Cigarettes

I've recently been fascinated with cigarettes for some reason, and I'm trying to resist the urge to start smoking. This is my first preventitve measure.

Cigarettes

I stood in a Borders bookstore in downtown Chicago, and watched a pigeon toddle by outside on the street. Only in New York had I ever seen pigeons – when you live in Colorado, the birds you see the most are robins – and I felt like this would be my first chance to observe pigeons in their natural environment, as natural as industrial buildings and capitalism can get.

After a moment or so, my focus shifted to a car driving away with its passenger door wide open. And then a group of friends who seemed to be arguing across the street. And then two buses stopped, one in front of the other. Then the pigeon reappeared. No fear, these pigeons, so intent on their quest for crumbs dropped by hurried people eating bagels on their way to work, not caring how close the people get to them – they might have food to donate to the worthy cause.

As I stood in the bookstore window, contemplating the life of a pigeon in Chicago, I noticed the amount of cigarettes in the fingers of the passerby. Every ninth or tenth person smoked. If they weren’t texting, on the phone, or listening to music, they were smoking their cigarettes like it was a requirement, some prerequisite for staying in Chicago. I felt like I had missed something.

 

 

I had never been to Chicago before, not seriously at least. Seeing the airport isn’t seeing the city, and every Chicago resident will tell you so. I had no real intention of ever visiting. Though the train ride from my college town to the city was less expensive than a tank of gas and only three hours each way, I enjoyed the idea of remaining ignorant to the lay of the land in which I went to college. My school did a lot to connect its tiny town with grand ol’ Chi-City, but many of its students still stayed away. My aversion lay in my love and ongoing passion for the dream world I’d created in my head for Denver. All I wanted was to live in the city of Denver, teach in DPS as one of the few people to change the district around, and pursue my master’s degree within walking distance of my favorite club scene. My vision of Chicago was just a destitute version of Denver, and I refused to desecrate the memory of my city with the imprint of another one.

But a Wednesday afternoon trip in a coach bus loaded with college students and Slumdog Millionaire brought me to Chicago to see the award-winning Broadway musical RENT, my third favorite musical ever produced. I hadn’t seen it on stage, but the movie took my breath away. So, to keep my breath out of my chest, I immediately signed up when a group announced they were heading to Chicago to see RENT on stage.

 

 

Standing in a bookstore seven hours later, I wondered about cigarettes. Roughly one-fourth of the student population at my college smoked cigarettes, and did so without shame. I had never encountered so many smokers in one vicinity before, never heard so many strangled coughs in the late night hours, and never met the smell of toxic plumes as I left every building.

The Chicago passerby seemed content with their vice, using the cigarettes as extensions of their fingers, almost like the burning sticks were part of their bodies. My student body bought packs by the dozens, and those who attempted to quit barely had a chance with the constant presence of smoke in the air. Illinois law had made it illegal to smoke within fifteen feet of any public door, but no one seemed to care. Smoke on the go, smoke after sex, smoke while intoxicated, smoke before class. I felt the air turn toxic as my weeks at school continued, and the pressure to pick up the habit started to press on my lungs.

 

 

I stood on the corner of State and Wacker, shivering slightly in the night air, trying to hear the words coming out of the mouths of the women with whom I stood. They were trying to contact the thirteen missing students who had wandered the wrong way out of the theatre fifteen minutes ago, and were succeeding marginally. Strangers passed us: some muttering to themselves, others walking with purpose, still others looking lost. A cab driver ran a red light. A police car turned slowly up State Street. An attractive gay man talked animatedly on his cell phone, explaining to the caller that he wouldn’t wait much longer.

“No, no, tell me where you are and I will direct you to where I am,” our supervisor Stephanie shouted into her cell phone to yet another lost soul. “Oh d****t!” she cursed as she lost signal again. “This is so frustrating!”

“Did anyone call Jackson?” one of Stephanie’s student assistants, Lee, asked to no one in particular.

“I called – he didn’t answer,” I replied. She nodded to me and turned back to Stephanie.

“Jamie called and he didn’t answer.”

“Oh crap,” Stephanie moaned. Suddenly she jumped, the vibration of her phone sending her three inches off the ground. “Hello?”

As the fiasco that was locating lost students continued next to me, I glanced about, and saw the same thing I had seen earlier.

Save for the frantic women flipping back pages of phone numbers and fighting to be heard above the traffic to their callers, nearly everyone I saw smoked cigarettes. The gay man on his phone, the valet for the hotel on the corner where we stood, the muttering man in the bright orange suit who passed us and gave Stephanie elevator eyes – they were all smoking. I felt out of the loop.

Most of my friends on campus didn’t smoke – in fact, those that did rarely did so around me. I couldn’t see any reason why smoking would be so inviting. My last boyfriend cringed whenever I even said the word smoke, whether in reference to pot, hookah, or cigarettes. He couldn’t stand the idea. I had just encouraged my best friend to stop smoking after she started because of her abusive ex-boyfriend. The taste of hookah was nothing to the taste of cigarettes, and of the two cigarettes I’d had since getting on campus, I couldn’t compare them to hookah. They simply didn’t taste the same. I didn’t understand the appeal that attracted other people to the cancer sticks that beckoned fire and ashes.

“Okay, someone call Stuart and ask him how many people are on the bus,” Stephanie ordered, her phone still to her ear.

“I just called him,” Lee answered, “and he said forty-two.”

“Forty-two, okay,” Stephanie repeated. “So how many are we missing?”

“Five.”

“Five? Really? Where are they?” Stephanie was becoming hysterical. She was usually so much better at this.

“They’re right here,” I replied. I pointed to the five of us standing in a circle. Stephanie counted and frowned, hanging up her phone.

“All right, then let’s go!”

 

 

Thirty-six hours later, back at school and in my room, I watched a tall Indian boy light up a cigarette outside my building. I had spent too much time sitting on my bed watching the first-year students play Frisbee, sunbathe, and study on the large lawn that sat in the center of three freshman dormitories. It was better than doing homework, and far more entertaining than sitting on Facebook for hours on end. Largely unproductive? But of course.

The boy with the cigarette was named Jeff. His dark curly hair had been cut shorter since halfway through last quarter, but it still shielded his eyes a little bit. I watched his hand move back and forth in the open air, smoke surrounding his body and dissipating as quickly as it appeared.

We had been lovers once, for only one night during the winter months, and I could still remember how his kisses tasted: beer and cigarettes. We weren’t supposed to be together that night – he was drunk, I was self-destructive – but texting brought us together, and a massage brought us closer. I felt his back beneath his shirt as he lamented about his last girlfriend, listened politely as he raged about her inconsideration, and tried to work the tension from his muscles. Soon, the words of aggravation became moans of enjoyment and the distress in his voice filtered into applause for my skills. He pulled his shirt off, turned around to face me, and pressed our lips together.

But now, the memories of our one-night stand vivid in my head, I watched him smoke, looking dejected and alone. I slid off my bed, grabbed my keys, slipped on some shoes, and walked downstairs. He looked like he needed someone to talk to, even if we didn’t talk anymore.

“You okay?” I asked, sauntering over to his darkened figure. The sun rested above the roof of the dorm behind me, casting a shadow on Jeff’s black clothing. He shrugged and we walked toward the lonely picnic table at the edge of the lawn. We sat down and he sighed.

“Why do you ask?”

“You just look a little out of it, you know?” I answered, leaning back on my hands and exhaling slowly. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” he replied, taking a long drag. I watched his movements – strong, familiar, seductive.

“I like how you do that,” I whispered.

He turned to look at me. “Do what?”

“Smoke.”

“What do you like about it?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “It’s just…sexy.”

Jeff laughed, the sound raspy but melodic. I smiled. “You mean there’s nothing sexy about smoking?”

“I don’t know; I guess it fits since people smoke after sex.”

I nodded. He finished the cigarette, ground its tip into the edge of the table and flicked it away.

“Litterer.”

“I’m a smoker, what do you expect?”

I grinned. He slid closer to me and put his hand on my thigh. “So why did you come out here, Jamie Warren? Just to tell me how sexy I am?”

I rolled my eyes. “No.”

“To keep me company?”

“Something like that.”

“Do you want a cigarette?”

At his question, I sealed my lips. I wanted the action of smoking without the potential of cancer, wanted the action of sex without the potential of pregnancy, wanted the basic thrills of life without the potential of a reputation. Jeff’s eyes met mine, and part of me wanted to say yes. I knew how to smoke cigarettes. I knew I wasn’t addicted to them. But part of me knew that another cigarette would be the end of my lack of addiction. If I didn’t care, I would smoke with Jeff all night – but I did care. So much so that I realized it wasn’t the cigarette that he had held between his long fingers that excited me – it was the absence of fear associated with the cigarette.

To decide to start smoking is to take up the responsibility that you may die from one of its related diseases. To start smoking is to start an oral fixation with something between your lips. To start smoking is to give up holding your breath and give in to sleeping with fire in your throat.

Jeff’s hand was still on my thigh.

I didn’t want the cigarette – I wanted him. My recent curiosity associated with the nicotine sticks was the oral part, the physical act of putting something to my lips. I wanted my addiction to incorporate a familiar movement, a familiar taste, a familiar sensation.

If it was something physical I was after, the easiest way to get it wasn’t through cigarettes: it was through kissing. That addiction wouldn’t kill me, if I was careful. I smiled at Kevin.

“No, no cigarettes for me.”

He frowned playfully and slid his hand further up my thigh.

“Do you want something else?”

Still smiling, I leaned forward, whispering in his ear, “If you can handle it, you know where to find me.”

I got up from the table and walked back toward my building, suddenly understanding why so many people smoke cigarettes. They need something to replace the absence of a physical addiction.

 

Author's Note

Is there something missing?