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Thu | November 03, 2005

First Smoke

I tried my first cigarette last night. I had mentioned to Steve some time ago that I had never smoked a cigarette.
"Really?" he said.
"Nope."
"Have you smoked pot?"
"Nope. I've been in a room where people have been smoking."

I've been missing Steve. I saw him last May and we started talking on the phone every once in awhile, through the summer and early fall. Now I feel out of touch with him again. I don't have any reason to call. And yet I didn't before, either. I think one definition of a friend is someone you feel you can call for no reason, with nothing in particular to say. Or maybe that's the definition of a good conversationalist. A combination of both, I think.

Lynn, one of my few New Jersey friends, went to Vanderbilt with her boyfriend this past weekend. Brian had an interview for dental school. Lynn doesn't want to move down there. "I don't want to hang out with hicks," she said.
"I think they're all right," I said. Steve works at Vanderbilt.

So the smokes. It happened last night after the event at the Brown club. As I was leaving, I ran into Bilal outside the building. Bilal was wearing a Brown sweater with a giant "B" on the front, and a Brown baseball cap. He has a pretty good sense of humor. "Let's get a drink," he said.
"I don't feel like it," I said. "I'm going to catch the subway."
"Let me say goodbye to this person," he said, looking through the glass at some people coming down the stairs. "And I'll come with you."

Out the door came a well-groomed Indian woman and a bald white man with a rim of white hair. His head was shiny and phosphorescent. We chatted for a few minutes. I don't remember what was said.
"What do you want to do?" the bald white man said to the Indian woman.
She murmured something indefinite.
"It's up to you," he said.
"I'm going to catch the subway. Where is it?" I asked the woman.
"I'm not a subway person," she said. She meant she cabs it everywhere.
"I think it's that way, where that "M" is," said Bilal.
"Thanks," I said. I bid them goodnight and left. I wondered if I should have tried harder to save the beautiful Indian woman from the disgusting white man.

I was swiping myself through the turnstile when Bilal appeared behind me.
"___ is so obnoxious!" he said. I do not remember the name.
"Who?"
"The bald white guy!"
"Oh."
"He spit in my face! He wouldn't stop talking!" Bilal exclaims everything.

I started walking over to the tracks, but he wandered to the newsstand. "Do you smoke?" he asked.
"Nope."
He got a pack of cigarettes from the vendor. "Do you want anything?" he asked.
"Nope. Well-- gum," I said. He got some gum.
"This is my favorite gum," he said. It was cinnamon, the kind that you pop out of the foil casing.
We got on the N. I looked over and Bilal was stuffing pieces of gum in his mouth like the cookie monster.
"How much gum are you eating?" I exclaimed.
"Just- four."
I took the empty foil package from him. "That's six!"
"No, it's four, you had one, and this one is in my hand, I haven't put it in my mouth yet."

We talked about his apartment in Tribeca, which he claimed was the size of six subway cars. It seemed preposterous.
"There aren't apartments that big in Manhattan," I said.
"Yes, there are. I live in one. Of course I will have to move out when I finish with it." He turns real estate, I think, for a living. I was somewhat taken with the idea that I wanted to see this apartment.

"Let me buy you a drink," he said.
"I'm going to K-town to check email," I said. "You can come if you like."
We got off at 34th Street. It was nearly ten. I walked in my usual direction. I had half an hour to check my email, and then catch the 10:39 train. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"To K-town," I said. As we walked down the street he pulled out his cigarettes.
"Do you smoke?" he asked.
"No," I said.

By this point Bilal had proposed a drink about a dozen times, and he was now waving to the Korean über-hipsters hanging out on the sidewalk at every storefront.
"Let me try it," I said, holding my hand out for the cigarette. He started to hand it over but then changed his mind. This began a discussion that lasted the entire walk to Net Zone. He did not want me to become addicted to smoking. I said I would not. He said I would. I said I would not, I would never smoke again. I just wanted to try it. He made me promise. I promised. He was not convinced. We stopped in front of the stairs.

"It would make my night," I said.
"Really?" he said.
"It would be like, I did something new," I said.

And so he taught me to smoke. Or, he gave me the cigarette and looked anxiously on as I figured it out myself, and asked him for clues.
"Like that?"
No answer.
"You didn't--"
"What?"
He took it back. He took a drag.
"I don't think I did anything," I said.
"You didn't," he admitted. I took it back. I felt the resistance as I sucked the cigarette this time. I let the smoke out of my mouth.
I gave it back to him. He had the look of someone who had gotten away with something.
"Wait-- do you have to inhale?"
I took it back.
"Like that?"
"Yes," he said.

He asked again about the drink. "Why are you so abhorrent to getting a drink?"
This started a conversation about the word abhorrent, and better words that might have been used.

"Oh, let's go to a café," I said. By this time it was too late to go up to Net Zone. I only had ten minutes. We went across the street and got a mini-cheesecake but they would not let us sit there if we did not buy drinks. Koryodang has weird rules.

We walked to Penn Station. The Dover train was already boarding. "I don't want this," he said, handing me the bag with the cake, "so I'm just going to give it to you."

"Okay," I said. It was my mother's birthday. She could use a little cake.

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