I was fourteen when I took my first smoke. It was the summer and I had a job— of sorts— working at the funfair. There were a few of us— me, Rob, and Johnny. What we did was go around all the carnival games every now and then and ‘win’ so people thought they had a chance.
The work wasn’t strenuous and mostly we just got to spend all day running around a funfair and causing trouble and getting paid for it. And then there was Georgie. She was an older girl, sixteen or so. Georgie worked the House of Mirrors and wore cool clothes and sometimes smoked. We were all in love with her, of course.
One afternoon in late June or early July we found ourselves hanging out behind the small and run down House of Mirrors. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, at least not on my part... after an hour or so Georgie suddenly appeared out of a hidden door. A slim cigarette hung from her bored, insolent mouth. Our presence didn't startle her. She looked annoyed more than anything, before breaking out into a cruel smile. She sat down with us and asked if we smoke. We all lied and said yes. She called our bluff and offered us each a cigarette. Rob and Johnny ran away. I accepted. Georgie laughed. She lit both and I coughed and she laughed some more.
But I kept going back, and sooner or later I stopped coughing and got to being something of a professional. Georgie and I became friends that summer, if nothing else.
I think about that summer a lot, sometimes with fondness but usually with regret. I'm sixty-three now. I'm about to take my last smoke, if I haven’t already.
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