The Smoker's Club

              The seemingly never ending black night hung over our faces, giving us something to gaze at. Tiny, miniscule dots covered the dark, giving us something to wonder about. I turned my head to the side, looking through the damp blades of grass at the dipper hanging far off.

         A thick, heavy silence hung in the air between us. Yet, it wasn’t a nervous silence. We never talked much when we laid out in the yard and stargazed.

         I closed my eyes and let my other senses take over. I heard the light, night breeze ruffle through the branches and leaves. That familiar smell of cloves hung in the air above me. I turned my head the other way and opened my eyes, knowing I’d see a burning red dot with smoke drifting lazily away from my boyfriend’s mouth.

         Pall Malls were always his favorite. Sometimes they weren’t the cheapest, but he claimed they smelled better than other brands.

         How did I end up dating a smoker? I never cared much for cigarettes or people who smoked. The smell of them clung everywhere to him when we met: on his clothes, his hair; but it didn’t seem to matter to me then. We met, oddly enough, in a smoke-filled bar in a crummy part of downtown. I was there to cheer on my best friend; she was taking part in some karaoke contest and needed the moral support. I was on the end of the bar in a little dirty swivel chair, when he sat down in the only empty seat that was next to me.

         For a while, he didn’t say anything. He just sat there with his beer and watched the singers onstage. Then out of nowhere, he took a crumpled box out of his back pocket and offered me a cigarette. I shook my head at the offer, so he asked, “Okay. Instead of the cigarette, can I offer you dinner?” Just like that, we met. We did go out to dinner, a cozy little Thai restaurant that he knew of.

         After we dated a while, it grew on me more. I got used to seeing Pall Mall’s on the grocery list or cleaning out ashtrays when we did the dishes. He never offered me cigarettes after that first time at the bar; but one day, out of curiosity, I tried one. I inhaled deeply when he lit the tip of it, and the smoke left a burning sensation all the way down my throat. I coughed after the first drag, but I finished it off. He’d always jokingly call me his little social smoker; I never seriously started but would only take a drag sometimes if he was in the chain smoking kind of mood.

         That was his fourth cigarette in the hour that we were outside. He doesn’t chain smoke; sometimes he just likes to have a lot of them in one sitting. Other days, he would only have one or two. I watched silently as he exhaled his last breath of smoke, and he put the cigarette out in the dirt next to his elbow. He pulled me close to him and we lay under the stars together for the last time.

         The next night I came home from work to find him nervously smoking at the kitchen table, an overflowing ashtray at his elbow. I work late night shifts at a family-owned restaurant as a waitress, and I was glad to see him after such a long day. Before I could say hello, he stood up, gave me a peck on the cheek, and told me he was going out for a new pack.

         I briefly mused about why he would be running out so late for just a pack of cigarettes. Why couldn’t he have waited until morning for them? I didn’t realize how much time ticked by while I tidied up our little apartment and started running water for dishes. When I glanced at the clock, I became worried. Half an hour had already gone by? The convenience store on the corner was never out of Pall Mall’s.

         I sat down in the chair at the table and rested my head on my hand. Then I noticed it; there on the table was an envelope with my name on it, propped up against a cigarette box. When I was finished reading the letter inside the envelope, I picked up the box and shook it. One lonely cigarette was left. Also left conveniently on the table near all of this was my boyfriend’s favorite lighter. So I lit it. The last thing he gave to me, and I smoked it away.

         Twenty times a day I open a box, to remind myself of him. Whenever someone asks why or how I got started smoking, I tell them I like the smell. A couple times a week, I’ll go back to that seedy little bar and sit in the same chair I had the night we met. I’m waiting on that day for some young guy to sit down in a chair next to me. Maybe this new guy would resemble him, or my favorite smell of cloves would hang on his clothes too. Either way, I’ll offer him a cigarette. If he doesn’t take it, I’ll invite him to dinner. If he does, I’ll know I found someone who likes Pall Mall’s as much as I do.