Healing Tobacco | Amanda Callais
The swing set shines in the South Louisiana sun. Silver. Blue. Mine. It beckons me out of the air-conditioned house into the backyard’s sticky heat. Hand over small hand, I grip the ladder’s warm rails. Not too loose. Not too tight. Just right. I am almost at the top when I feel the sting.
Pain sears through my hand. Burning. Throbbing. Swelling. My shrill 5-year-old scream pierces the silent summer day, sending Papaw and Mom running.
The sweet smell of tobacco that is Papaw fills my nostrils as he lifts me screaming from the ladder, setting me down on the bottom of the slide. He kneels beside me. Eye-level, he lifts my swelling pink hand in his dark calloused one.
“Wasps,” he mutters.
I shrink.
“Tobacco,” he tells Mom.
Reaching into the front pocket of his blue work shirt, he pulls out a clump of loose leaves usually reserved for his pipe. Hand tucked into my lap, I wail louder, gulping hot air. If it bothers him, he doesn’t let on. He just puts the tobacco in his mouth, wetting it with his spit until the leaves transform into a thick paste he spreads over the sting. Tobacco. Spit. Spread. Repeat, until my hand is a brown lump of spit-soaked tobacco.
My sobs slow as numbness sets in. Clear-eyed, I stare into his work-hardened face. Small beads of sweat dot his olive brow. A large drop slides down his temple. Thinning black and gray hair curls in front, a perfect Q right at the center. His eyes light up his dark skin.
I breathe in.
Though he lives next door, I have known him only from afar. Tall. Strong. Stern. Today, I see him for the first time. Up close. I am no longer scared. I am in awe.
About the Author:
Amanda Callais is a writer and attorney. When not working, she lives and writes between worlds, navigating a transatlantic relationship with her Spanish partner while writing about it, her Louisiana roots, purple Jeep, and everything in between. Her work has been published in The Sun Magazine, HerStry, and Five Minutes.