[tracilicious]

I confessed to a friend over sushi and Japanese beer that I was convinced that Philip-Morris had a new marketing scheme that involved invading the nation’s sleep state.

“Maybe you should try it.”
“I would, but caffeine takes up most of my addictive capacity.”
“I’ve smoked probably two packs in my entire life and I never got addicted.”

That sentence was enough to convince me. I left the sushi bar and headed straight for a Circle-K. I was a grown up damn it, God and I had long since split the blanket, and I had five dollars in my hand with Big Tobacco’s name on it. I walked into the convenience store with the same fear that must inhabit seventeen year olds buying cheap beer with a fake ID. I, the anti-smoker, was buying cigarettes.

“Ten dollars on number seven and a pack of cigarettes.” I said, setting my Diet Coke on the counter.
“What kind?” Sh!t. There were different kinds.
“Umm…I dunno. They’re not for me,” I panicked. “What do you recommend?” As though this was a restaurant and I was ordering the daily special. Cigarettes with a side of hummus, please.
“You aren’t supposed to buy cigarettes for someone else,” the stereotypical Indian-in-a-gas-station mumbled with a thick accent. I shot him a look that said, “You have got to be fvcking kidding me.”
“Depends on if you want menthol or no menthol,” the woman clerk chimed in helpfully.
“Umm…I dunno,” I repeated. “Menthol then I guess. Yes, menthol!” I declared, thinking that menthol sounded like an odd mix of petrol and mint, and how could you possibly go wrong with that combination?
“I recommend Marlboro’s with menthol,” she chirped.

I gave them my money and walked out, mortification mixing with a thrilling sense of accomplishment in my gut. At home I crinkled off the plastic wrapping and snapped open the box to discover a layer of foil, and underneath that were twenty sticks in two rows, lined up like bullets. The smell hit me like a metaphor. Heady and sweet, the contrast a perfect summary of my life.

Outside, in a beat up old pool chair, I sat on the porch and awkwardly lit my first cigarette. I sucked in the campfire smell and let the mint and gasoline taste swirl around my mouth before blowing it out in a slow string of smoke like a seasoned pro. I burned it halfway down, impressed with the finesse with which I smoked. No coughing and gagging like you would expect from a first time smoker. None of the spectacular smoking effects I had heard about either. I realized that this is what a former president meant when he said he didn’t inhale. I was faux-smoking. I pulled it deep into my lungs with the next breath. The sting raced down my virgin throat and filled my lungs with punishment. I took it with only a slight gasping and watering of the eyes. Two more breaths and my first cigarette was done.

As I lit another my husband, Michael, came out. After a disjointed explanation and large amount of cajoling he sat down and took a cigarette, his first. A sudden buzz circled my head, filling me with smooth and clear. The first of its kind, all the best parts of drinking, even better than the best parts of drinking, without the hangover or idiocy. Michael hacked and gagged across from me, looking cool to me even though he was a terrible smoker who complained about it.

“I’m always surprised by the lightness of a pack of cigarettes,” he said in between sucking and coughing.
“What do you mean?”
“You spend so much of your life listening to how bad they are. Just seems like they should weigh more.”
“That’s fvcking beautiful.”

And it was. The cigarette in my hand was thin like air, and the pack weighed nothing. Billions of dollars was spent each year on these things, buying, selling, selling buying and selling not buying. The weight of smoking suddenly seemed completely justified and completely ridiculous at the same time. This small thing, a nice buzz but not a whole lot more. What’s the big fvcking deal? But smokers pay for their cigarettes with their skin and their voice and their last years, and are rewarded with twenty slow, easy moments and a legal high for every five dollars they dish out. In our soul crushingly fast world, that is a big deal.

Michael continued his hacking. “God, this is awful. It’s like eating a campfire.”
“I love it.”
“God this is so good,” he said as the high hit him. We sat together silently, the smoke marrying us in its interweaving loops. A rare moment of quiet connection. The baby monitor crackled from inside the house. We waited for silence or a cry. When silence came Michael stubbed his cigarette on the concrete and began to get up.
“Don’t you want another?”

As he walked inside the social implications of smoking zoomed into focus. Every cigarette was an opportunity to stand next to someone else for no reason. To stand or sit in silence or scattered conversation. To share a somewhat unholy communion. Breathing in and out of each other just because you are there and you are a smoker too. Or a cigarette can be an opportunity to smoke alone, to grasp a small and rare minute of peace and introspection. It’s an excuse to observe the swirling around us without anyone asking us what we are looking at.

I’ve smoked four cigarettes so far, and I’ll smoke who knows how many more. Aware of the powerfully addictive properties, I ignore the mild cravings that follow each smoke for a day or so. I don’t want to be tied to a small box long after the high has faded, or to end up wearing a plastic patch infused with drugs in exchange for my freedom. I don’t want my kids seeing me smoke. But I do want that slow pull under a starry sky. The cigarette sized conversations and brief participation in an increasingly unpopular subculture. I want to feel the scorn of the anti-smoking assholes as they pass by, oblivious to the wonderful vibration behind my eyeballs. I want to smile and say, “You want one?” More than anything else, I want to hold a cigarette that’s lighter than a thought between my first and second fingers, and feel the full weight of smoking.