race, seriously though, I’ve had enough to last me three thousand years and that’s nothing to be happy about, being for sale ain’t nothing to be proud of.
Beginnings
In the beginning I had no real knowledge of drugs as they came into my life through a series of bad decisions and being in the wrong place at the wrong time—I look back and think of how naive I was; it all started with a panhandler, her name was Anna and I always gave her change and one day I sat beside her and that became a routine until someone else came by and she was a snaky manipulative thing called Jane. Soon we started hanging out and she cut up a line of crystal meth for us, I was a little drunk and snorted that up rather quickly as I thought it was crushed ecstasy, not jib, and the next couple days were spent snorting and drinking and hallucinating green army men on the mountains, I never smoked crack until a few months later as I realized that meth was destroying me like how jib was coming out of my pores or seeing shadow beings or rotting my mouth, so when a friend lit the pipe for me I was stupid and glad for it as the high was better even though I wanted more as soon as possible, so there it was the beginning of the long spiral down, sometimes I look back and think how dumb I was and how thorough this addiction was and that being too trusting and believing in the good in people was my downfall.
The Fuzz
I’ve had my share of dealing with the police and I’ve noticed things over the years, like the fact that female cops are stricter than males, it seems that they’re trying to prove something cuz they’re women and don’t want to seem weak, they search people more too, I admit if I see a cop nowadays my heart does a tiny little jump cuz for so long I kept six and tried to avoid them as much as possible, and how funny it was when cops walking will clear a block faster than anything—like a scattering of rats—but the most intense encounter I’ve had with the fuzz was when I threw knives at them wanting them to shoot me but they didn’t and instead I got tackled so violently I limped for the next couple months, some are not that bad though like the woman cop that carries around a Ziploc bag of cigarettes who gave me and my friend a smoke instead of telling us to clear out or the cop who talked to me about rehab and treatment or the cop who let me go a few times, of course there are the pricks and cunts who walk around reeking of arrogance and riding a power trip with their flashlights and gloves and handcuffs—once when I was very green and got searched and the cop took my pipe and told me I could be arrested especially if there was lots of resin and then he gave it back to me and told me he was trying to school me and to get lost, needless to say I was small potatoes to him, it’s a contradiction because it’s great not having them around but having them around gives a feeling of protection what with all those nasty predators stalking about.
People
Of course this place is full of goofs and predators and victims and murderers and it plays by the rules of money and drugs and sex and you will meet the worst of the worst and learn how cold hearts can be, but there are also those who still have humanity and it’s