Smoking and Jogging

I was jogging along the park's gravel path and smoking a Marlboro Red. The other joggers faded back when I came near, but they didn't ask me to stop smoking. They didn't even make eye contact with me. They just slunk away and alerted the local law enforcement authorities. Soon a square-faced policeman was approaching me, trotting up on a gray horse.
“Sir,” he said. “You have to extinguish that cigarette.”
“But you let them smoke.”
The park was filled with people smoking: office workers on break methodically inhaling nicotine; old men on benches smoking pipes; children picking up discarded cigarette butts and smoking what was left.
“They're not jogging,” the cop said. “You're smoking and jogging at the same time.”
I kept jogging in place and took a deep drag of my cigarette. I was the Rosa Parks of people who smoked and jogged at the same time.
“Look, sir,” the cop said. “I know what you're going through. I'm a smoker myself. But when I'm on this horse, I can't be seen with a cigarette in my mouth. So you know what I do when I feel a craving?”
“What?”
“I chaw.”
He grinned, revealing a black mush of chewing tobacco swimming between his teeth.
“Know what you look like to me?” he asked.
“No. What?”
“A spittoon.”
He spat a thick jet of black liquid at me. I jumped backwards, but not quick enough. It splattered all over my new white running shoes.
The cop threw his head back and laughed, a thread of black drool hanging from his chin. Blood pulsed through my ears.
“I'm not a spittoon,” I said. “My name ain't Joe Spittoon.”
I took a deep drag on my cigarette, felt the smoke absorb into my lung tissue. “I like nicotine in my bloodstream,” I said. “Not on my shoes.”
I flicked the ash off the cigarette tip and jogged forward. Standing face to face with the horse, I gazed into its cavernous nostrils, which were filled with stalactites and stalagmites of mucus. I touched the flaming tip of the cigarette to the horses neck, pressed and twisted like I was putting it out in an ashtray. There was a sizzling noise. The smell of burnt hair and barbecue.
The horse didn't react the way I had hoped. It didn't throw off it's rider. It didn't even make a sound. It just lightly scraped a hoof on the grass and stared at me, a slight smile in its eyes.
“You think this is an ordinary horse?” the cop laughed, exposing his black, liquid smile. “Bruno's a trained police horse. He's not going to buck me just because you singed a few of his neck hairs.”
The cop slid off the saddle, while removing a pair of handcuffs off his belt.
“You're under arrest for assaulting a police officer.”
“I didn't touch you.”
“The horse. The horse is a police officer.”
He swung the handcuffs, which clanged against the badge pinned to Bruno's saddle. I hadn't noticed the badge before.
The cop tried to put the handcuffs on me, but couldn't get the cuffs around my wrists.”
“Hold still,” he said. “Could you stop jogging, please?”
“I'm not smoking now. I should be able to jog.”
“I can't get the handcuffs on with you moving all around.”
“I need to keep my heart rate up.”
Cold steel pinched my wrists as the cuffs clicked shut, but I kept jogging.
“You have the right to remain silent,” the cop began.
As he read me my Miranda rights, the other joggers cheered. The smokers also cheered. The old men on the benches looked up from their board game and their pipes to smile at the police officer.
“I would put you in the back seat of the squad car,” the cop said apologetically, “but I don't have a squad car. So we're going to have to ride double.”
He boosted me up on the horse to the spot behind the saddle, then climbed up after me.
“Hold on tight,” the cop said.
He kicked Bruno's flanks and we started into a trot. There was nothing for me to hold on to; my hands were handcuffed behind my back. I grasped with my legs around the bare horseflesh, but couldn't get a sturdy grip. I fell backwards and caught a brief glimpse of blue sky and budding trees before smacking painfully on my back into the hard, grassy earth. I lay there, gasping for air.
The cop was making a clucking noise. At first, I thought he was taunting me, but then I realized that he was trying to get the horse to go backwards.
“You okay?” he asked, as he dismounted.
“I think I have internal injuries,” I said. “My dignity.”
“Well, you know what they say about falling off horses.”
I staggered to my feet. The cop removed one of the handcuffs and recuffed it so my arms were in front of me. We both got back up on Bruno.
“Hold on tight this time,” the cop said.
I gripped the back of the cop's belt. As the horse trotted, my fingers ached, but I held on. When Bruno started to gallop, however, my legs slipped and kicked out behind the horse. All that was keeping me on was my grip on the cop's belt. Suddenly, my fingers slipped. I saw the horse's tail, saw the green grass, and then smashed into it, face first.
The cop made his taunting clucking noise.
“Remember what I told you about falling off of horses,” he said as he helped me to my feet.
He uncuffed one of my wrists and boosted me up onto the horse. I thought he was going to let me ride without handcuffs, but when he climbed up into the saddle, he recuffed my hands around his chest.
“Now you won't fall off,” he said. “Hold on tight.”
The horse started to trot. The cop elbowed me in the face and I tasted blood.
“Not that tight—I can't breathe,” he said.
“Sorry.”
The horse sped up. The joggers and smokers glared at me hatefully as I was taken away. I realized that I was going to jail. A strong craving for a cigarette attacked me and my hands shook.
“Stop tickling me,” the cop said.
“Sorry.” I tried to hold my hands still.
Suddenly a woman's piercing scream filled the park:
“Stop! Thief!”
An old woman lay sprawled out on the sidewalk. A red-headed man in a black sweatshirt and blue jeans ran from her, clutching a pink, rhinestone-studded purse.
The cop delivered a powerful kick to Bruno's side. The horse broke into a sprint after the thief.
The purse snatcher looked over his shoulder, saw us pursuing him, and screamed. He couldn't outrun a horse. So he did the only thing he could. He climbed up an oak tree, shimmying up the trunk and pulling himself up into the thick branches above. Horses couldn't climb trees.
I figured we would have to dismount. Maybe we would have to call the fire department for assistance. They got cats out of trees; maybe they also got purse snatchers out of trees. But we didn't dismount.
“Hold on tight,” the cop said.
Bruno sped up as we approached the tree, lowering his head like a rhinoceros.
I tried to jump off before impact, but my hands were stuck around the cop's chest.
When Bruno's head hit the tree, the tree trunk didn't break, but the horse's head did. There were no seat belts on the horse, so the cop and I flew off and hit the tree trunk.
Fortunately for me, the cop hit the tree before I did, cushioning most of the blow. Only my hands, locked in front of the cop, felt the full force of the collision. I heard my wrists shatter. Then I felt it, like someone poured liquid steel on my hands.
As I lay in the grass, moaning and bleeding, a crowd gathered around us, smokers on one side, joggers on the other side, upwind. They stared down at us, slack-jawed, eyes filled with horror.
Behind them, the purse snatcher slid down the tree, still grasping the pink, rhinestone-studded purse. He scurried off unnoticed through the crowd.
“That poor horse,” someone said.
Then I blacked out.
I awoke in a white hospital room that had a no smoking sign on the wall. I would have ignored the sign and lit up, but my hands were in no condition to reach for a cigarette. Both arms were in traction, suspended up in the air at my sides in thick casts.
The nurse took pity on me. She brought me chewing tobacco, dropping a pinch into my lower lip. I used the bedpan as a spittoon.
Soon I recovered and was back to smoking and jogging. I was the lucky one. The cop suffered from serious internal injuries—not only his busted spleen, but also emotional injuries. He would never ride his beloved horse again. Bruno had suffered major brain damage and was useless for park security.
So they gave the horse a desk job.

March 16, 2009
Yueyang, China