Cigarette Mary would stuff the muffin into her coat pocket and walk into the middle of the street during a red light and beg to the drivers as they waited for the light to turn green. With her bare palm she would pound on the window on the driver’s side, her ragged coat sleeves hanging past her wrists, and call out for cigarettes and spare change.
A driver with a heavy coat over his suit ignored her plea, never hearing her words from behind the closed window, her words choked by the blast of the cold wind. He didn’t dare open his window and let cold air snatch warmth from his car. He looked straight ahead while nervously tapping his hands against the steering wheel, waiting for the light to turn green, waiting for her to go away.
When the light would turn green, the blaring of horns would scold her to get off the street. Cars would pass dangerously close to her as she crossed the busy intersection to the Division Street bus stop and approach a fresh group of commuters that had gathered waiting for the bus. Her hands wrung rapidly in front of a burly, factory worker wearing a red lumber jacket. He sipped his coffee from a Styrofoam cup as she implored for a cigarette, thirty-five cents. But he walked away from her to stand by the curb, his red face grimacing against the wind as he searched for a bus in the distance.
“Please misses, a cigarette, a papierosy please,” she pleaded to a tall middle-aged woman.
The woman pursed her red lips together in thoughtful hesitation, but reached into her leather bag for her cigarettes.
“This is the last time I’m giving you a cigarette,” snapped the woman as she pointed a long white filtered cigarette at her.
Cigarette Mary let the cigarette drop into her palm and bent her head with humility. “I’m sorry misses, I’m so sorry.”
The woman shook her head while she watched Cigarette Mary walk away. She then pulled a cigarette from the pack that she was still holding and tried to get it lit, but the wind kept snuffing the flame from her lighter. She turned to the man in the red lumber jacket and said, “I hope I don’t become like her when I’m old.” The man squinted his eyes at her as he gave her a quizzical look. The woman studied the lipstick stain on the white filter of her unlit cigarette and mumbled to the sidewalk, “God, I hope I don’t become like her when I’m old.”
After an hour of begging for smokes, Cigarette Mary would sit on the cement steps of an apartment building on Damen Avenue. She would seat herself in front of the glass framed door and count the cigarettes that she had collected. It was never more than five. She would lay them on her fleshy palm and lift one of the cigarettes that she wanted to smoke, She would sit with her legs spread apart and smoke that one cigarette with long and vigorous drags. Smoke would stream through her nose and she would take another long drag so that none of the precious tobacco would be wasted. The orange ember would race to the filter, the long ash would curl downward and tumble on her overcoat. The filter would be squeezed tightly between her fingers, and her eyes would be half closed as if in some drugged state. After smoking the cigarette, she would rest her back against the glass framed door and close her eyes.