Why I’m still going to keep smoking…

I confess it, already: I smoke. And I like it. But now, 14th Street-Union Square and some other self-righteous subway stations, think it their responsibility to attack my surface health and conscience with ghastly anti-smoking campaign ads by our friends at the Health Department. A series of enormous posters of Marie, the dismaying finger-amputee from the Bronx, wag their chastising finger at me. (Morbid pun intended. Or, should I say, stub?)

“Goddamn, there’s always such a big temptation/To be good, to be good.” (Tom Waits, “God’s Away on Business”)

Yet no sooner do I emerge from the subway than my cold, 20-fingered hands paw recklessly at my breast pocket. Then, lighting up, I think, “It’s a drag, Marie. A long, delicious, sooooothing drag.” Nothing like smoking to make you feel like a hedonist and masochist simultaneously… There’s no feeling like it in the world! (Probably because it’s so fucked-up.) For some stupid reason–and it’s not just the nicotine–I light up when I light up; apparently, my complicit fingers beg to differ.