The Possible Dangers Of Bumming A Smoke by Brian Rihlmann

It's 2001 and I'm sitting 

at the old Cat And Fiddle 
in Springfield Missouri
with a nice buzz going.
 
Although I quit,
I still crave a cigarette
now and then, so I 
bum one from the
young lady sitting beside me.
We’ve been chatting 
for the last half-hour,
flirting a bit.
 
She flicks her lighter. 
Dead. I walk around,
looking for matches, and
as I grab a pack from a stash
in a napkin holder
at the end of the bar, 
some dude sitting nearby 
stands up and practically shouts
"No way motherfucker!
You ain’t gonna bum
cigarettes and then
ask ME for a light!"
 
I look him up and down.
He's a human version
of a mangy
and underfed 
stray cat.
 
"Didn’t ask you
for shit, dude," I say.
But he goes on about it. 
He flails his arms
as he paces and rants to 
no one in particular
about how he 
hates moochers 
like me and I should
get my own
fucking cigarettes
and blah blah blah
until finally I've had enough
and I say "Why don’t you 
shut the fuck up, asshole."
 
He stares at me
in surprise, then 
bolts out the side door 
without another word.
 
I sit back down
and the young lady says, 
"What the hell was that?"
"I don’t know,"
I say, and after that, 
neither of us
says anything
because there's nothing
to say. 
 
I strike a match
and light my ill-gotten cigarette.
I drink more, and keep 
one eye on the side door,
because I'm certain that 
that crazy fuck
is coming back any minute 
with a gun. I should leave,
but I can't. Wont.
 
He never does come,
which makes me wonder
if I should tell people
who annoy me
to shut the fuck up
more often.
 
But these days I know
that for every one 
who left in a huff
there'd be another
just itching
to open a hole in someone
and it may as well
be me.

Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse, much of it on the so-called "grittier" side.  Folk poetry...for folks.  He has been published in Constellate Magazine, Poppy Road Review, and has an upcoming piece in The American Journal Of Poetry.