Djarum Blacks (For Workshop)

So I wrote all of the "pieces" below (in time that will become a more comfortable word to me; right now it feels oddly pretentious?) during the first month of my Writing Creative Nonfiction class at Boise State. My professor, Christian Winn, suggested that of them he would like to see the Djarum Blacks one expanded on the most... he wanted it to be more narrative, essentially, wanted me to show him what my friends were like and more of what I was seeing and smelling, etc. Pull you into it more. He's totally right, and that whole sentence about christmas in the last iteration was definitely the product of a lack of interest in the way I was taking it.
I prefer this take by far, although I am under the impression we'll be given advice on how to make it even better. Which will be exciting!
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Djarum Blacks
Exiting an elevator has come to be a point of relief for me, as I can’t help feeling put on the spot during the forced meetings that take place within. Exhaling slowly as the mirrored doors open, I sit back to let everyone else leave first, then light a Camel Menthol cigarette just before pushing through the double doors leading outside my Freshman dorm building. Immediately at my side is an acquaintance from the dorms, pinching between thumb and forefinger a black clove, smoked probably only as a matter of distinguishment. The cigarettes themselves spark brightly as one drags on them, then leave the tongue feeling strangely numb, causing me to find it difficult to take anyone who smokes them seriously. Their scent is intrusive and unique in a different way, paradoxically reminiscent of gingerbread, undeniably delicious, and for myself always nostalgic. Instead of joining my companion actively in our almost ritual education complaints, I go on autopilot, a borrowed drag assisting my internal reminisce.

I hadn’t had a black in at least several months, had actually avoided them on purpose after coughing up black and red lung butter in the rubble of the morning after I purchased and consumed my first hard pack. To fault the clove may be somewhat hasty as the potential for confounding variables was great, so I should note it may simply be memory assigning the blame, if only to classify the particular early June evening in question. I had the fortune to arrive at just such a time when the empty semicircle of discomfort could be seen around whichever surface was being used to roll marijuana cigarettes. This had come to be a nice signal for the few of us who recognized it within our group, one composed of those allegedly confused souls still remaining in Idaho Falls after the Commencement of the rest of our lives. Social tolerance ran high by necessity, and most had even come to appreciate our different perspective.
Closing the gate gently behind me, I made my way to the glass patio table and sat down among my peers, taking scope. It was always interesting during that summer to see how many people I recognized at any given gathering, and to try to remember where each would disappear to in a few months. There were hardly any specific memories I could call on to distinguish each person, so melded together had my early life become at that point. Recognizing that I was unlikely to really know most of those around me in only a few years had also led me to a state of semi-detachment from everyone but those whom I had just joined. I had found an aspect of mutual trust in the relationships formed with these cohorts due to the inherent (though truthfully slight) risk in our indulgence that took a quick hold on my emotional availability, and it was with them I found myself feeling most comfortable.
Equipped with an audience, I generously wasted only a few minutes settling in before lighting my first clove, dragging hard to passively show off the sparks. It attracted immediate attention, and I was forced to explain, to my blithe delight, the many details. I am still young enough that this conversation could happen today.
Someone asked, “But how could they put black powder in the paper? Wouldn’t that be like, way bad for you?”
I sniffed. “Well obviously they don’t put in enough for it to be bad for you, dude, they wouldn’t get any customers if they did. It’s economics! Also, smell them.” He was forced to consent his skepticism in the face of the holiday cheer I wafted his way, and I went on. “They make your mouth feel like you ate a bunch of banana Runts after a while, because of the cloves, and the clerk at Tobacco Connection told me she only smokes them when she has a sore throat.” It wasn’t even the attention that struck me so much as watching how quickly people absorbed and accepted information that could somehow possibly be useful to them. I passed a few out and our attention turned to more pressing matters.
In the backyard of the host, a childhood friend named Josh, was a king-sized trampoline - the kind you don’t realize are larger than normal until half of your body slips between the springs - and with a dry lawn we endeavored to sit beneath it. By this time hospitality had found its amorous way to my belly in the form of none other than that particular drought which allegedly won a blue ribbon so long ago, and I cracked a second open (careful to chug that foam!) as I settled into the circle. There was a small fire pit on the opposite end of the rectangular yard where sat a number of acquaintances chatting, and with my back to them I was able to watch across the fourteen foot circle to where Dee lit and passed the first spliff. It’s a nervous habit, but I wiped my lips on my sleeve before it was near enough to me for anyone to notice; the folkway of clockwise progression in the sharing of marijuana was under way, and it’s not uncommon to keep on eye on those taking hits, if only out of ubiquitous (but rarely recognized) avarice. I also have the unfortunate tendency to leave a social spliff more moist than before my hit, and only seconds later Colin was telling me to pay attention as he shook it near my face. The larger the circle, naturally, the more drastic the cigarette’s atrophy, and after a second had burned its way around it became apparent that the meeting was disbanding.
At this point I took it upon myself to assume the graciousness of our host with another beverage and a warm seat by the fire. I was again solicited about the cloves, and took part in another to drive home the interest. Predictably those conversing with me soon ran across the same line of cogitation as I had earlier entertained, and I buffeted their questioning with the same prepared response I would give to my father’s friends at his church.
“Where are you going to school?”
Smiling, I replied, “Boise State actually, and mostly because…”
“Why?”
“…Uhm. Because my major is fairly common and my parents are helping me with my funding, so I’d rather just stay in state to keep the cost low.”
“Oh! What are you majoring in?”
“Train Driving, a minor in Spelling.”
“What?”
It was unfortunately never possible to let it end at that, as in my preparations there were no further questions to be asked. When I was pressed for some sort of response that could be found more ‘legitimate’, I lied as easily to the people I’d grown up with as to those who’d watched me grow, knowing that one area of study was universally as good as another. I didn’t fault them their formalities, and instead looked to the topic as an exercise in creativity, as well as keeping a straight face. I was also aware that most of them were lying too.
Within different groups of a society come to exist memes which are particular of the members’ knowledge and experience. Among those who are of an age to be reasonably called hooligans are some guiding principles which seem intentionally uncertain. The general understanding is that nobody is fretting as to the validity of any one over another, but that as with most harmless myths you’re better off just playing it safe. The most common of these little bits of cultural exchange are a pair which endearingly rhyme, the first being “beer before liquor, never sicker” (or alternatively, “throw up quicker”), the second simply the same rule reversed. Throughout the course of the evening I began to wonder whether there were a similar rule which could be applied to the combination of alcohol and any other substance, and that I perhaps ought to have already known it if it existed. These are the thoughts we would forget if there were no irony.
As with the natural progression of such social events, things more or less repeated themselves in varyingly humorous ways until noticing my near-empty box of cigarettes became less alarming than the mere distance I was to take on in my homeward travels. I had embraced the anesthetic quality of the cloves as a sort of tickly mouth euphoria and surpassed the issue by ensuring that there were none to be had the following morning. Both the nicotine content and the price had been unsatisfying, and I was fully aware of my desire to enjoy the first cigarette of the following morning. I smoked two while long boarding lazily home and deposited the box in the gutter half a block from my house, where I paused. I noticed suddenly that my mouth was filling with hot saliva completely of its own volition, and I gave in to the expulsion, finding satisfaction only in my privacy. Stumbling through my frustration I cleaned my teeth and fell slowly asleep.

The numbness departed fifteen minutes after I’d smoked the last clove, and with its passing was revealed to me in the most passive of ways the bounty which I was to reap. Only after nights like that do I recall being impartially impressed by the strain of a deep breath, the feeling of breaking through a silk webbing inside my lungs with really only the force of my will to aid. In the morning when I would wipe the dry mucus from my eyes I’d find myself coughing up an entirely different form of the same stuff for at least an hour. I never let it bother me, claimed it as my own through such misnomers as lung butter, and unpredictably I found comfort in the lack of certainty in such simple matters as my hypothetical educational future. Not being bound by any self-created goal prevented any question of success or failure to mar my experience, in turn facilitating the desire to move beyond the life of the town I had grown up in. Seeking order in what was mostly chaos, I’ve managed to convince myself that any decisions which I make that in retrospect I regret are simply another aspect of the transition I’m experiencing between young adult to responsible adult. Those are, of course, the categories.