CHAPTER TEN:

The terms of Puffgustus's release was that he go through a treatment program for smoking addiction.

"They're making us do this assignment where we get our loved ones to write a fake eulogy. It's an exercise in visualizing our future if we continue to smoke cigarettes," Puffgustus told me and Eyesquit. "Think of it as a funeral for my smoking days."

"Very well, I'll go first," Eyesquit said.

Eyesquit cleared his throat. "Puffgustus was an out-of-shape chainsmoker. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had lungs as black as tar, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any smoker in history, or because he got eighteen years of cigarettes when he should've gotten more."

"Seventeen," Puff corrected. "I'm seventeen."

"I see," Eyesquit whispered. "And how long have you been seventeen?"

"A while."

"Sick, pretentious, addicted to cigarettes. I know what you are."

"Say it. Out loud."

"Dancing queen," Puffgustus whispered.

Eyesquit nodded, suspecting as much, and continued. "Puffgustus smoked so much that he'd give you second hand smoke at his own funeral. And he was addicted: I do not believe I have met a more physically derelict, disheveled and decrepit person who was more acutely aware of tobacco on a cellular level than him. But I will say this: When the tobacco farmers of the future show up at my house with cigars and try to sell them to me, I will tell those tobacco farmers to butt out, because I don't want to smoke in a world where Puffgustus can't have cigarettes."

I was beginning to get choked up, mostly because Puffgustus was smoking a cigarette right in front of me. I swiped it from his hand and took a big drag from it, placing it on the podium, making smoke rings as I exhaled. "My name is Hazy Vapes," I said. "Puffgustus was the great chainsmoker of my life. His love for tobacco rivaled no other love for cigarettes I have ever seen which burned brighter than the coals of a thousand stogies."

I took a deep breath, inhaled more smoke, and continued. "Some smoke breaks are bigger than other smoke breaks. A writer we used to smoke with taught us that. There are days, many of them, I resent the size of my carton. I want more cigarettes than I'm likely to get, and God, I wanted more cigarettes for Puffgustus than he got. But, Puff, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little smoke breaks. I wouldn't trade it for menthols. You gave me cigarettes within the numbered days, and I'm grateful."

Puffgustus escaped the next day after his fake funeral.

He was with his mom and dad and cigarettes restrained to his hospital bed as the hospital staff tried to pry them from his cold, clammy hands. His mom called me at four twenty in the morning. I'd suspected, of course, that he was going to make a break for it. His withdraw had been getting worse with each passing hour, and from what evidence he'd left behind, he'd been planning it for some time. I'd talked to his dad before going to bed and he told me, "It could be tonight. He has that look in his eye. Like a caged, nicotine-addicted animal." But still, when I grabbed the phone from my bedside ashtray and saw Puff's mom on the caller ID, everything fell into place. Puff had fled. I had just known.

The cops came in then, looking expectant, as though I had any idea where he would have gone. They took me in for questioning and called Eyesquit down to the police station to give an eye witness statement. Although, I didn't much see the point.

When I went to the interrogation room, one of the first things they asked me was if I was holding any illegal cigarettes. As a minor, I'd been asked this question hundreds of times over the years, mostly by gas station clerks. I imagined Puffgustus in that interrogation room. He would have hated it. He wouldn't have lasted five minutes. Not even five cigarettes.

The questioning was unbearable. The whole thing. Every second without my cigarettes worse than the last. I just kept thinking about smoking them, wondering what would happen if I took one right out of my pocket, if the policemen would see. If my parents would put me in rehab too.

After it was over, the cops uncuffed me. When I walked out of the police station, I was surprised to see Smoker Van Hookah. He walked up to me, sliding a fat cigar into my pocket with a wink and said, "Need a ride?" I shrugged, and got in his car, twisting my cigar into the burner as he sped away.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry your friend was so upset. We corresponded a bit in his last email and—"

"Wait, you've heard from him?"

"Yes," Van Hookah told me. "I received a lengthy message from Puffgustus last evening detailing his troubles. I also thought he might want this," he said, handing me a box of nicotine patches as the car slowed in front of a curb and I got out of the car. "I have no use for them anymore. Even if I wanted to quit, my profession almost guarantees I will develop complications from secondhand smoke. It would be foolish to double down on that statistic. Since he isn't here, I suppose you can have them."

"Sir," I said, not knowing what to say. I took the box, looking down at the gifted cigars. "Sir, I can't possibly accept this—"

But when I turned around, he was smoke in the wind.

When I got home, Mom and Dad were at the dining room table waiting for me. "What's that in your hand?" my mom asked. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Cigars," I said. "I'm just going to smoke for a minute."

"Smoking's bad for you, Hazy."

"But Mom, I need a cigar." I took a step toward the sliding glass door but she cut me off before I could even reach for my lighter.

"Hazy, you have to stop smoking. Just put the cigars down. Lets talk about thi—"

"I don't need this," I said. "I'm going to the tobacco store."

"No," Mom said. "You're not." I glanced at my dad, who shrugged.

"It's my death," I said. "And I choose to go out with a cigarette in my mouth."

"You're not going to smoke yourself to death just because Puffgustus ran away. You're going to quit. You're going to get better."

I was really pissed off for some reason. "I can't quit, Mom. I can't. Okay?"

I tried to push past her but she grabbed both my cigars and said, "Hazy, you're quitting smoking. You need to stay healthy."

"NO!" I shouted. "I won't quit smoking, and I can't stay healthy, because I'm addicted to cigarettes. I'm addicted, Mom. I am going to die with a cigarette in my mouth and none of you can stop me!"

"Is that what you're going to do? Run off and become some miserable Cuban cigar smoker who sucks at poker? Is that what you're going to do with your life?"

"VAN HOOKAH!" I shouted. "Of course!"

I ran up to my room and searched for my laptop, smearing the ash from the keyboard. I immediately began composing an email.

Lighterfluid,

I believe Puffgustus sent an email to Van Hookah shortly before he ran away from rehab and the cops now have reason to suspect now he may be headed to Cuba. They believe I may have aided him in his escape and it may be the only form of an alibi I have to prove my innocence. It is very important I read it. Can you help?

—Hazy Vapes

She responded late that afternoon.

Dear Hazy,

I did not know that Puffgustus had fled the country. I am very sad to hear this news. I have spoken to Van Hookah and I will search for his email and forward the link.

—Lighterfluid

I wondered why he'd written Van Hookah from rehab. Had he asked him to write a new sequel to An Imperial Addiction? To help him escape? For more cigars? It made sense, Puff leveraging is misery for Van Hookah's sympathy.

I refreshed my email continuously that night and smoked for a few hours, but as of morning, nothing had arrived. Finally, after my third cigarette, Lighterfluid wrote me back just after four twenty P.M. while I was on the couch with a cigarette in one hand and a cigars in the other. My phone vibrated from my ashtray and scrambled to my nightstand and scooped it up from the crystal bowl. Dusting the soot off my phone, I clicked open the email.

Van Hookah,

I'm a good smoker but a shitty quitter. You're a shitty quitter but a good smoker. You also suck at poker. We'd make a good team. I don't want to ask you any favors, but if you have time, I would like you to take me off your mailing list. Though, you have the sickest cigar hookup I've ever come across, I must humbly decline your thoughtfully rolled gesture.

Here's the thing about Hazy: Almost everyone is obsessed with smoking. Breathing in cigarette ash. Lighting up cigars. Toking. Vaping. At some point in our lives we all think about starting up again. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, the thought of being another statistic, another casualty in the war against tobacco; a drug that kills six million people every year that we know of.

I want to stop smoking, so it is with great gratitude I must return your thoughtful gift. While I am appreciative, my doctors have also informed me that, for health reasons, I am not to travel to Cuba again as it holds too much temptation for me: The brands Cubans smoke are too often cigars.

Forgive me. I'm not making much sense. It has been three days since the cops took my fake ID and I haven't smoked a cigarette since. My thoughts are cigarettes I cannot buy at the convenience store.

My point is, Hazy Vapes is different. She has the willpower, the drive to quit, and I think one day she might actually do it. There was a time I thought I could walk away from the cigarettes on my own, that I didn't need rehab to stay clean, but now I know what Hazy knows: We're less likely to stop smoking than we are to stop breathing, and if we keep it up, we're likely to do both.

People will say it's sad she stopped smoking again, that she'll dodge lung cancer and bad teeth and osteoporosis but miss the euphoria of inhaling that first drag, of feeling alive. But the real heroes aren't the people smoking things; the real heroes are the people trying to QUIT because it's the hardest thing in the world to do.

After I escaped from rehab, I found my last pack of cigarettes. I held them close to me and tried to imagine a world without them. I couldn't. After three days of rehab, I thought I was strong enough to stop on my own, but I know I need help. I know I have to go back. With great sorrow, I must return your box of cigars. I know you'll take care of them, that you'll savor them the way only a Cuban poker player can. The way Hazy and I can't. The fault was not in your cigars, Van Hookah, it was in us.

What else? They are so addicting. You never get tired of smoking them. You never worry if they're bad for you: You know what they are, what they do to you, and you just don't care. I love them, Van Hookah, but I know smoking them will kill me so I am leaving them in your capable hands. You don't choose if you get cancer in this world, old man, but you do have some say in what pack ups your chances. I like my chances. I hope Hazy likes hers.

I do, Puffgustus.

I do.