Perhaps peer pressure, the most
powerful force in the universe, contributed to my pack-a-day habit. But
I think the greatest contributing factor to my obsession with cigarettes
is the nicotine-stained prose of J.D. Salinger.
I was 14 when I first read The
Catcher in the Rye and like every teenager who reads it, I developed
a strong bond to Holden Caulfield, the damaged, self-centered narrator
who slowly unravels before the reader's eyes. Holden denounced phonies
and hypocrites, feared his sexuality and mortality, pretended to be things
he was not, mourned his passing innocence and felt sorry for himself.
So did I.
Holden also did things I did not
do. He rebelled against adult society with impunity--there were few adults
in the novel to wash out his mouth with soap or send him to his room. For
three days, Holden made his own moral universe and I lived vicariously
through him, envying his brazen autonomy.
Holden was also a prodigious smoker.
I was not.
In addition to Catcher,
Salinger wrote a series of stories about the Glass family, which I began
reading after I finished with Holden. Not only were the members of the
Glass family smarter and more interesting than Holden, not only were they
more damaged, but each member smoked more than Holden. Just as I had identified
with Holden's angst pose, so too did I identify with the way the members
of the Glass family attempted to find spiritual and meaningful purpose
to their lives. Like Franny Glass or Buddy Glass, I was a spiritual amputee.
Unlike them, I did not smoke.
Fast-forward to my 16th year. The
year of independent mobility. One weekend I decided to play at Thoreau--I
rented a cabin near the Tennessee River, packed some clothes and my four
Salinger books. I stole a bottle of whiskey from my parents, purchased
Camel Filters from a minor-friendly convenience store. I was thus prepared
for a secluded weekend in the woods, where I intended to discover either
myself or a diversionary vice. Or, at least, a new diversionary
vice.
By 16, I had outgrown Salinger.
Like Sartre, Salinger used his stories to promote a larger philosophy.
While Sartre's philosophies were rooted in adult experiences and adult
perceptions, Salinger's were rooted in the experiences of childhood, and
I no longer desired to glean meaning from childhood--I was an adult, dammit,
and I wanted adult perceptions. Or so I thought, but as I said, I packed
books by Salinger for my weekend excursion, and not books by Sartre or
Nietzsche or even Harold Robbins. I was still imitating Holden Caulfield,
denouncing the hypocrites and failing to realize I was the biggest hypocrite
of all.
My first night in the cabin, which
was more of a free-standing Holiday Inn suite than a bucolic shelter, I
curled up in a recliner and sipped whiskey mixed with Pepsi as I thumbed
through the four volumes of Salinger's works, randomly selecting paragraphs.
And virtually every paragraph contained references to smoking. Seymour
lit a cigarette as he lounged on the beach or his wife snuffed one out
as she sat in the hotel room. Zooey soaked in the tub with a cigarette
balanced on the rim beside him. Franny recited a desperate prayer, longing
for insight into the meaning of her life and pausing only long enough to
take a drag off her smoke. Holden, alone and horny in a hotel room in New
York, hot-boxed a cigarette while thinking about prostitutes.
Smoking can be an allegory. It
is not always about peer acceptance. Smoking is public masturbation, is
connection, is admission of mortality. Smoking is as American as McDonald's
or Larry Flynt. It is a New World indulgence, healing the soul while polluting
the body, the original American sin. In Salinger, smoking is a mantra.
Salinger's works are almost as
intensely religious as The Pilgrim's Progress or the poetry of Basho.
Perhaps not so much Catcher as the Glass stories, although Holden's
unanswered question, "Where do the ducks in Central Park go for the winter?"
echoes Jesus' unanswered question, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
(And both questions, I notice now, sound like a set-up line in a vaudeville
act.) Both questions come from a desperate need to know what is beyond
mortality. But while Holden's inquiry haunts most of Catcher, there
are no such spectres in the Glass stories. Catcher is about the
Judeo-Christian soul in particular while the Glass stories deal more generally
with Eastern ideas transplanted into Western lives. The Glass stories are
not about an abstract beyond but about the universal soul, the pulse beneath
the surface of everything.
And smoking.
I finished off half the bottle
of whiskey and the words on the pages began to swirl. I thought about the
disintegration of my beliefs, which had begun when I was 13, perhaps even
sooner. I thought about the soul of the Old Testament--Holden's soul, my
soul. The American soul. Since I could no longer see the words, I dropped
the books and stumbled over to my duffel bag. I found the pack of Camels,
opened them, tapped out a cigarette.
I had forgotten a lighter so stood,
swaying, over an oven eye. The kitchen was dismally dark and I waited in
the pressing darkness with one hand on the counter to steady myself and
the Camel pressed expectantly between my lips. Gradually, like a rising
sun, the eye began to glow. I leaned forward, touched the end of the cigarette
to it. I inhaled deeply, waiting for the smoke, the connection, the transcendence,
to travel through me.
After that moment, with the heat
against my face and the whole room a surreal orange, I rushed to the sink
and threw up. Becoming a smoker required patience and dedication, a faithful
devotion. It was Sunday before I was able to complete an entire cigarette
without feeling nauseated.