On Smoking
By: Chris Reads
Tags: Tobacco, Smoking, Neo Noir, Paris, Cigarettes

Sorry Mom, I’m a social smoker. When someone offers me a cigarette outside a bar, I’ll take it. I’ve bought more packs of cigarettes than I can count. I’ve bummed more darts than I’ve bought packs, but not more than I’ve given away cigarettes. I used to have a policy where I carried either cigarettes or a lighter, never both at the same time to prevent me from smoking alone, but I’ve long forgone that since I’ve smoked for over four years now, and there is no dependency in sight.

I remember the first cigarette I had. It was at college, and offered to me by a puck bro that I was acquainted with. I remember the exact words: “Hey Zhanger, want a dart?”

All throughout elementary, middle, and high school, I thought smoking was the most ridiculous thing. Why would anyone smoke cigarettes? There was no high, there was a significant cost, and there was the risk of cancer to contend with. The only people who smoked were dumb and addicted. In fact, there was a running joke about smokers, and some of us would imitate the few high school smokers using the most ridiculous slang, among them ‘fag’ and ‘bogie’.

When I arrived at college however, the prevalence of tobacco amazed me. Even more surprising was that no one mocked them or treated them with any sort of derision, despite their clear dependency and the trove of laughable terms they had to refer to the products. Private school beauties hacking darts between whispering sweet nothings. Student housing porches were littered with butts. Puck bros packed chew into their lower lips before class. Even some girls smoked, though none of them used dip unless it was to impress some boy with a flow.

Though it still smelt bad and seemed pointless, it was much more normalized. These weren’t just high school hoodlums, they were university students in my program. So when I was offered my first cigarette at twenty years of age, I took it. It was smoother than marijuana, I had a puff or two, and passed it back to my friend. Cool. I had smoked my first cigarette. And that was the extent of it, the novelty over, until I arrived in Europe.

Everyone smoked in Paris. Before class, during the (smoke) break, and after class. No matter how cold, all the students would hurry outside, and suck on their flimsy hand-rolled cigarettes. The man drinking his coffee at an outdoor café table in the afternoon. The woman drinking her red at an outdoor café table in the evening. The throbbing crowd drinking god-knows-what in the smoking room at a club. And I, oh so badly, wanted to be one of them. I wanted to be all of them.

So I bought my first pack of cigarettes. Then, I started buying my own rolling tobacco and papers. I never got to the point where I could roll one with one hand while using the other to hold onto a pole in the metro; I frankly never even got close. But I was rolling my own cigarettes. I was a student in the courtyard, the man at a cafe, and all too often, the reveler at the club. I was a part of the landscape I admired so much.

It was stranger to roll my own cigarettes in Canada, and people often mistook it for marijuana, which led to much confusion at clubs. The real reason I gave them up was that I discovered menthol cigarettes after leaving Europe. Though illegal in Canada, they were easily acquirable at duty-free stores when crossing borders. For an infrequent smoker like me, a carton would much longer than the following international trip. Plus, they were fun to distribute at parties to the next smoker.

That leaves me with my current drinking accoutrements, a pack of menthols and a book of matches or a Zippo. I rarely smoke if no one else is smoking, but the only thing more fun than offering a minty cancer stick was lighting a Zippo with a click or striking a match with a flick. It’s immensely satisfying to pull out a pack of cigarettes, compact the tobacco by giving it a few firm taps on a hard surface, open the pack of cigarettes, and ease one out with subtle wrist flicks. It’s tremendously gratifying to light someone else’s cigarette with my lighter or a match, cupping the little flame with my free hand to block out elements.

However, there is more to smoking than engaging in this little pantomime. I do enjoy the act of smoking, the feeling of cool smoke slithering down my throat and filling me. It gives me a second breath of life when I’m drinking, but also cuts two ways. A timely cigarette can revitalize and stave off symptoms of drunkenness, but too much and the head rush induces puking all on its own; live by the dart, die by the dart.

There is also an element of nostalgia to consider. I’m a sentimental person, and I’ve always associated Paris with wonder, romance, and youthful liberation. Smoking, by extension, brings me back to Paris. Every drag I take places me on cobblestone streets, outside cafes, and alongside mansard roofs. In a sepia tone, I feel the memories, projected onto a backdrop of translucent white smoke. A simpler time, without inhibition and without regret.

The main reason I smoke however, is because I think smoking is cool. To clarify, I don’t smoke because I think it will elevate others’ opinions of me; I’m aware that the opposite effect is generally true. As I mentioned before, years of government propaganda has rationally and correctly diminished public perception of smoking so much that smokers are no longer even despised, but pitied. After all, it’s the fault of big tobacco and addiction psychology, not people’s choices.

Yet somehow, some way, smoking is still inexorably cool for me. Whether it’s caused by the hangover from noir and neo-noir, or the fetishization for all things Paris, or even the slight flirtation with death, I think smoking is cool. And so when I smoke, I’m not doing so to look cool for anyone else. I’m doing so because I like the idea of smoking. When I picture myself looking outside the window during a rainy day, it’s with a cigarette between my lips. When I envision myself perched on a stoop, limbs splayed languidly waiting for someone, it’s with a a cloud of blueish-grey smoke above my head. The idealized version of me in my head is a smoker. It’s just so cool.

Kids, if you’re reading this, take note of how stupid I sound. I can only convince even myself that smoking is cool when I’m at least slightly inebriated. As it is clearly labeled on any package of cigarettes, tobacco use leads to cancer, teeth discolouration, poor skin, and even erectile dysfunction. Smokers also smell terrible, and government propaganda has now successfully associated smoking with a lower socioeconomic class. Stop smoking. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Who would rationally think smoking is attractive?

But it’s not rational. The idea of myself as a flâneur, strolling the streets with cigarettes and fire is much too attractive to me. Despite not being addicted to tobacco, I am a slave to nostalgia, sentimentality, and romance. Sometimes, it’s a bit hard to tell which is worse. A cigarette helps me cope with that.