A First Time For Everything...
Chapter one of
By Jack Riepe
Copyright ©2000
I’ll never forget the first advice that anyone ever gave me. I was four years old when the patron saint of Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed, bounced me on his knee and said, “Jack, the paths of great men and great cigars are forever entwined.” He also said something about graft and elective office sharing a similar relationship but his exact words have been lost in shadows of my memory. I do recall that a ring of truth reverberated through all of the man’s statements, however.
And looking back at all of the people who rate a colored tile in the men’s- room mosaic of my life, the most influential were avid cigar smokers. One of these folks was my grandfather, whose first gift to me was a cigar cutter. Actually, it was an anonymous gift as he was unaware that the article was in my possession. An inquisitive and gifted toddler, I found the cigar cutter hidden among Pop’s personal effects. I was attracted to the gleam of its razor-sharp blade and its peculiar sliding action. Not many things will fit perfectly into the round opening of a cigar cutter, but a cat’s tail is one of them. And after the deed was done, neither Fluffy nor I could sit down for a week.
My third-grade teacher was another dedicated cigar smoker who bent the growth curve of my youth. Sister Helen Brimstone was one of the world’s largest living mammals, fully capable of bench-pressing a Volkswagen Beetle. I actually witnessed this phenomenon one afternoon, as she casually tossed a parked VW aside in the act of administering justice to some hapless young scholar cowering on the other side. Sister Helen was fond of maduro robustos and would smoke two, simultaneously, out of opposite corners of her mouth. The mysteries of simple multiplication and division took on an entirely new dimension when presented by a hooded and cloaked cape buffalo — spouting fire from each tusk. We learned math and also to never apply the flame of a match directly to a good cigar.
(Years later, I returned to my grammar school and inquired after Sister Helen. I was shocked to learn the truth: that she was actually a rather diminutive person, barely five feet tall. In fact, she had been operating a compact, tracked, paramilitary vehicle under her habit all this time; and she always bit the ends off her cigars despite the fancy match-work when lighting up.)
Every man (and woman) I know can easily recall the most important moments in their lives: Their first French kiss... Their first ride on a motorcycle... Their first introduction to sex... Their first tattoo... And their first cigar. These memories come easily to me, because they all happened on the same evening. I was always a shy kid, the kind of kid old people would call a late bloomer. Actually, I was more of a petrified bloomer and came to represent a tableau of adolescent anticipation frozen in reverse. Prom night was looming on the occasion of this story and I was determined to find a date.
All of the usual means had failed to produce a likely candidate. I asked 16,453 women if they wanted to accompany me to the prom and all of them planned to wash their hair at the same time that night. (Even then, I knew this had to represent some sort of a statistical impossibility. There wasn’t even that much water in our part of the country that year.) Desperate in the extreme, I confided my growing humiliation to Willy “The Rooster” Lombatti. Every high school has a hustler and Willy was ours. They called him “The Rooster” because there wasn’t anything he couldn’t produce with a little scratch.
Willy took my case pro-bono, owing to a previous circumstance, when I let him hide in my locker to avoid being killed by several angry oregano purchasers. They had purchased the oregano unintentionally and suffered the cash loss in poor grace.
“It’s all taken care of,” said Willy. “She’ll pick you up at eight.”
“Wow!” I said. “What’s her name?”
“Michele,” said Willy. “Her name is ‘Chele.”
“Just ‘Chele?” I asked. “Does she have a last name?”
“Yeah. Deadly Nightshade.”
“Her name is Michele Deadly Nightshade?” I asked. “Is that hyphenated?”
“Are you kidding?” laughed Willy. “She gave up her hyphen years ago.”
“Does she like to dance?” I asked, beginning to understand the frustration of the oregano crowd.
“Dance schmance,” said Willy. “She’s breathing. She’s got her own wheels. And she’s willing to go out with you for one night.”
He had a point. It’s hard to beat a perfect score.
Prior dealings with Willy led me to believe it would be best to meet my date at the curb. At the stroke of eight, the suburban tranquillity of our little side-street was shattered by the staccato roar of a hardtail Harley's straight pipes. Every eye on the block was riveted to the rider, a devastating little brunette who was poured into the tightest jeans I’d ever seen, and who seemed to spill out of the smallest blouse ever to barely conceal a tawny-port tan.
My jaw dropped along with the flowers I’d been holding. When the bike slid to a stop, Its front wheel was resting on the daisies and carnations.
“Are you the prom queen?” Deadly Nightshade asked.
I nodded.
“On the back, Jack.”
“What if I fall off?” I stammered, looking at the tiny fender patch seat.
“Then it wasn’t meant to be,” she said. The bike roared and we were gone.
We went to the prom just long enough for me to be seen and for Deadly Nightshade to pop a wheelie on the dance floor. (This was apparently her prom night fantasy.) We roared off into the hills as the police arrived.
“This is it,” said Deadly Nightshade, killing the motor. We’d stopped in the back recesses of a park about two miles from my house. “You know the way from here.”
“Gee,” I said. “I didn’t even get the chance to get you a Coke or anything.”
“Thirsty?” She reached down and pulled a flask out from under the bike’s tear-drop tank. “Suck on this.”
It was my first hit of sour mash.
I sat down on the damp grass and watched her in the moonlight. She found a cigar from someplace on the bike and put it between her lips.
“You really oughta take the plastic off that,” I volunteered.
She did. She held the cigar in her lips and peeled the plastic back with her tongue. I took a long hit of the sour mash. The cigar smoke... The moonlight... The whiskey... And the raw energy of the Harley were working their magic.
“What do you know about cigars?” she asked.
I stood up and drained the last of the liquor. I tossed my white dinner jacket (the lapels were covered with dead bugs) in the grass. I tied my cummerbund around my forehead and tore the sleeves from my ruffled shirt.
“I know plenty,” I said. “I know that nuns should never bite the ends off their cigars. That 6642 divided by 246 equals 27. And that women who drive dangerous machinery should never put a match directly to the end of a good cigar.”
“Wow!” Deadly Nightshade replied, biting her lower lip with unexpected anticipation. “What else do you know?”
“C’mere. I’ll show you.”
I held her face in my hands, brought my lips close to hers and said, “I know that the paths of great men and great cigars are forever entwined.”
“Oh,” she sighed.
That first kiss lasted an hour. The rest of that night is the essence of reverie. In the morning she gave me a hickey. (I had it removed by a plastic surgeon and I carry it around in my wallet to this day.) I gave her something too.
“Is this a rabbit’s foot?” she asked.
“No, it’s a cat’s tail,” I replied. “It brings me luck.”
Chapter 21
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