Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire !

by Abu Nadira

How times have changed! What was socially acceptable and encouraged at one time can later become so disliked and subject to persecution. I started smoking on a daily basis when I was twelve. It was ‘the’ thing to do and regarded as one of the rites of passage to manhood. In our inner city ghetto almost everyone smoked, and if you didn’t smoke you were regarded a ‘sissy’, or a ‘big girl’s blouse’ as we say in ‘strine’. Tobacco ads were festooned everywhere; newspapers, magazines, huge billboards, buses, trains, on the sides of tall buildings, in cinemas and sporting venues. Ironically, cigarette manufacturers and breweries were the major sponsors of sporting events and teams. They all conveyed the same message, that smoking was good for you, a glamorous status symbol and the manly thing to do, and how that particular brand would achieve that for you. Smoking equalled success, was the message. The peer pressure was enormous and we felt so ‘cool’ and grown up when we smoked, although I felt sick and nauseated in the beginning. Smokers felt free to light up anywhere, be it restaurants, cars, workplaces, public transport, streets, etc; just about anywhere, without feeling the guilt and need to sneak off somewhere and have a furtive smoke, as is done nowadays. It was socially acceptable and encouraged.

One of my favourite actors, the legendary John Wayne of western cowboy movies fame, was a chain smoker; so we felt that smoking would make us as tough and heroic as he was against the ‘bad guys’. I aspired to be the hard adventurous ‘Malborough Man’, the epitome of manhood depicted in the film clips before the feature movie. Socrates, the brilliant captain of the very successful Brazilian soccer team, was a chain smoker, and regarded by us as a hero and justification for smoking. I can remember us smoking while discussing tactics immediately before a soccer match, and during half-time as well. Passive smoking was unheard of and non-smokers took no offence to smoking in their company. There certainly wasn’t the awareness of the adverse health effects we now have. In fact, quite the opposite. If someone suffered a smoking related illness like cancer or emphysema, he was regarded as having made a sacrifice for a worthy cause, almost as if he was a martyr, and deserved respect. You knew you were accepted when the bigger blokes offered you cigarettes.

We even smoked at high school. There was an area at the rear of the school grounds called ‘smokers corner’, with an unspoken rule that the teachers kept away during break times when there would be more than a hundred young puffers blowing clouds of smoke. Come to think of it, students were there throughout the day; on the pretext of a toilet break, some errand, or ‘wagging’ a class; especially when exams or tests were inflicted on us. Eventually smoking in the toilets was abandoned after the caretaker had been instructed to turn the fire hose on any toilet emitting smoke. Many a student had suffered the shock and indignity of being blasted by a strong jet of cold water coming over the top of the door.

Some enterprising students staked out their particular spot where they sold single cigs to students for 5 cents each by holding a pack in each hand; one a lighter brand called ‘Peter Stuyvesant’ for those who couldn’t handle the other heavier brand called ‘Rothmans’. Packets of cigarettes were relatively cheap and so much more attractively packaged than they are nowadays. We spent a lot of time discussing the so called virtues of each of our particular brand of preference, so much so that the brand of cigarette seemed to reflect the personality of the smoker. You were either a Rothman’s man, a Ransom man, a Dunhill man, and so on. Brand loyalty was fierce and well respected.

It became a ritual for me on my home to buy a smoke off the bloke selling on the street corner. I had it so well timed that I would finish the ‘cig’ just as I was approaching the landing to our fourth floor unit. As luck would have it, on one unforgettable occasion I was making my way up the stairs when I heard a cough from the landing above. I instantly recognized it as dad’s cough and was panic stricken. It was unusual for dad to be home at this time of the day, and I was taken completely off guard. Dad hated the fact that we smoked, and took every opportunity to warn us of the recent awareness of the harmful effects of smoking. Quite often he would ask us to read an article in the newspaper or the Readers Digest on the adverse effects of smoking, with the added threat of dealing with us in the severest of manner if he caught us smoking.

I had been holding the cig between my thumb and forefinger. I don’t know why I did it, but I cupped my other three fingers around the cig and stuck my hand into the pocket of my school pants. It must have been the instinct to preserve my precious smoke and avert the impending danger to my life. We often smoked by concealing the cig in this manner while moving our hands continuously to disperse the smoke; but this was the first time I had ever attempted hiding one in my pocket. We even held the smoke in as long as possible so that there would hardly be any smoke visible when we exhaled. This had the added effect of making us light headed.

Outside of home dad was taciturn and rarely spoke to us, except for a public reprimand, a mumbled comment or greeting, or just a slight nod of acknowledgement and brief scrutiny. As dad rounded the corner I tried to maintain an innocent expression, but dad had a sixth sense that was perfectly tuned into our mischief. This time he decided to ask me about my day at school and my results in the monthly test. As dad prolonged his interrogation I felt the most excrutiating pain. My thigh and fingers were burning. I tried to maintain my composure, but this was impossible as I started squirming and hopping from foot to foot as the pain increased. When dad asked why I was behaving so strangely, I could barely reply that I was ‘bursting’ and needed to get to the toilet as soon as possible.

The ruse almost succeeded until he noticed smoke coming from the region of my thigh. The cig was burning a hole through my school pants, giving off lots of smoke with an acrid smell of burning flesh and wool cloth combined. He pulled my hand out of my pocket and instantly realized what was going on. Dad had heavy strong hands which he used vey effectively as a short hard slap to the side of my head stung me, and another slap to my to the other side of my head made my head swim, and another slap had me reeling against the wall and sliding down to my knees. Dad took the trouble to explain very succinctly that one slap was for smoking, the second for lying, and the third for ruining my pants, and that this was just a taste of what was to come that night.

After that incident I became an expert at smoking without being detected. Best or worst of all, I have a lovely round lifelong scar to remind me of the incident. Now, many years later I am a passionate advocate against smoking and regret my self-destructive behaviour in the past.