My first
cigarette was self-rolled—loose tobacco in a Zig-Zag paper. I was in high
school, attending a summer program away from home. All of the kids had come to
study art. One of them showed me how to take a pinch of brown shreds, pack it,
and glue the paper around it.
We fired up on
the outside steps of the art building. I didn’t care who saw me, and, at that
moment, I didn’t care about art. The sensation of smoke hitting my lungs was
great: I felt instantly alert, my breathing was deep, my head was light. But I
wanted more.
“Is this all
there is to it?” I asked. I meant, couldn’t we find some red Lebanese or camel
dung to mix with the tobacco? I hadn’t yet sampled any of these smokables, and
I wanted to catch up. I was an addict, no doubt about it, and I was ready to
get hooked on anything.
“Man,” my
friend said, “you only want to do this once a week.”
But that wasn’t
for me. Soon enough, when I got back home, I was rolling smokes on the floor of
my bedroom and puffing out the window, hoping my parents and siblings wouldn’t
notice. And I never found the opium or angel dust that I craved. I had to make
do with Virginia domestic.
Thad Rutkowski
www.thaddeusrutkowski.com
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler