“Why the hell should I? I already breathe smoke.”

He believed me. Or he believed the cancer hissing in my voice, the coffee rotting in my gut. He took the cigar back, and continued as he lit up. “More for me”, he said, and put his heart into his laugh. He puffed blue smoke. “So what other vices have you?”

You never own vices. The tobacco, the caffeine, the ethanol; they don’t know you by name, but as one big mass, sucking away at their many nipples. It mothers you. You belong to IT.

He took my silence for reluctance, not reflection. “C’mon, boyo, no time to be shy. Here.” I can’t tell you where the whiskey came from, only that it was in his hand. I have never drank in my entire life. Smoked, never drank. Went thirty years with the excuse “Least I don’t drink”, as if it’d excuse me puffing away.

I traded one lesser evil in for another when I took that flask, had a swig, and felt fire in my throat again.

The flask went back and forth, and we never said a thing throughout.

Best conversation I ever had.