Ten Stories About Smoking by Stuart Evers Read Free Book Online Page A

shrugged.
    ‘You okay?’ John said.
    ‘I’m fine. Just a bit tired. Must be the jet lag,’ David said.
    ‘This is my stag, remember,’ John said, ‘so fuck jet lag, okay? I missed out last time and I’m shagged if I’m missing out this time, so just get a drink down your
neck and join the party. I know Richard is . . . I know okay, but he knows all the best places. I mean this is pretty cool, isn’t it?’
    David nodded, wondering what the Sunbird would have been like, and whether there was any chance of them making the helicopter tour to the Grand Canyon the following day.
    ‘Look,’ John said, ‘I really appreciate all the organization and stuff, but you’ve got to be a bit, you know, flexible. What do you think, best man?’
    David smiled and crushed out his cigarette.
    ‘I think it’s time for a drink,’ he said.
    The drinks arrived, a pink concoction this time, garnished with a hunk of pineapple. David was about to propose a toast when Richard held his drink aloft.
    ‘To the little angels,’ Chris said. ‘And the old devils!’
    David downed his drink and without a word headed for the toilets.

    Two hours later, David was quite lost. After leaving the bar, he’d bought some cigarettes and wandered off the strip, turning onto streets without any clear destination in
mind. The heat and the cigarettes reminded him of a long sultry summer when he and John had been seeing a pair of Canadian women. Marie, the one David had fallen for, was a tall, tousled-haired
girl who liked gin and tonics, painting her toenails and talking dirty. In his single bed they’d lain awake for hours, smoking and watching the sunlight’s slow dance on the walls. He
could have listened to her talk for ever, and as he walked and smoked, David wondered how and why he hadn’t.
    John was wild then. His first marriage scared him: one morning of waking and realizing that this was it, there was to be nothing else, had left him petrified. He and Helen were living in an
unfamiliar part of town in a rented flat decorated with cast-off furniture from Helen’s parents. It was oppressive, all the pieces too grand for a one-bedroom attic flat with a damp kitchen
and leaky plumbing. David liked Helen, liked her seriousness and her neat style and clipped intelligence. Her rational, logical nature was balanced by a wicked streak and a breezy sense of humour.
She was, as John would later say, far too good for the likes of them.
    He walked out on her after six months. He’d been out at some party and had taken the opportunity to get acquainted with one of the waitresses. At two in the morning he hammered on
David’s door carrying a small rucksack and bag of records. He didn’t leave for six years; years that coursed through David as he walked. He smoked and walked and wished that he was with
John; younger, leaner, having seen less of the world and of themselves.
    He threw down his cigarette and looked around him. For the last few minutes he’d been walking down deserted alleys, those alleys leading on to dusty two-way tracks blown with raggedy bits
of paper, flattened cigarette packets and crushed tin cans. He looked around and was faintly relieved to see a shop – Li’s 24-hour Liquor store – some way in the
distance.

    A series of bells pealed as he opened the door. It was cool inside and he walked the aisles with a kind of dreamy lightheadedness. The store was brightly lit and the rows of
products, comfortingly recognizable but different, Americanized, looked almost fake under the fluorescent lamps. He touched the handle on the refrigerator door, held it, then opened it. He took out
a bottle of root beer and then made his way over to a display case that held three donuts: his body clock was confused enough to believe that this was breakfast and those items the closest he could
find to such a meal.
    The man behind the counter looked up from a black and white portable television. He rang up the items and said something