I discovered Marlboro during my High School barkada’s post-graduation outing. Beside the pool, I asked our teacher (Sir Rey) to give me a stick. He asked me if I knew what I was doing. I said yes. I lit it promptly and blew smoke from my nose. Perfect, he said. I didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or just amazed. What I knew was that I really was born with an affinity with smoking. Like I was indeed born for it.
A month later, I began acquianting myself more to that great addiction. On the eve of the first day of classes for my first year in UP, I bought, rather nervously, a pack of Philip Morris from an overpass vendor near our place. Then, I placed all the contents into an old canister and threw the pack away. The next day, right after my first ever class in Palma Hall got dismissed, I puffed my first puff in the AS steps and thought to myself, ‘Ah, so this is UP!’ I was so delighted at the thought of freedom. Freedom, as well as the taste of menthol in my mouth, made me feel so satisfied.
A few weeks later, I got bored with Philip and proceeded to buy Davidoffs from Manang Carmen’s. Though a bit overpriced (and expensive), I still marvelled at the power of tobacco, that great force. That was how I met my closest friend in school, Sharine. Right after our Philo 1 class (11:30 am) we would go to some bench in the AS parking lot and smoke those Davidoffs away. It was she, who, a year later, would tell me that I wasn’t doing smoking properly. No wonder my tonsils always hurt, and my nose was always dirty. No wonder, too, that I would be perplexed about why my exhale was a fart compared to the chimneys of others. Turns out, I wasnt really sucking the smoke to my lungs. Haha.
For a time I would stop smoking. During UP Fairs I savored the smell of Gudang, and during the heydays of my org in Lorena Barros I would waste my time away with Marlboro menthols. But I still didnt know how to smoke properly. Until one night, just before Christmas, Fundador in one hand and a Dunhill in another, I finally got it right: blowing chimneys. Finally! At Christmas Eve I knew how to smoke.
Cigarettes were my best buddies. I have been a great devotee and I am somehow proud of being one. There were nights when my old pals, my Dahong Papaya bandmates, would enjoy their beers while Christian and I would pride ourselves with downing pack after pack of Marlboro Menthols (in fliptabs and Cricket lighters) purchased in some 7-11 in Eastwood. In Christian’s car Ines, Jehn, Ronald, Roan, Christian and I would hop from Jerry’s Grill to Pier One (a memorable one during the wake of FPJ); my hands were always out of the window, a Marlboro in hand.
I also happened to meet some of my most cherished friends in UP by way of the mutual love, or need, or interest, to smoke. My UP-ISAW barkada would love to smoke at the gutters of the Balay Kalinaw, Isaw sticks all over. My KAPPP orgmates too, we are slowly turning the left wing of the AS into a fireplace. Aside from Sharine, I loved smoking in the Lib walk with Camille. Pauline and I would always smoke in KAPPP, as we last did during a Friday Night Fair in the sloping banks of the Sunken Garden. Louise and I would smoke and tell of happy thoughts in Megamall or in the UP Theatre steps; I would also infamously be teaching Mao how to smoke in the Lib Steps during 2004. When thoughts like these come to me, I am filled with unbearable sorrow. These people have come and gone, and somehow, I am wondering if, like the smoke that fades away into the sky, someday I myself would fade away. Of course I will.
Many nights I have spent with the company of neighborhood friends and out of school youths and street bums in our subdivision. Many times I have been offered different things that I could also inhale. But I always refuse politely. The solitude of the tobacco was enough, and it was all that mattered to me.
I think, what I love most about the smoke, aside from the tobacco, is the smoke itself. I loved seeing the smoke coming out from my mouth. I loved the smoke as it got blown out of my lungs, especially when the air is still and the lights are contrasting. That is why I hate smoking at day in our bathroom, when the sun is shining fiercely and the sunlight comes darting in through the windows; the white and pink tiles make it hard for me to see the faint white figure of smoke. That is why I savor cloudy, gloomy and rainy days for smoking. When the shadows of the earth are present, the smoke seems to gain potent vitality. I remember taking lonely walks with my Dunhills on Sunday nights around our place, cherishing the sight of smoke against the bright street lamps. Once, I was so dissapointed when I had to wait for a date in the Heaven and Egg - Oakwood - Breadtalk entrance of Glorietta; I had a cigarette but I had no lighter. I couldnt find anyone who had one, for some reason. Come to think of it, I even had Tar Shields with me, the nicotine from a used tube dripping in the box.
Does the prospect of ill-health terrify me? I guess so. But the solitude is harder to bear. I have all my reasons but they are no reasons at all, in the end. I might even start quitting. Once, I had a jog around the Acad Oval, trying to reminisce the 3-round nonstop ROTC COCC jogs we had on rainy Wednesday sunrise(s). Then after a round and a fourth, I got tired. My lungs gave out on me. I went back to my car and took a sip of water. Then bang! Auto suggestion: I took a cigarette out and enjoyed it. I was sweaty, tired and lost. Alone. But the smoke had a nice force into it and I was calmed.
During last summer I discovered an Asahi Beer Ashtray in our house that belonged to my grandfather. It was glass, from Japan, and about 40 years old. I liked it and I placed it promptly on the coffee table in our living room. I lit a Marlboro and after a drag, I placed it on the ashtray to rest. Then all of a sudden I smelled something weird; I looked at my cigarette and saw that a thick white smoke was blowing wildly from it. I realized that the ashtray had candle wax dried in the surface; maybe some time ago it was used to serve as a stand for some candle, most probably during a brown-out. The wax maybe had melted and got stuck to the flame of the burning Marlboro. I stared at amazement as the thick white smoke blew on and on. I, out of sheer curiousity, took a puff, and more smoke came. I blew thick smoke out and suddenly my mouth tasted of candle wax. I laughed somehow until I flicked the ash and the wax no longer was there.
The same thing happened tonight.
With Murakami’s Norwegian Wood in hand (6th time to reread it), and DeBussy’s Clair de Lune playing in my stereo, I used the same ashtray and then came the wax-effect. It was as wild as I can remember, the smoke. But it surely didnt last long: the wax was out as I flicked the ashes down to rest at the ashtray. I was so amused at the way things are going, the way thing have gone. Women, friends, heartaches, failures have come and go, but my cigarettes remained with me. Or maybe it was the habit that remains. But surely, I would have to go, too, just like everything, everyone else.
There are no good endings for smokers nor for the stories they make.
