69: Bali Shag Receipt

In high school, my boyfriend rolled his own Bali Shag cigarettes because they were cheaper than a package of pre-made. He would sit in the back of classes before lunch, place the thin white rectangular paper on the desk, pinch tobacco between his thumb and index finger, pat it down, then lift the paper carefully up to his face. He rolled the bottom up first, flattened it back and forth against the tobacco, then curled the top down and sealed it with saliva. He'd put the rolled cigarette back in the package for lunch time. Once, his favorite history teacher called him aside after class and asked if he was rolling a joint in the back of the room. He took out the pack and showed the teacher it was just tobacco and was allowed to complete his daily ritual for the rest of the year. Ten years later, students aren't allowed outside for lunch, can't smoke on school property, and definitely don't roll their own cigarettes in class.

After months of watching the ritual, I rolled a cigarette for him. He said I did a great job, but he never asked me to do it again. His wide thumbs would always be colored yellow with nicotine and I could taste the tobacco in his kisses. After coughing and gagging in the kitchen at home where my mother, father, and brother all smoked, I didn't mind being around my boyfriend, even when he lit up in my car with the window up. After he went away to basic training, I stopped driving since I took the train to work and had no where else to go. My father would take the car out on the highway once in a while to keep it running. He found the filled ashtray, but left the burnt butts of the Camel Reds my boyfriend replaced the Bali Shag with after high school. My father thought maybe I was saving the crumpled filters for sentimental reasons.

I don't remember when I sent away for a can of Bali Shag, but my boyfriend must have been in Germany since cigarettes weren't allowed in basic training. I have no idea what would have possessed me to keep the receipt from the order, but it turned up again recently in my piles of mostly unimportant papers. The ashtray with already smoked cigarettes was emptied long ago, and recently my ex donated the car where he sat smoking for the first year of our relationship. With each object, however small it may be, I can feel one more thread of the cord holding us together falling away. Someday soon I know I will break away forever.