Armando Siahaan

Piece of Mind: Simply Dying to Have a Cigarette? The Reasons I Never Will Be

A pack of Marlboro Lights and a Bic lighter were before me. I took a cigarette out, lit it and inhaled deeply.

First puff, I didn’t cough, but felt the smoke burning my throat and invading my chest. Second puff, I bore the smell stoically, but the thought of dying of lung cancer led to an urge to vomit. On my third puff, I felt lightheaded, closed my eyes, and began to ponder why I detested this addiction.

Lung cancer, bad breath, yellow teeth, pollution — and the list goes on. These things of course affect my stance against smoking. But I mostly blame, or thank, my childhood memories.

I was only 5 when I had my first flirtation with a cigarette. My chain-smoking mom sucked on her Djarum clove cigarettes everywhere — even at churches and hospitals.

“What’s so good about it?” I wondered and, one day, my curiosity won out.

I furtively dug in her black leather bag, stole a ciggy and went to the bathroom.

Seated on the toilet, I held my loot with pride, only to realize I had forgotten to bring a lighter. It was too dangerous to go back out again so I made do with what I had.

I clamped the cigarette between my innocent index and middle fingers, put it to my mouth and pretended I was 25 years older. As my tongue touched the filter, I realized it tasted sweet and started licking it like a lollipop. “This is even greater than I expected,” I thought.

I never lit one of my purloined prizes, but continued with furtive filter-licking sessions. For months, these were my secret moments of joy.

That is, of course, until my mom caught me and went berserk. As a punitive measure, she twisted my ear so hard. It was as if I had killed the Pope.

My first encounter with cigarettes was thus marked by parental hypocrisy. If you don’t want your children to smoke, don’t smoke in front of them.

My next smoking experience came in second grade. Two of my older cousins were staying at my house during a summer break. They were middle school students entering puberty and their experimental stage.

When my parents went to bed, my cousins would immediately grab an R-rated laser disc and skip straight to the sex scenes, while puffing away on menthol cigarettes. Watching Hollywood stars fornicating didn’t interest me. Instead, my eagle eyes zoomed in on the menthols. Quite bizarrely, even before I asked, my cousins offered me one.

This time, my cigarette came with a lighter and all the inaugural musts. The rookie cough, the burning throat, the lightheadedness and, of course, the inimitable feeling of “I am super cool!”

We smoked the whole summer. Wherever we went, we would find a safe place to puff nonchalantly. We were an underground brotherhood of smokers.

One night, though, my oldest sister joined my cousins for the clandestine movie session — a horror flick this time. I was banished to my room, but snuck two cigarettes before they locked me in.

As I inhaled my second menthol, one of my cousins knocked on my door. Again, hypocrisy played its part. He went straight to my oldest sister and tattled on me.

She came to my room and gave me “the look.” Even before she said a word, I cried a river. Whatever excitement and joy I had from smoking was ultimately killed the day I was betrayed by the person who had taught me how.

The finale of my story occurred during my high school years. By then, everyone else in my family was a one-pack-a-day smoker, but neither of my siblings had confessed their habit to our dad. As I lived in the same room as my brother, it was our room he smoked in to be safe.

I had to go to school with my uniform, bookbag and even textbooks smelling like an ashtray. Even my dad’s Jean Paul Gaultier perfume wasn’t strong enough to kill the odor.

He was my brother and I didn’t rat on him. I found ways I could go to school looking good without having to expose his wrongdoing.

But the lowest point came when I was summoned by my mom and dad after they found my bookbag in the kitchen. “Have you been smoking?” they asked. “No,” I said. “Don’t lie!”

I silently said to myself: “Are you kidding me? I don’t smoke. In fact, I hate it. You guys smoke, and so do the rest of the family, but you’re too blinded by smoke to see. Even if I did smoke, it would be because I learned it from the supposed role models in my family.”

In reality, I only said no and pleaded for them to trust me. That was the day when I declared smoking my biggest enemy.

Happy World No Tobacco Day!

Armando Siahaan is a features reporter with the Jakarta Globe.

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