There was no poetry that night and fiction was never my forte, so I guess I’m stuck somewhere in the middle. Again.
I didn’t need that cigarette as much as I needed the fresh air and the ostentatious display of packing the pack. I flipped down the grand staircase and imagined excuses for sneaking out of Casino Night early. Unlike Odysseus, I didn’t need beeswax earplugs to sneak between the sirens at the gates, directing latecomers to the blackjack tables; as a side note, their seductive powers have been greatly exaggerated by time and soft lighting. Preferring the taste of nicotine to cheap perfume, I cut, cocked and swaggered past the girls, through the doors and into the light rain. I popped open the case, extended my favorite phallic symbol and placed it to my lips, posturing masculinity with an acknowledging head tilt to my fellow lung-redecorator.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
I dug through my coat pocket in search of a light, embellishing the search with what I hoped was frantic eye contact. I pulled out my glossy lighter and pushed thumbs on the gear. A combination of the greasy hors d’oeuvres and the bad-movie mist kept my flame in check. In one fluid motion, the blonde haired blue eyed boy wonder slipped into his pocket and whipped out a lighter. He tossed it to me with a smile and a “here” but surprisingly enough the greasy hors d’oeuvres on my fingers and the B-movie atmosphere hadn’t dissipated in the previous thirty seconds. I gave what I hoped was my best coy smile with an admission of inadequacy.
“I…can’t. I’ve got grease on my fingers. Could you…?”
Success! His smile outcoys mine, as he dangles his cigarette from his lips and flips on his flame. I let my cigarette droop from my lower lip and cupped my hands around the little inferno, accidentally grazing my hand against his, marking the first flirtatious contact in over a year. I almost burnt my fingertip on his flame; in retrospect that line could be the story of my life. Sparks flew, and I took a drag. “You here for Casino Night?”
Once a year, the dorms chip in and rent a room in a nearby hotel, making with their best Las Vegas imitation; without alcohol or hookers, it amounted to something akin to a high school dance, only now spiking the punch wasn’t nearly as novel as in years prior. My building, the smallest of the bunch, had a mini-soiree before the event, resulting in all of our RAs to show up wasted out of their minds; we all knew why no one from our building won any of the door prizes.
“Bob!” Goddamnit my roommate had found me and was propping open the door with his football frame. “Bob come on, you’ve got to see what Amanda is doing!” Our RA was drunkenly serenading people from atop the blackjack table.
“Just give me a sec—” I have yet to learn this cute young lad’s name, phone number, and whether his roommate is going to be at the library for a while.
“Bob if I’m not smoking you’re not allowed to either.” He had recently given up smoking in a blatant attempt to woo a girl from the second floor. Results so far were mixed. I took another drag, pursed my lips together and blew the smoke in his general direction.
“I don’t think it works that way. Just because I look cool when I smoke and you don’t…” I took my last drag and threw the cigarette into the street, its embers leaving a rainbow tail. I rolled my eyes, bobbed my head in an attempt at a manly goodbye, and made my way back to the party.
I half worked out a metaphor for those embers falling to the curb, comparing it to my love life, but decided against it. At my age, I’m petrified of becoming a cliché, so I’m just going to let the ashes fall, and end this now before it gets too late.
