Seven Red

I’ve always been fascinated by the rituals of smoking.

There’s a whole routine, for example, that goes into “grubbing cigarettes” (which includes calling it “grubbing”). Now, being a good addict with sufficient means, even in this expensive city, I manage my habit well, which means that I never run out of cigarettes. But other people do, and when they do, they will often grub a cigarette from you. Almost invariably, these are younger people and the very poor. Smokers know this, and there seems to be a ritual to handle it. Here’s how it works:

You’re walking down the street smoking a cigarette. A guy comes up to you (it’s always a guy) with a quarter, or two quarters, or a little stack of dimes, or even a dollar, and makes the initial offer: “Hey man. Can I buy a cigarette off you?” The proper response to this offer is the opposite of negotiation. You say “Keep your money,” and reach into your pocket or bag for your pack. They offer again: “No, really…” thrusting change at you. You wave it off, and hand over the cigarette. The whole thing is a feint, of course. You’re not really supposed to take the money in the first place, and the offerer knows that and you know that the offerer knows that. But it’s part of the ritual. You also, of course, offer a light, a counter-offer which, if things are working well, the other party will refuse by displaying his own lighter. One final element to the ritual: everybody looks at the status of your pack when you actually hand out the cigarette. If you pull out your pack, and you appear to be giving out your last cigarette, the offerer will make another fake good-faith gesture, indicating that he cannot take your last cigarette, it being bad form to do so. Once again, you are meant to wave off this gesture, indicating that you have another pack (true, if you’re a good addict), or that you are just then on the way to the store: “No worries. Got another pack, dude.”

The form of this ritual is essentially the same in every city and town I’ve lived in, from NYC, to Chicago, to San Francisco.

Moreover, you can’t say “no” to the offer, as a flat refusal. You have to come up with some lie, the best one being “Sorry, man. This is the last one.” The offerer nods, accepting the lie, though the offerer knows it is a lie and you know that the offerer knows. Another acceptable lie is “I just gave out three,” although this is usually only deployed at a party or in a bar (and not so much either, anymore).

Finally, there are serial violators of this form. First, you have your college-age to mid-20′s “non-smokers,” who only smoke when they drink, etc. These people are not really part of the culture, so they violate the form of this bargain consistently by never making the initial offer. They just ask, and sometimes – and this is the worst, now – they ask for multiple cigarettes during the course of a night. There’s no more distasteful question to a smoker than “Can I have another cigarette.” Even though this is a dazzling breach of etiquette, these people usually get their cigarette, but the giver will mutter some pretty nasty shit about them as they walk away to smoke it. It’s really taking advantage. The smoker must comply with the request. The smoker actually feels guilty when he or she lies about the “last one” or refuses a request. There’s a gift ethic built into the culture of smoking that compels you to hand out cigarettes to all comers. Why?

That brings us to the last group of grubbers and serial violators: teenagers. Luckily, I don’t lead the kind of life that brings me into contact with under-age teens. I don’t remember the last time I was asked for a cigarette by somebody clearly too young to have one. But it is the big ethical moment in the smoker’s life: Do I give this 14 year-old a cigarette? I’ve gotten bourgeois and proper enough to know that the answer is definitively NO, and to do the whole “Don’t start smoking” routine, but there’s still something uncomfortable about it. This goes to the structural root of the whole gift culture of smoking: everybody starts smoking as a grubber. That is, when you start smoking, you are invariably a bad addict who doesn’t manage the addiction very well. You constantly run out of cigarettes (largely because you don’t really believe you are an addict), and you are therefore constantly grubbing. And, for the most part, you get cigarettes from friends and from random adults.

This is why, I think, the whole ritual plays out as it does. Once you come to terms with your habit, and start managing it well, you are essentially indebted to all those people that supported your habit before, and you pay off that debt by handing out cigarettes to all comers. The offered payment, in this sense, is superfluous. But teenagers don’t feel this debt yet, so they don’t work the ritual. You’re supposed to say NO to the teenager, of course, even though the imaginary payment of the debt would require you to say YES, precisely because you would be replicating the conditions under which you assumed the debt in the first place, this time as the lender.

Of course, I’m using debt very loosely here: none of these are really exchange calculations. You’re “paying back” some random Joe Schmoe in Chicago for all those cigarettes Petey the Greek gave you when you were fifteen. What’s curious is that they have to cloak or disguise themselves as exchange relationships through the form of the ritual.

Addendum: Stupid Smoke Grubbing Jokes you Learn When You’re Fifteen

Grubber: Hey, man. Ya got an extra cigarette?
Grubee: Extra? Nah. They only gave me twenty in this pack.

Grubber: Ya got a smoke?
Grubee: Here ya go.
Grubber: Ya got a light, too?
Grubee: Ya want a fuckin’ lung while you’re at it?

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