or not to Clinton St. Quarterly— Fall, 1988 Filched from If You Love Somebody Who Smokes—Confessions of a Nicotine Addict, which chronicles the arrival of the Maya’s “precious weed” to the Old World & its the first enthusiasts Sc prohibitionists; a compleat examination of advertising pioneers’ exemplar success at linking cigarettes, freedom Sc glamour; tobacco’s signal roles on the silver screen, at the front & between the sheets; j modern neurosis, fantasies Sc one woman’s habit, in all its pain Sc glory. was my second cigarette that hooked me. If there is a special room in hell for all the people who got other people hooked on smoking cigarettes, that is where Nancy Henderson will end up. She was three years older than the rest of us on the block, but only a year ahead in school. Her mother was divorced and worked all day. Nancy got to do whatever she wanted and what she wanted to do was eat a lot of Oreo cookies and smoke Salem cigarettes. One Friday I stayed overnight at her house. We were in her double bed watching TV, drinking Dr. Peppers and munching Oreo cookies (stacked a foot high on her side of the bed). When she whipped the Salems from her purse and slipped the matches out from between the cellophane and the package, I was shocked. Her mother was home! I could hear her mother’s TV—The Hit Parade— through the wall separating the two bedrooms. MOKE By Cynthia Morgan Illustration by Tim Braun
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