Last Drag

In the beginning I was confined to the small corner liquor stores, the ones that only sell candy and beer. I wore sunglasses at first, to hide the fact that I was underage, but the dark lenses only magnified the dimness of the store and caused me to lurch awkwardly to the counter, looking even more like a gangly teenager than I already was. This was the eighty's, and the world hadn't quite awoken to the dangers of teen smoking. But this was a small corner neighborhood liquor store, and the parents in this particular neighborhood definitely did not approve of their kids smoking anything, period. Needless to say, on the first attempt I shuffled out of the store, not with the intended cigarettes, but with a pack of Hubba Bubba and a Three Musketeers candy bar.


For the next two weeks, I rigorously memorized the brand of cigarettes my father kept on the highest shelf of the pantry along with the Ding Dongs and M&M's he thought were hidden from the rest of us. Late at night, long after my brother silenced the bleeping of his Atari; long after the nesting sounds quieted from my step-monster's lair; and when the smoldering butt from the last cigarette my father enjoyed while patrolling the vast perimeter of the empty living room finally burned down to ash, I tip-toed into the pantry to peek at the forbidden package. During the long hot summer days while my father mysteriously tinkered with networks and hubs and connectors on his computer; while my step-monster did whatever dragons do in the light of day; and while my brother set up and demolished yet another platoon of G.I. Joes, I studied the traits of tobacco.


I practiced in front of the bathroom mirror repeating the phrase over and over until the words danced out of my mouth like a troupe of prima ballerinas.


"Hello, (smile nonchalantly), may I have a pack of Benson and Hedges Lights One Hundreds (make and hold direct eye contact)?"


And then I was ready for my initiation into the Secret Club.


It was amazing. The clerk behind the counter never gave me a second glance as he dropped the little cellophane wrapped package on the counter in front of me. With out ceremony or civility he took my money. I walked out of the store with the coveted cigarettes, feeling like I had just gotten away with murder and no one cared. I don't know what I was expecting. It seemed like after all my hard work and practice there should have been more heraldry. I kept waiting for the official Club Board of Directors to send me a welcome gift, maybe a membership card. But there was nothing. Just like that, I officially joined the ranks of sultry women and sex goddesses.


Twenty years ago, I joined a secret club I thought was sophisticated and worldly. The club was the Smoker's Club, and it was secret because I was only fifteen. the rules of this exclusive club were stringent. For instance, you had to know the difference between light, 100, and 120 cigarettes. You had to know the difference between menthol cigarettes and non-menthol cigarettes. You had to know which brands were domestic and which were foreign. You had to know what a French inhale was. Pinkie Tuscadero did it in "Grease", and some of the bad girls in school knew how. But they would never teach you. No one could teach you. You were expected to learn the language of tobacco on your own and in secret. You were expected to learn that it was encouraged, even necessary, to experiment with the various flavors and lengths and styles and tar levels and filters and manufacturers and brands. It took me three years to learn the complicated characteristics of cigarettes.


When I reach the age of eighteen, the legal age to purchase cigarettes in California, I unceremoniously passed from the Secret Club into the Smoker's Club. This meant I could purchase cigarettes wherever and whenever I wanted. I could smoke in public and no one would chastise me. But it also meant an end to the clandestine missions to the corner liquor store, and end to the risk. The intrigue and mystery of the Secret Club is replaced with ritual and routine. Where I previously found excitement in the successful purchase of a pack of cigarettes, I now find pleasure in removing the cellophane without tearing the box or crushing the cigarettes. The alcove behind the church where I hid from Father What A Waste is replaced with the public smoking area in front of every office building in Downtown Los Angeles. The scratch of the match is replaced with the flick of the bic.


Fifteen days ago I relinquished my membership to the Smoker's Club. I didn't mean to do it. Ii was, quite literally, forced against my will. It seems that I was asthmatic as a child, and the effects of 15 years of erratic smoking has taken its toll on my body. So now, instead of sucking on tobacco, I suck on Proventil. Instead of flicking a bic, I flip open bottle after bottle of this pill and that pill. I can tell you it wasn't easy to stop smoking. Even now as I write this I sneak a drag here and there of a stale Virginia Slim Menthol that I found at the back of the freezer. The doctors and lawyers are seriously misguided when they say that it's the nicotine the addicted smoker has to kick. Wrong. Kicking the mourning ritual of coffee and a cigarette makes marching in Sister Mary Elephant's Communion Procession feel like a walk in the park, I can do it with my eyes closed. But nothing can compare to the unique scent of fresh ground coffee mingled with the acrid smell of a freshly lit cigarette.


The ritual begins with the innocent initiation into the Secret Smokers Club. Every time I purchased a pack of cigarettes, I am reminded of the rush of adrenaline I felt the first time I walked out of the candy store with an actual pack of cigarettes. Each unlit cigarette represents the first one I ever held between my fingers. I've lost count of how many delicately rolled sticks I broke between my spindly teenage fingers. Every time I put a fresh filter to my lips, I am reminded of tobacco's first kiss and the tantalizing thrill of getting caught by the step-monster.


Yes, yes, smoking is bad. It's a filthy habit. It's dirty. It can kill you. But, oh, the possibilities. Imagine a man at a table. alone. Smoking a cigarette. He hears the clicking of heels approach and suddenly - stop. And then a husky female, come-hither voice says,


"Excuse me, do you have a light?"


The possibilities are endless. Isn't that why I started smoking in the first place? I wanted maturity, sophistication, and sex. I wanted the same possibilities of romance Greta Garbo had as the cigarette smoke floated between her face and the handsome stranger across the table. I wanted the same thrill of intrigue James Bond commanded as he lit a cigarette and said "Shaken, not stirred." Men wanted to be the Marlboro Man and women wanted to be with those men.


What I got was yellow teeth, jaundiced skin, and a Pavlovian response the flick-flick-flicking of a lighter. By the way, do you have a cigarette?