The dealbreaker

So today I was minding my own business and reading the notice boards to try and scope out potential accommodation. I had just lit up a Djarum and had turned to look at the ads when out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone who had been just about to turn the corner do a double take and head towards me.

"Hi, sorry, could I bum a cigarette?"

My good upbringing warred with my innate selfishness. Djarum, as far as I can tell, is not available in Perth. Even miserly hoarding and careful rationing of my precious clove ciggies will not ensure that they last me the next few months before I can return home to cross the border and get more. But at the same time, the odd camaraderie which exists between smokers demanded that I share my fags.

Then he says the magic words: "It's been years since I've had one."

Once, while out with Topher for Mortinis, someone came up to me, and with the most charmingly sheepish expression, told me that he had been smelling my Djarum smoke for the last hour, and it was driving him crazy because he used to work in Indonesia and now he couldn't get hold of them and he would be so grateful if he could just get one from me? I took a look at his eager, hopeful face, like a kid on Christmas morning before he looks into his stocking, and I couldn't say no. He got his cigarette, beaming, and I felt like a Very Good Person, even if Topher teased me for it.

Similarly here, I thought perhaps that he was an aficionado and hence, deserving of the Djarum. Finally, with grudging resignation, I offer him one, cautioning him that they are not available here. He thanks me, and lights up.

And starts talking.

And talking.

I think he's just being friendly at first, so I'm friendly too (see? Slinky can be nice). But he talks incessantly. I find out all about his son (7 years old, has dyspraxia and blue eyes), his ex-wife (blonde, Estonian, insane), his mother (dead), his life (dropped out of uni, traveled, bummed, coming back) and his apartment (in Freo, 5 minutes from Coles).

And all the while, the Djarum is getting shorter, burning and sending its fragrant, clove-laced smoke swirling into the air in a heady fretwork of tobacco and spice.

And he's not smoking it.

I'm nodding and smiling and making one-line responses, but my eyes keep getting drawn back to my precious Djarum, crackling and sizzling into grey ash and smoke like the world's smallest most beautiful flare, a distress signal that it was not loved, not appreciated.

"And so I gave my ex-wife my house and I moved, so she could be near the kids, you know?"
"Uh huh." (you're not smoking it!)
"Because, I mean, it's his life too, so even if it's not my family, it's still his, you know?"
"Uh huh." (Respect the Djarum!)
"He's such a great kid though, I mean, if you met him, you'd be "Oh, what a gorgeous little boy!""
"Mm-hmmm” (I doubt that, I hate kids, for god's sakes stop yakking and SMOKE IT!!)
"And he's so smart! And I think that his speech impediment has really made him more sensitive, you know?"
"Sure." (shutupshutupshutupshutup)
"And I mean, I really want to provide for him, and that's why we moved to the apartment."
"Oh, if that's the case, then why are you reading the notice boards?"
"Oh, nah, I just came to talk to you." *cue charming smile*
*Gobsmacked silence* (SOYOUDIDN'TWANTTODJARUM??????)

I'll bet all the remaining Djarums I have that his little nicotine-starved brain went kaching! when he said that.

I'll bet he thought he was real suave and totally smooth and he thought that my silence was me being coy.

He failed to see the sudden convulsive moment which was my evil left hand trying not to CHOKE HIM TO DEATH so that I could pluck the last half of the Djarum which had been lost for NOTHING from his still-twitching dying fingers and place it tenderly where it belonged i.e. between my lips.

The external Slinky acted like nothing was wrong. The internal Slinky, the part which had been honed by years of reading Stephen King, watching horrible war movies in which horrendous experiments were carried out on concentration camp prisoners and who was weaned on a diet of sword and sorcery dearly wishes to manifest her leather-clad, whip and sword-wielding bitch assassin queen to cut him down like the Djarum-stealing, clove-wasting dog that he was.

I tried to shake him by reading the bulletin boards but he wouldn't go away and I was too well-mannered to tell him to fuck off. Punkass.

I was eventually saved by some Sri Lankan boy who was also reading the notice boards.

"Do you smoke?" I asked him.
"No!" he said.
"Brilliant!"

I didn't say a word more to the evil Djarum waster and took off with the nice non-smoking Sri Lankan for the City, leaving him to eat my Slinky dust.

You don't fuck with the Djarum. Sharing them is the ultimate sacrifice. I know that The Boy loves me dearly because he will give me, without hesitation, the last Djarum of the pack. And you know that amongst smokers, the last cigarette of the pack is sacred. I share my Djarums with a limited few, as a sign of my deep love and affection. I will give them to the needy, those who have not known the exquisite, magical taste of Djarum for far too long and yearn for their irreplaceable taste.

But you fuck with it and you are never getting another one again.