(Most recent, Salamander.)

When you smoke the cigarettes, and you have no money, you become accustomed to rhythmically changing brands. Because the cigarette Hitlers, they recurrently decide to stop distributing the good cheap ones. And then, you must flail for another.

I learned about the cigarette Hitlers from the woman at that little store over there on the corner, before the town burned down. The distributor, who brought to her the cigarettes, he was a Hitler, who only provided the cigarettes he Felt Like. She would ask for cigarettes, that she knew were out there in the world, and he would say: No. We have those. But you are not getting any. Also, he would provide her with only one good cheap brand. And this she would have to conceal behind a flap, there in the cigarette display case, the cigarettes hidden away, not visible, like porn, or some shit.

This woman, she was beset, by many Hitlers. Like, there was also a beer Hitler. He would not provide her with many beers, and others he demanded be displayed only way down in some dark corner, floor level, where no one would ever want to look, or stoop.

There was even a potato-chip Hitler. This was the Lay’s guy. He would come in and stock the Lay’s rack with only those flavors he himself decreed. Once, this woman, from somewhere, secured some Granny Goose chips. And stuffed them into a corner of the Lay’s rack. And, when the Lay’s guy—the potato-chip Hitler—he saw that, he flew into frenzy. Like Adolf, frothing and foaming, there in the bunker. He told her no Granny Goose could ever go in his Lay’s rack. And, furthermore, could not even be in the store, unless they were off in some corner, concealed, like the porn cigarettes.

I learned there were only two ways, to avoid these Hitlers. The first would be to drive to the distribution centers yourself, mammoth warehouses, and scattered, hither, and, all, yon. But, this woman, she could not do that. Because then she wouldn’t have time to be in the store. The other was to buy Bill Gates amount of product. Then, the Hitlers, they would back right off. Because they wouldn’t want to lose your business. But, this woman, she was not Bill Gates. She, was just a nice lady, in a little Paradise store.

The Liquor Bank, over in the Safeway shopping center—officially known as Old Town Plaza—it was part of a Syrian chain of liquor emporiums sufficiently large and muscular to tell the cigarette Hitlers to go bugger: and so, that guy, he not only stocked the good cheap brands, but also displayed them openly, nakedly, right out front.

That is where I discovered the Golden Deer. They were good, and cheap: to wit, godly.

I would tell the woman at the other store about them.

“I know,” she would moan. “But my cigarette Hitler, he won’t give them to me.”

It was right and meet, then, to smoke Golden Deer, because, then, golden deer, they were all around me, all day, and all of the night, here, in the town, not yet burned down.

But now, it is burned down. And, now, the golden deer, they don’t really want to be here. Because, this place, sometimes, they know now, it burns down. And, they just don’t want, again, to be, in that. And so, now, I almost never, here, see them.

And so, I suppose, it was inevitable, that the cigarette Hitlers, these days, they would take, the Golden Deer, away.

As, last week, they did.

The town burned down, there is no one, here, left, still, standing, who can stand up, to the Hitlers. Liquor Bank, it is ash. And so, and forever, on.

Where I secure the cigarettes, these days, is at the gas station at Skyway & Wagstaff. Which was actually the first place to reopen, after the town burned down. Though there are several places, that now claim that mantle. But then, there is a lot of stolen valor, up here, these days. I could go on. But I won’t. Except to say: I could go there, too. Like, this long black coat: there is a scorch mark, there at the tail. And those that notice it, and comment on it—though few do—often assume it is a relict of the fire. And I could say: “Yeah. Embers coming in like a motherfucker. Caught me afire. But I beat on that sum-bitch. Till I put it out. Then, went back with the garden hose, at flames twenty, fifty, a hundred foot high. Knocked ‘em, all, on their ass.” Except, no, that’s not what happened. Instead, after the power came back, for some months it was just the electricity. Not the gas. And so I pulled the piano away from the wall, where it concealed an early 1950s-era mammoth electric wall-heater. Which puts out heat like a mofo. But costs more money than even Bill Gates can pay. Which is why, soon as I moved in here, I shoved a piano in front of it. So I would not be tempted to use it. But, now, town burned down, I had to. And, one early chilly morning, I was warming myself by it. When I smelled, like, this burned stench. And, belatedly, discovered: I had backed up too close to the thing. And so, scorched my coat. When I confessed this to fire companera Heather, she laughed like five maniacs. Because. You gotta laugh. When you burn. In a fire.

Anyway, the Skyway & Wagstaff gas mart people, after the town burned down, they were one day in the store, just desultorily checking the stock, trying to figure, what it is, they might do . . . when workers, up here, from all over, working, to bring the town back, started knocking on the door. Wanting, maybe, some water. Some nuts. Some potato chips. Something. Anything. And the owners, they let these people in. And then. Kept. Letting. Them. In. Until they figured: well, I guess we’re reopened now.

That store stands, because the son, he stayed there, all alone, fighting the fire, first with water, from a hose, then, when the water gave out, with dirt. He picked it up, the dirt, put it in buckets, and then, he threw the dirt, at the fire. He was so much smarter, more resourceful, than was I. When, here, the water gave out, I just stood there: dumb. Like: pole-axed. Never even thought, of dirt. Dumb. As two dirts. Was I.

The son, he comes in for morning shifts, now, but then he gives way. Formerly, there would then be the father, and the mother. But, the father, Inderpal Rajput, he was killed last November. By the fire. The fire burned the family out, to a house in Live Oak. They were rebuilding, up here, in Paradise. But, the new home, it would not be ready, until January. So, Inderpal, he would commute. And, in that, he was involved in a fog-bound ten-car pileup on 99 near Live Oak. He was not killed in any collision. Instead, he was ended, while trying to help some people trapped in their car. Somebody came out of the fog, and killed him. If not for the fire, he never would have been on that road, at that hour. Just one of the numberless dead. Killed by the fire. Who will never be counted. As such. His name, it was Inderpal. Say. His. Name. But, most people up here, they just, never could. Instead, they called him: “Andy.” Because, the Americans, mostly, they just will not learn, how to pronounce names, not Anglo-Saxon.

So, anyway, after that night, Inderpal, he never came back to the store. And, neither, has his wife.

A lot of the shifts these days are now covered by this burned-down Anglo woman. Who, last night, I nervously approached, wanting the cheap, good cigarettes, that she had recently turned me on to, once the cigarette Hitlers, had announced, there, they were taking, the Golden Deer, away.

This store, it is totally controlled, by the Hitlers. The potato-chip Hitler, he is particularly heinous. For a while, this Lay’s version of Hitler, he was stocking there these chips, totally godly. Then, they disappeared.

“Where did those godly chips go?” I asked the Anglo woman.

“We can’t have them any more,” she said. “You have to buy this different kind.”

“But no one wants those,” I protested. “They stink like nine sewers.”

“What can I say?” she replied. “He is the Hitler.”

When the Golden Deer were there jettisoned, I first fell back on these Fails called Montego, or Manchego, or Mancoal, or some such shit. And you saved no money on these, because after three puffs, they were finished.

Then the Anglo woman, she went behind the hiding cigarette porno flap, and came out with this pack of red things.

“Try these,” she said.

But I was suspicioned. Because, it has been my experience, that no good comes, from any cigarettes, in a package dominated by red.

But, reluctantly, I tried.

And, they were good!

I decided, I would switch over, to these.

But I couldn’t remember their name. I was new to them, and, generally, they name a lot of the good cheap cigarettes with names that are stupid, that no one can, initially, easily remember.

I was going to ask for these cigarettes, last night, from the Anglo woman, but I could not remember their name.

It’s not like I had a pack on me. That I could read, and then recite. Because I was buying new cigarettes, only after I’d run out of the old ones. Because, that is my Way.

And I didn’t want to seem like some old dodderer. More than I really am. In, not knowing the name, of the cigarettes.

But. I girded my loins. And approached the counter.

“I want those good new cheap cigarettes,” I said. “In the red pack. I can’t remember their name. Seneca. Seance. Something like that.”

And she laughed. “You got it right the first time,” she said. “Seneca. But I am going to call them Seance. I like that. Cigarettes that, when you smoke them, you can communicate with the dead.”

There were no other persons in the store then about, and this woman, she is also of the tobacco worm, and so we walked out into the rain together, to smoke some Seances. To see if, maybe, we could get up close and personal. With some dead.

A couple smoking minutes went by.

“Are you getting anything?” she asked.

“Just people who burned in the fire,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “But we don’t have to smoke Seances, to get those.”

There was silence for a time.

Then she said, “But look across the street.”

How can I do that? These eyes, they can’t see across a dern street. But, I tried, anyway. And beheld: yes, it looked like the old Chin Dynasty, there were, tonight, lights, in there. And I also could make out what must be neon. And, I think the neon, it said, “Open.”

“That place reopened?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “today.”

“Damn,” I said. “I’d given up on that place. I thought it would never reopen.”

The fire, it had roared right up, to the rear of the place. Then, stopped. Everything, all around it, all and every, had burned down. But, not the Chin. But, after, there were no signs of life, in there. And. For years.

“Well, this is lord,” I said. “Now I can come here to get cigarettes, and also go in there and eat some Chinese.”

Formerly, before the town burned down, I had not gone to this place, for my cigarettes. But, the places I did go to, for my cigarettes, they had all, in the fire, burned down. And so, while formerly, there was never any reason, for me, to bus, to the Chin; now, town burned down, I envisioned, this wonderment, where, pursuant to the bus schedule, I could both go to the Seance, and also some Chinese.

But then the Anglo woman said: “Except it’s just to-go now. And later there will be delivery. But I don’t know that they’re going to have people sit down in there.”

Right. Because why. Should things. They. Ever. Really. Work out.

“Oh well,” I said. “Someday I’ll go over there and get some Chinese, and then bring it over here, and we can eat it. Then, we can go to the Seance. Maybe get something more than burned people.”

“Maybe raise some Chinese people,” she said. “Like Confucius.”

“Or Genghis Khan,” I offered. “He will come out of the seance, and ride on the PG&E honchos, there at PG&E headquarters, in San Francisco. They will cower in fear.”

“Did you get your money yet?” she asked.

I gave her a glance.

“Right,” she said. “Me either.”

“Why would we get any money?” I said. “We never had any before. Why should we have any now? Our lot, it is not to get any money. It is just to burn down.”

Another silence.

“From what my friend the buddhist says,” she said, “we’re just supposed to accept our suffering.”

“No doubt that is a white-people buddhist,” I countered. “Who, thereby, doesn’t know shit. I am more into Aung Ko, way Beyond Rangoon, who says ‘We are taught that suffering is the one promise that life always keeps. So that if happiness comes, we know it as a precious gift, which is ours only for a brief time.’ But it’s not like he danced a jig about it.”

“Maybe,” she said, “we should just drink. That’s what a lot of people do.”

“Absolutely,” I said, “and at all times. Except once the town reopened, and the Save Mart again set up shop, I’d see people wheeling out of there carts filled with nothing but liquor. And I don’t think it did any good. Fire. Burns. Alcohol. Anyway, you have to work. And, if I drink, I will turn into an animal, and be put in a zoo. And there aren’t any zoos, for many miles, around here. So then I couldn’t come by here. And have, with you, any Seance.”

Another silence.

“Do you still see it?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Always. And I always will.

“There was once this old Chinese dude,” I went on, “and all he wanted to do was get out of town. But first they stopped him, there at the border, and made him recite his wisdoms. And one of the things he said was: ‘Reaching from the Mystery, into the Deeper Mystery, is the Gate to the Secret, of All Life.’”

“I know what that means,” she said.

“Of course you do,” I said. “You burned in a fire.”