Lighten
Up with James Leavey Column/blog no.7
The
ins and outs of smoking
by
James Leavey
I was sharing an
ashtray in one of Dublin’s many smoke easies with a Dubliner cigar comrade the
other day and happened to mention a Dutch lesbian lorry driver I used to know,
one Muffy van Dyke. And what a one. And
what a pair too.
And I said how we
used to joke about a virgin boy skater named Hans Brinker who saved Holland by
climbing onto a dike and slipping his finger in its hole.
“He'd have had to
do a lot more to get me going,” said Muffy. “For a start he'd have needed a
tongue like an ant-eater.”
“I'm sorry to
shatter your erotic dreams,” I told her, “but Brinker is a fictional
character. Still, you could always ask
Amsterdam zoo if they'll lend you their resident worm-tongue for a night of
debauchery.”
“Bejaysus,
Seamus, you awful man,” said the Dubliner, a fellow dedicated nicotine
companion who, like me was at that wonderful moment in time enjoying an Arturo
Fuente Gran Reserva Churchill, which would awaken the dead at the end of the
world, but very nicely, “how did you ever get to know her?”
“We worked
together in a London pub, years ago,” I replied, after taking a long puff on my
excellent medium to full bodied Nicaraguan stick of premium tobacco, “and we
both shared the view that we wouldn't throw a beautiful woman out of bed. It didn't stop us sleeping together, of
course.”
“Did she smoke,
Seamus?”
“Only
afterwards.”
After a few more
similar pleasantries, the Dubliner and I moved on to the subject of the most
unusual place either of us had ever lit up in.
The Dubliner
admitted to enjoying a Hoyo on the roof of a hospital. “And you?” he asked.
“Well, there's a
bit of a list to choose from...maybe if I just narrow it down to Dublin...?”
“That's a good start,”
said the Dubliner. “But then Dublin always is.”
“OK then. A few years ago the BBC encouraged me to
smoke cigars in all sorts of places in Ireland's fair city, including on the
Abbey Theatre stage and in a cell in Dublin's main prison.”
“Neffer!”
“No, really. The cameraman and myself first had tea and
biscuits with the prison governor, in his office, after which he took us to an
empty cell and unlocked it.
“I looked inside
and noticed it was the secure, temporary - one hopes, home of a young male
prisoner, judging by the photos of his wife and children on the wall. But what kind of disturbed me was the lack of
an ashtray, suggesting he was a non-smoker. Plus, he couldn't open the window
to let the smoke escape, what with the bars and usual security. And I didn't
want to cause the poor man any more grief, not even from my second-hand smoke,
than he was already getting doing his porridge. So I told the governor I wasn't
sure it was the best cell for me as there was a lack of an ashtray.”
“What happened
next?”
“The governor
sent off a guard to fetch a suitable receptacle for my ashes and handed it
over. As our visiting time was running
short I agreed to go in, sit on the prisoner's bed, and ignite the Montecristo
No.2 that I just happened to have with me.”
“Did you also
happen to have a cutter, some matches and/or a lighter?”
“Is the Pope a
Catholic? So I lit the Havana and took a
few puffs for the camera. Said my bit.
Took another puff. And we were out of
there and away, unlike the poor sod whose cell I had temporarily invaded while
he was exercising in the yard with the other prisoners.”
“Did you really
feel bad about smoking in that man's cell, Seamus?”
“Oddly enough, in
the end I didn't. For I left him a
partly smoked revered Havana that would be worth a small fortune in any prison
– where an ounce of bog-standard rolling tobacco a.k.a. snout greases many
palms.”
“Thanks be to
jaysus you weren't smoking a Hamlet,” cried the Dubliner, wiping his eyes at
the very thought of such a sad act.
“There are some
lines I will never cross,” I growled. “I would never stoop that low.”
