“A ghost in giant sneakers, laughing stars around his head
Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy
Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy
Said, we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy”
Cave/ Ellis
It’s always interesting to try new things. It’s also never too late to try new things. And it’s especially nice to try old things in a new way.
On Tuesday I bought a packet of cigarettes for the first time in 25 years.
Back in the olden, olden days I was a regular smoker. It was, of course, all the fault of the Church. I went to an Easter retreat by the Holy Ghost Fathers for prospective priests when I was 16 with my friend Milo and as everyone else there seemed to be smoking we decided that we better buy some cigarettes for ourselves. We went to a shop in Kimmage and nervously asked for cigarettes. I asked first.
Cigarettes please.
“Which ?”
“Which what ?”
“Which brand ??”
“Oh, I see….emmm, Gold Bond !”
“10 or 20 ?”
“Just the one please.”
“We don’t sell individual cigarettes !”
Sorry, I meant one packet….em…one packet of 10 please.
The shopkeeper was now wondering if I should be allowed out unaccompanied. He took my money anyway and handed me my first packet of cigarettes.
Milo approached the counter.
“20 Lambert & Butler , please.”
And with that he had bought his first, and perhaps only, packet of cigarettes.
Why did you pick those ? I asked on our way back to the retreat.
“They were silver.” He replied, and we both nodded sagely.
Truth be told we didn’t really smoke any of them. I think we puffed on one from each packet , didn’t particularly like it, or the fact that it was blindingly obvious , even to us, that we were puffing on our first ever cigarettes in a vain effort to be cool.
I decided to give the proper priesthood a try and duly signed up to be a Holy Ghost Father. Milo still wasn’t completely sure , so he joined the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not A Priest” outfit in Maynooth. I didn’t smoke again until I left.
I think I was 20 and was in Dublin to meet up with someone else who’d left the Holy Ghosts. We went for pints in Bruxelles. He smoked, I didn’t. Leaving the pub and walking down Grafton St. he handed me a cigarette to puff on and for some reason I took it, started puffing and then I tripped on a kerbstone and inhaled for the very first time. I floated down the street, and smoked every day thereafter.
Initially I smoked everything and anything, John Player Blue, Rothmans, Carrols, Silk Cut Purple, Benson & Hedges,and Peter Stuyvesant, before someone told me that he only ever smoked Dunhill International, as that was the only cigarette that was only manufactured in one place, London, and so was the only one that was consistent no matter where you bought them. He told me that all of the others were made in whatever country you were in and therefore there were subtle differences in flavour and taste. As I mentioned I smoked anything and everything anyway, so this shouldn’t have been important to me, and as I wasn’t travelling anywhere further than the Oasis in Carrickmacross, wouldn’t have to contend with international flavour variants. But the Dunhill International came in a flat packet with two compartments of 10, side by side, each individually gold foiled, and the packet was a luxurious red , trimmed in gold. I was hooked. A cigarette snob.
The packet was also handy , when you’d smoked a few, you could keep your lighter in the packet. Extra double bonus cigarette coolness.
At this point the closest that cigarettes came to killing me was whenever I tried to give them up. I was sitting in a friend’s kitchen having a coffee and a smoke and thought ‘That’s it. That’s my last smoke.’ And opened the little door on their range and threw the packet in and closed the door.
“Did you leave your lighter in the packet ?” My friend asked .
‘Christ !’ I said as I opened the door of the range to retrieve it.
There was a whooshing sound as what was left of the lighter was propelled in a wee ball of flames directly at me. I shut the door and once the shock had passed my friend laughed, and I laughed.
‘Can you smell something burning ?’ I asked after a moment or two.
“Go look in the hall mirror !” he said, laughing even harder.
I went and looked. The hair above my right ear was gently smouldering and my right eyebrow was ash grey, I rubbed it. It wasn’t just ash coloured, it was ash and it fell away, Righty was no more.
I bought a pack of cigarettes on the way home.
Several times over the next several years, and sometimes several times each year I gave up smoking, or at least said I had.
I found it very hard to stop, until I decided to stop. I stopped smoking on the most cliched day of the year, New Year’s Day, 2002, and hadn’t bought a packet since then, until Tuesday.
I was in Dublin on Tuesday to go to a gig with my friends Kae and Bronwyn. Kae had messaged me the previous week to say he had tickets to see Gary Numan in the Olympia and did I want to go. I said yes. I was 11 when Gary Numan introduced me to electronic music. He didn’t introduce me personally to it, he was just doing it anyway, and I happened to notice. I knew he’d had other albums out since then, and had had a new album out last year, but he didn’t really feature on my music radar. But I always enjoy a gig in the Olympia, and spending time with Kae and Bronwyn. We’d all been involved in setting up Monaghan Coder Dojo many, many moons ago. Kae said he had two spare tickets , so I asked my friend Ryan, aka DJ Fonzo, yes , the chap that makes the Footy Buckets, if he’d like to go, and he said he’d tried to get tickets himself, but it was sold out.
We were all going to meet up in The Saucy Cow, Dublin’s bestest vegan diner, and it was on Ryan and I’s way there that I bought the cigarettes.
We passed a lady who was sitting half in and half out of a sleeping bag in a doorway on Dame St. and whatever way she wiggled her empty coffee cup looking for change caught my eye. These days I seem to tap for everything using my phone , but , for the first time in ages, I happened to have some cash on me. I slowed up after we passed her and took a fiver out of my wallet and told Ryan to hold on a moment and walked back to her. I bent down to hand her the money , rather than dropping it in the empty coffee cup. A lot of our homeless friends don’t like notes in their collecting cups as it can attract envious attention, and probably puts off other potential donors.
She looked in her hand and then up at me and said “I don’t want money.”
I started to apologise but she interrupted and said “Can you just get me something in the shop, they won’t serve me.” She tried to hand me back the money as she said this.
“It’s OK, you keep that and I’ll get you what you want in the shop. What would you like ?” thinking it would be a coffee, Lucozade, or something to eat.
“20 John Player Blue.”
“OK” I replied standing up. I made a groaning sound as I straightened up and she reached up her hand to help steady me, I thought. Before I had a chance to say ‘Thanks’ she said “And a lighter.”
The shop was right beside us so I told Ryan I’d be a second and went in and bought Rosie her 20 John Player Blue and a Bic lighter. She didn’t tell me her name, but I felt that her name was Rosie, and , for me, and my memory, it gives her her own identity and dignity.
When I came back Ryan was crouched down on his hunkers chatting to Rosie. I handed her the cigarettes and the lighter and she said thanks without looking at me, as she was trying to tell Ryan something. He looked confused and it took the two of us a moment to work out that she wanted us to look for her brother and give him a message. We said we would. That was when she smiled. She didn’t give us his name, or any message. I think she was just happy that we listened to her. She lit her cigarette and waved us goodbye and said “God Bless yous !”.
It’s probably not the right thing to do, buying cigarettes for anyone, and I think that the nicest thing Ryan and I did was that we both crouched down so that we spoke to her rather than down to her, but in the very moment that she asked for cigarettes I remembered that want.
Ryan and I carried on our way to The Saucy Cow where Kae and Bronwyn were waiting and they told us about their day, and we all had a delicious vegan meal, followed by a stunning gig.
And I’m sitting here now and my highlight of the week was Rosie’s brief smile.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This is Joy
P.P.S. This is an audio of the blog where Pasta bid £9,000 on a blue Dalek
