Down in Smoke: Passive Beginings

I’ve been a passive smoker since I was 7 years old. At least, that’s as far back as I can remember. I’ve never paid for a cigarette, not once, but I have paid for my fair share in cover charges just so I could stand in the smoker’s lounge of a nightclub. I’m pretty much a 2nd hand smoker of the first degree. My addiction has made me a regular at most pubs; and I hate pubs: beer, whisky and bourbon all sicken me to death. Even so, I persist with pubs, and the stench of pub carpet that wishes that it wasn’t. Because, for me, nothing is more satisfying than walking into a clouded room full of cigarette smoke. It’s like taking in a breath of fresh air. Actually it’s nothing like that at all. People often complain about the smell it leaves on their clothes, but that’s what I savour the most.

Simply catching the scent of a stranger lighting up will set me off on their smoke trail. Which brings me to one of my current dire predicaments: people are quitting. Or at the very least, less likely to light up socially. For years I’ve kept pretty close tabs on every known smoker in my office, and numbers are dropping. My strategy for soaking up other people’s smoke is well-worn, nevertheless, effortlessly effective. My process for fuelling my addiction was this: whenever somebody motioned towards the door for a ‘smoko’ break, I would tail closely behind to join them. Most of the time this would mean forcing pointless conversation about weather, sport, or worse, the uneventful coming weekend. Even the most painfully pointless conversations were worth every second of 2nd hand smoke that blew in my direction. Margaret from accounts was a double-edged sword. She was terribly boring on one hand, while blessed with exquisite taste in branded nicotine on the other. She bought the best ciggies, my absolute favourites – Port Royal. Like inhaling gold; so smooth; so good. The combination of the smoke and her perfume was strangely exquisite. Down right intoxicating.

Margaret’s daughter had just married a Jehovah’s Witness. As a devout Roman Catholic, this worried her. So she had plenty of stress to smoke her way through. The more she stressed, the more she smoked. And the more she smoked and choked, the happier I was. By the end of the day she had gone through a whole pack, and so had I. Her daughter’s marriage was turning her into a pack-a-day smoker, upping my intake in the process. If this kept up, I could avoid spending my passive smoking ciggie breaks with Ian, Arthur and Brody. To me, their conversation was just as deadly as their Winfield Reds and Peter Stuyvesant Blues. By 6pm, I was pretty much all smoked out on a daily basis. So satisfied, in fact, I could probably bypass my usual trip to the pub on the way home.

Just like a regular smoker, I tried to quit passive smoking several times. My personal best was 8 days clear, way back in 2006. It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried things: from patches to gum, quit hotlines to meditation, and hypnosis to lozenges. Eventually I decided to just go it cold turkey, which is especially hard when you’ve purposely aligned yourself with heavy smokers. So I took a trip to the countryside to be on my own, away from the nicotine society I had wedged my way into. It was fantastic for about two seconds.

When I got back things had changed. The smoke was clearing as the ban on smoking indoors at pubs and clubs finally hit in 2007. I knew it would, which is why I escaped to the countryside in the first place. Far far away from Ian, Arthur, Brody and most importantly Margaret. I thought I’d be clean by the time I got back, and the smoker’s ban would only help me break free from passive smoking for good. After all, who really wants to stand out in the cold with terrible company. To my surprise, there was no rioting in the streets. Nobody seemed to kick up too much of a stink about the anti-smoking laws. The idea of standing up to the law and fighting back had sort of petered off. Maybe because the pubs had done such an incredible job of transforming outdoor areas with couches that begged for the stench of cigarettes, and portable heaters that the made the inside of the pub feel Antarctically icy. Prior to the law change, many of these pubs were barely standing in their original decor. The idea of a renovation was laughable. Now the term ‘reno’ was on everybody’s lips. In a way the ban on smoking was the culprit which spearheaded the current landscape of made-over pubs, even the office balcony got a few pot plants. Unfortunately, Margaret was also attempting a make-over. She’d quit smoking, first with patches (unsuccessfully) then with prayer.

On my first day back I stood out on the balcony with Ian, Arthur and Brody as they banged on about the same-old shit that I won’t bore you with here. I kept my eye on Margaret through the window, hoping she’d fall back into temptation and join us outside. I was longing to see her face red with rage come storming through the doors and onto the balcony, Port Royals burning like a motherfucker one after the other. Instead, her face remained calm, creamy even. She was barely recognisable as she stared at her computer screen, neck veins intact. Prayer was working for her, and working against me. Religion had finally found a way to pay me back for all the years of gags I’d enjoyed at it’s expense. God does work in mysterious ways. Rather than strike me down (which he could) he simply takes away my chain smoking supplier of the good stuff.

There was only so much more I could take from the likes of Ian, Arthur and Brody. Fuck. I hadn’t come across the scent of a Port Royal in weeks. That day I complained of stomach pains and got out of the office early – that’s when it happened. While standing by the bus stop, my overly sensitive and desperate nostrils caught a faint scent of Port Royal. As the puff of smoke passed over me it revived my morale and gave my cravings an incentive to follow its trail down a dark alley, which, like any alley in a story, was poorly lit. My experience has taught me to keep a safe distance from smokers; enough space to avoid alerting them of my immediate presence, while remaining close enough to take it in. When I eventually caught up to the guy connected to the end of the cigarette butt I became just like the pub carpet that wished that it wasn’t, and witness to a crime. Cold-blooded murder. That’s what it was.