Page 17 of Two Marlboros

I smoked it all, not without a little clumsiness. I got to the end and, somehow, really felt better, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of Harvey’s presence or the cigarette itself. When I crushed it in the ashtray, as he had done, I felt like a different person. I licked my lips and savored the aroma the cigarette had left, but I did not find it so pleasant. I threw down my saliva quite a few times, as if to get rid of the bad taste of medicine that was too bitter. It went away soon after, along with the feeling of superiority.

As if he had been proud of me, Harvey kissed me on the lips and smiled. “Congratulations, you have become an adult. You deserve a reward.”

And I made the mistake of believing him, for I lived only to make him happy. But with him, I had already become an adult in other ways.

As soon as we were dressed, we went out into the warmth of March for a walk in Central Park.

“Will it become a habit?” I asked him.

“Oh, no,” he reassured me. “You will only do it when you feel the need. You can quit whenever you want.”

But I certainly didn’t want to quit if continuing meant having a place in Harvey’s heart. My intent turned out to be a bust, however: he jilted me in early May, telling me I was a kid. And all he had left me with was a stupid bad habit.

My first cigarettes were Marlboros, like his. I still remember how my hands shook when I had come out of the tobacconists with my trophy in my hand, the excitement of having my own pack, of having made such a big breakthrough.

Once I got home, I turned it over in my hands I don’t know how many times before I opened it; and when I unwrapped it and found those ten cigarettes inside, I had stared at them for quite a while before I took one to my mouth and took the first puff in my house. With my own pack.

Many times, over the past three years, I had convinced myself that I could really quit whenever I wanted to, although I never could: because once there was my father, once the rent, once my brother Jimmy. Three years of uninterrupted worries, one on top of the other, and the cigarettes as my only company, understanding and reassuring me.

Shouting and cackling brought me back to the present, in front of the entrance of the university, while some guys nextto me mumbled, between obsessive repetitions of lectures and excited tales of the night before.

I took a puff, but inhaled too much and felt my throat burn like three years earlier. I watched people pass by and I imagined glaring at them, making them disappear and shutting them up in the blink of an eye. If I could have! I felt my pulse increase, my impatience with the world grow from moment to moment; perhaps I could have been even worse off, if it hadn’t been for the vibration of my phone: a message had arrived.

I unlocked the keypad and made to open it, but it was an unknown number. And my cigarette almost fell to the floor when I read not only the contents, but also who had sent it.

Hi Nathan! I have two tickets

for the Wit Matrix concert tonight,

would you like to go with me?

Let me know,

Alan

Probably the cigarette ended up burning between my fingers, because I was so stunned that I stared at the screen without being able to do anything.

First, because it said “Alan”-that Alan?- then because I didn’t think I had made an impression on someone like him. It was completely unexpected news.

I kept staring at the screen without being able to connect the dots, such was the disbelief. Eventually, however, I came to the most logical conclusion: it was a prank. Someone had stolen his cell phone and sent that stupid text for him, just for a laugh behind his back - and mine. If Alan really couldn’t stand me, why would he make such an invitation to me? A light bulb went on in my head: maybe he was one of those prideful, tough-guy types who plays hard to hide his feelings, and that was one way to test the waters. That image softened me so much that I threwmy cigarette on the ground and hurried to answer, even though I was already late to my seminar.

After all, even if it was a joke, I had nothing to lose.

We set the meeting in front of the arena at 8:30, thirty minutes before the concert began, and I still couldn’t believe it. I sat down on one of the benches in the large faculty atrium and dropped the strap next to me. There was hardly anyone there in August, except for those who needed to get through some bureaucracy or those who had had the nice idea of enrolling in some seminar, like yours truly. I let my gaze wander through the empty hallways upstairs, which immediately led me to imagine the rest of the evening. A smile broke out on my face at the mere thought, but it waned when first an idiot with a T-shirt, skimpy because of too many chest muscles, materialized in front of me.

“Hello, little star.”

“Hi, Steve. What do you want?”

“My place or yours?”

I sighed, annoyed. I grabbed the shoulder strap, stood up and slung it over my shoulder, and started walking aimlessly. Steve’s footsteps, however, followed mine and continued to do so even when I stopped near the bathrooms, in a more hidden area. It was there that I turned and rolled my eyes, but not even with that blatant refusal did he seem to give up.

“I already told you I’m not interested anymore,” he said.

“Yeah, those with a pretty face like yours can afford to be precious.”

He approached me, invading my personal space. He knew I hated it when he did that, because people were chatting and I certainly didn’t want to be associated with that kind of pest.

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