Page 16 of Two Marlboros

“In three days, at nine o’clock. I can’t wait!”

Ashton exuded enthusiasm from everywhere, which made me a little happier that I had accepted his invitation. I didn’t care much for music at that time, nor did I care much for throwing myself into a big crowd of people, but the part of me that cared most about my existence had sentenced its verdict.

Exalted more than usual, Ashton walked out, beaming.

For a moment I had felt as if I had taken a step toward normality, toward the life everyone told me to live; yet at the same time I felt as if that step had taken me a little bit away from Oliver. Because, for a good five minutes, my head had been sending the scene of those lips and the smoke coming out of them on repeat, along with that curious reaction that had all the signs of a betrayal towards Oliver. Something had managed, if only briefly, to distract me from the thought that had been gripping me day and night for eight months without respite.

My heart began to hammer and ache, as if it were a penance, a punishment I deserved for betraying the memory of the one who had loved me more than his own life, and at that rate it would tear me apart with guilt.

I went back to my paperwork and rearranged the files of the witnesses to the robbery. As soon as I found Nathan’s, I scrutinized the photo for a few seconds, but was immediately ashamed. Once again, I was being fooled by that flash of maturity he had shown.

Why did I care so much?

I gathered the files into one pile and noticed that my business card on the desk was gone. I searched for it with my eyes, without finding it, but shortly afterward I wondered why I was looking for it. Nathan Hayworth was just a jerk, period. And apparently fate seemed to think the same way.

5

Encounters

(?Eagles - Hotel California)

The room smelled of smoke. Lying on the bed, with his back against the wall, Harvey put his cigarette in his mouth and inhaled, while I watched astonished as his mouth tightened around that cylinder of tobacco, kneeling on the bed beside him. I had my lips parted, as if to say something, while my heart throbbed with excitement, as it did every time I watched him smoke.

I wanted to try it, too.

I ran my eyes from his lips to the cigarette, each time he pulled it away to let the smoke out, and I thought this was the time, the chance to dare and ask him to take a puff, to see if it really would make me relaxed as much as he said it would. That time, however, there was no need to ask. Harvey threw out his smoke and turned to me, his smile pulled to one side.

“Stop looking at me like that, Nate. Kids don’t smoke.”

He was only two years older than me and had been smoking for much longer, and I wasn’t going to let him tell me what I could or couldn’t do, because I was almost eighteen at the time and had every right to make my own decisions.

“I am not a child. I feel like I’ve already shown you that.”

I had allowed Harvey to teach me about love. Naively, perhaps. I had had all my first experiences with him, many of which had turned out to be quite different from my expectations. I slid a hand toward my pelvis, just enough for him to understand what I was referring to.

He laughed.

The sex he had taught me was rough and selfish, but at that moment I was too young to understand it and too faithful to discover other realities besides him. I let him satisfy me just enough, take me in his own way and his own time, light a cigarette after consuming his craving.

From the lowered shutter came glimmers of light too weak to illuminate that room, which had sunk, as it did every time, into a sad shade of gray. The paddles above my head kept turning slowly, shaking off the dust and smoke particles that clung to me and invaded my nose. The sheets were dirty, stained with humors and chock-full of burn marks, perhaps from the ashes that had fallen on them in a moment of distraction; and the clothes piled at the end of the bed, on top of the chair and on the floor made that room look more like a makeshift camp than the room where hours of love were consumed.

He finished smoking his cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray until it was completely extinguished; then he picked up the packet, slipped out another one and took it to his mouth.

I watched as he lit it before my eyes, fearful and excited. He took the first puff and I quickly realized that it was burning inside his lungs, and in the middle of that excitement a little fear crept in as well. The cigarette passed from his mouth to mine, and a tremor ran through me as I squeezed one end between my lips. It was small and solid, not too hard. Tasteless, for the moment - maybe it tasted a little like tobacco - and it was already giving off that smell I now knew.

I was about to do something transgressive that would mark a point of no return. I was almost eighteen, having sex and smoking. I felt invincible, and Harvey’s eyes on me, with that hint of pride, only increased the feeling that I was finally worthy of society - and of him.

Waiting for instructions, I enjoyed moving it around with my tongue as I watched the smoke come into my face.

“Well? Smoke it. Do I also have to tell you how to do it?”

I had seen him smoke a lot of times, but I had no idea how to replicate those movements. Eventually I imagined it was a straw and I just had to drink water.

Wrong.

I inhaled too hard and coughed like crazy, my throat on fire. I immediately moved the cigarette away from my mouth, pounded my chest and tried to chase away the smoke that seemed to want to suffocate me. He looked at me and laughed, while I wondered what was so funny, because he knew very well that it was my first time. When the burning in my throat had subsided, however, I decided to try again.

I brought it to my mouth again and aimed my eyes at Harvey, because I wanted him to see me doing something that would make him proud. I inhaled a little more slowly and felt the hot smoke enter my throat more gently than the first puff. I blew with my nose to draw the smoke out as he did, but it failed. The warmth of the cigarette descended into my lungs: I let it caress my palate and barely blew, as I had often seen him do. When the smoke came out, I almost felt as if I had dismissed a guest; by then it had already flown away, propelled by the slight movement of the blades above my head.

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