CHAPTER SEVEN:
I think he must have fallen asleep with a cigarette in his mouth. I expected it to go out, but the coals in it stoked for some time after. It faded eventually, and I woke to the stewardess, confiscating his stash. When he turned toward me, his mouth smelled like ash and I tried to keep it shut for fear of it poisoning my willpower. "Shh," I told him. "Don't struggle."
"Where are we?" Puff said, after I'd made him brush his teeth. I looked over at Puffgustus who was staring out the window, and as we dipped below the cigarette-shaped clouds, I straightened my back to see Cuba.
After a pat-down from TSA, we got our bags from the terminal and cleared customs. They found most of Puff's stash during the full cavity search, but I wasn't stupid enough to think he hadn't stashed some more contraband in his fake prosthetic leg: another side effect of his addiction to tobacco.
Which is why, I strongly suspected, he hobbled a bit unevenly as we approached the idling taxi cab waiting for us at the curb.
"The Hotel Filtersoot?" I asked.
And he said, "And you are poker players?"
"Something like that," I said. The cabbie pulled into traffic and we headed toward a highway with lots of stop smoking billboards. "This is Cuba?" I asked the cabdriver.
"Yes and no," he answered. Cuba is like a ring of cigarette smoke: You get better at making it out the closer you get to the center."
It happened all at once: We exited the highway and there were the plantation houses of my imagination leaning precariously towards coffeeshops advertising LARGE SMOKING ROOM. We drove over a canal and from atop the bridge I could see dozens of tobacco plants moored along the water. Puffgustus inhaled the sweet scent of tobacco crop. I looked away, hoping to distract myself from how badly I wanted a real cigarette.
"Are these tobacco plantations very old?" asked Puffgustus.
"Many of the cigar manufacturers date back to the seventeenth century," he said. "Our city has a rich history, even though many tourists are only wanting to see the Light Up District." He paused. "Some tourists think Cuba is a city of cigars, but in truth it is a city of poker. And in poker, most people find cigars."
All the rooms in the hotel Filtersoot were named after various packs of cigarettes. I was staying in the Camel Concierge room; Puffgustus was on the floor above in the Newport Suite; a benefit of being an Old Gold Rewards member.
The Filtersoot was right next to Vaperpark. Cuba's most famous Smokitorium. Puffgustus wanted to go immediately, but on the way up, a tobacco vender made him an offer he couldn't refuse. After waiting for him for an hour, I took the elevator upstairs.
"Hello?" I said through the door, when I'd found his room. There was no peephole at the Hotel Filtersoot.
"What's the password?" Puffgustus answered. I could hear the cigarette in his mouth.
I pulled the door open, one hand on my hip. Puffgustus wore a smoldering charcoal suit. A cigarette dangled from the unsmiling corner of his mouth. "Give it."
"Give what?" Puffgustus said, trying to hide it behind him.
"The cigarette," I demanded.
"Ah, this old thing?"
"Now."
Puffgustus sulked the whole tram ride. We rode the tram for three cigarette brakes, me leaning over Puff so I could inhale the scent of Cuban air.
Puffgustus pointed up at the trees and asked, "Do you see that?"
I did. There were tobacco plants everywhere along the canals, and we caught the scent of them as the breeze blew through them.
Puffgustus didn't say anything more the rest of the trip, and when the tram finally stopped, we walked to a nearby coffeehouse. After Puffgustus had stuffed himself on the complementary cigars Smoker Van Hookah had sent to our table, we walked along the canal as it got dark. The only light visible was the burning end of Puff's cigar. Though, I could see a halo of smoke coming from the Light Up District.
"I can't believe Smoker Van Hookah is going to tell us tomorrow," I said. "I just need to know if Ash's mom gets married to the Dutch Tobacco Man."
"Don't forget Sniffstuff the Hamster," Puffgustus added.
"So what's your guess?" he asked.
"I really don't know. I've gone back and forth like a thousand smoke breaks about it all. Each time I inhale, I think something different, you know?" He nodded. "You have a theory?
"Yeah. I don't think the Dutch Tobacco Man is a cop, but he's also not as rich in tobacco as he leads them to believe. And I think Ashtray gets arrested, her mom goes to Cuba with him and thinks they'll smoke forever, but it doesn't work out, because cancer runs in their family and he's not even a real Scorpio."
I hadn't realized he'd thought about the book so much, that An Imperial Addiction mattered to Puff independently of his love for cigarettes.
"Can I ask you about Nicorette?" I asked, after building up the courage.
"What do you want to know?"
"Just, like, what happened. Why it didn't work out?"
Puffgustus sighed, inhaling his cigarette for so long it almost seemed like bragging. He popped a fresh cigarette in his mouth. "The thing about cigarettes," he said, stopping to inhale again. "The thing is you sound like a bastard if you romanticize them, but the truth is… complicated, I guess. Like you are familiar with the stereotype of the stoic and determined quitter who heroically fights their withdraws with inhuman strength and never complains about only smoking vapes. But Nicorette, made me feel like for the first time I could stop. That there was a way out for me."
"So what happened?"
"It started with a patch, led to two. Then three. Before I knew it, I was slapping squares on my skin like Girl Scout badges. When I was without them, I was always moody and miserable, but I liked it. I liked feeling as though I could beat the addiction. That there was some part of it that was working. That there was a way out for me that didn't end in cancer, you know?"
I knew.
"You know that part in An Imperial Addiction when Ashtray's walking across the street to the convenience store and she falls and goes face-first into a eighteen wheeler and that's when she knows the Osteoporosis is back?"
I wasn't sure you could beat Osteoporosis but I didn't interrupt.
"So afterward, while I was being casually eviscerated by the series finale of Breaking Bad, for some reason I decided to feel really hopeful. Not about quitting specifically, but cutting back. But meanwhile, my addiction for Nicotine got worse every day. I went home after a while and there were moments where I thought I could have, like, less of them or something, but I couldn't. It just wasn't the same. Because the patches had no filters, no ash, no smoke. The feelings of withdraw began to creep back inside my lungs, crawling under, taunting me, mocking me, filling up the space in my lungs the way I wished a cigarette would. Eventually, I couldn't hold out anymore. I pulled out a cigarette at my sister's birthday party and made a nosedive for the birthday candles. That was the day I knew there's no middle ground for me, Hazy. If I don't quit, I'll die. So I might as well make my choice."
"I hope one day you'll make the right choice."
"Me too, Hazy Vapes," he said. "Me too."
"Need a light?" I asked him as he pulled out another cigarette.
"Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazy Vapes. it would be a privilege to have my cigarette lighted by you."
