Ten Stories About Smoking by Stuart Evers Page A

Brooklyn apartment. Everything was fine until O’Neil decided to give up smoking. It was a snap decision, taken after he’d watched a television programme about an old man who’d had
to have his leg amputated because of the cigarettes. O’Neil had explained his reasons and given me some unpleasant facts about what smoking does to the arteries. He asked me if I’d quit
at the same time as a gesture of solidarity. I refused. I told him that I’d try to be as considerate as I could when I was at home, though.
    He’d gone cold turkey: no patches, no gum, just willpower. He’d done well, but his moods were even more erratic than normal. That morning he’d been smoke-free for two months.
It was a Sunday and we were watching The Rockford Files and drinking coffee. He was unusually quiet and when I asked him if anything was wrong, he just grunted and pointed towards the
television. I didn’t say anything. Our friendship understood the importance of keeping quiet.
    It was hot in the apartment; hot and dusky. We had a blackout screen covering the window to stop the sun shining directly into the room. Our place wasn’t too big, just about large enough
for the brown corduroy sofa we’d bought second-hand, a television set, stereo, coffee table and two bookshelves. We kept it clean and tidy – O’Neil had a crippling fear of rodent
infestation – and illuminated it with low-wattage lamps. There were dun-coloured rugs covering the floorboards and above the television was a poster of Warhol’s Gold Marilyn .
O’Neil had taken an instant dislike to the picture when I’d put it up and asked me to take it down. We played paper-scissor-stone for it. Paper wraps stone, so Marilyn stayed where she
was.
    The Rockford Files finished and as I flipped through the channels O’Neil tapped me on the arm.
    ‘Rob,’ he said. ‘Can I ask you something?’
    I nodded and kept my eye on the television.
    ‘Do you think I need to lose weight?’
    I paused and put down the remote control. I looked at his apple cheeks, his chest and gut, his ham-hock legs.
    ‘Of course not,’ I said and threw a cushion at him. He screwed up his face, almost as though I’d caught him unawares. But he looked downcast. My smile, so quickly reached for,
slackened. I felt something shift in the room, like the blocked-out sun had passed behind a cloud.
    ‘Jesus, are you serious?’ I said. ‘I mean—’
    ‘Of course I’m serious,’ he cut in. ‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t serious, would I?’
    I finished my coffee and stubbed out my cigarette. It joined the others: an orange question mark in an INY ashtray. There was sweat gathering at O’Neil’s brow.
    ‘Come on, Rob. It’s a simple question. Do I need to shed some pounds or what?’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course you don’t.’
    Realistically he could have dropped three stone and still have been overweight. But since we’d been friends I’d never known him to have a problem with how he looked. Other big people
were conscious of their weight, the rolls that would appear when seated. Not O’Neil. He constantly drew attention to his body, rubbing his belly as though petting a kitten, pulling at his
jowls, and massaging his wattle. His body language, his movements, his very essence was defined by this hulking, jellied frame.
    ‘Seriously?’ he said. It was difficult to tell whether he was relieved. I could hear his breath over the television.
    ‘Seriously,’ I said and leant back into the couch.
    He shook his head: ‘You fucking liar.’
    With a bit of effort, O’Neil got up from the sofa. He shucked off his Batman T-shirt to reveal a pair of scantily haired breasts, two bloated nipples, and a perfectly round, pendulous
belly.
    ‘You think I don’t know?’ he said. ‘You think I can’t see?’ He held the T-shirt in his hand like a burning flag. I turned away.
    ‘Rob, look at me,’ he said and slapped his stomach, the fat rippling, his pectorals giggling in its wake.
    I