Coming of age with a hack, hack, cough, cough.

For generations, a boy's big step into manhood was the cigarette.  It was the time to show the other guys you were no longer a baby.  My big leap took place at the ripe old age of eight in a fort we had constructed in the woods near Joliet's West Park. 

As kids back in late forties, our main source of income was the returnable bottle.  Empty twelve-ounce pop and beer bottles fetched two cents each, and a prized quart bottle brought in a whole nickle.  It usually didn't take more than a few days of scrounging byways and alleyways to come up with the necessary currency for smokes.

Each bottle was worth two cents

Our goal was to collect enough money for a pack of Marvels.  Marvels was not great tasting cigarette, but it was cheap.  For eight bottles we could get a pack, plus a book of matches.  The grocery store clerk usually looked the other way when a handful of pre-pubs entered, plopped down their coins and nonchalantly ordered a pack.  If the clerk hesitated, a deep-throated, "They're for my old man," usually sealed the deal.

Cheap, but effective

We were wise enough to realize we would never get past our mothers with breaths reeking of tobacco, so we also purchased a box of Sen-Sen mints.  To our young minds, the licorice scented bits would cover any suspected mischief .  They didn't.

Didn't fool a mother's nose

In my novel  Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, I was not content to have my young protagonist, Stepha, just prove himself against wolves, bullies, and marsh witches.  I decided to have him take up smoking to show his mettle.  Of course, I used my own experience to describe this particular venture into manhood.  Like all boys his age, Stepha never admitted to being a novice.  No matter what, he was not going to let the older boys deem him unworthy.

***

There was no turning back.  Stepha accepted Kolya's lit cigarette and slowly brought it towards his lips.

“You've done this before, right?” Kolya asked.  “I didn't swipe these from Yakov just so you waste 'em.”

* * *

In his mind, Stepha considered himself a seasoned veteran.

* * * 

Stepha nodded and hoped a real cigarette wasn't too different from the twigs he pretended to smoke, allowing his wintry breath to drift away like Maksim's scented clouds.

* * *

Young Russian orphans share a smoke to ward off hunger

I wrote Stepha's reaction to his first cigarette just as I remembered mine.

* * *

After the sixth puff, Stepha began felt heady and leaned against the wall, relishing the feel of cold stone.

Tolya peered into Stepha's face and grimaced.  “You don't look so good, kid.  You better sit down before you fall over.”

Gingerly, Stepha lowered himself onto the snow, dropped his head against his knees and desperately gulped for clean air.

“That's the same thing that happened to me when I first smoked Turkish,” said a rapidly fading voice.

“Ah crap, he's passing out, just like ...” were the last words Stepha heard.

* * *

In a later chapter I used smoking to show Stepha believed he was ready to assume the mantel of manhood and rebel against his mother.  In this scene, Stepha acts out against Akulina for the first time.

* * *

Akulina's face reddened and her jaw tightened as another small blade pierced her heart.  “Oh, now my Stepha thinks he's a man,” she said and rose just a tad taller to look down into her son's eyes.  “Such a big shot you are that you think you can smoke and lie to your mother.  Hah.  Next you'll have me to call you Stefan Mataovich and be addressed as thou.”
 
Yes I would, Stepha wanted to say.  He also wanted to say he was a man because he worked like a man.  He sharpened tools, moved rocks, plowed the field, sowed the seeds, and sweated and ached just like Daduska.  Maybe his arms didn't have muscles as big as Kolya's, but he could flex his forearms and biceps and wrestle down Vanya or Oleg with ease.  And if he sat with the men after a long day and enjoyed sharing a cigarette and using course language, what of it?  But he didn't utter those words.  Instead he spun around and stormed out, leaving his thoughts hanging in the air.

* * *

Stepha was now a man

It's hard to believe in today's anti-smoking world that tobacco's haze once was prevalent everywhere.  For this reason I chose the cigarette as a prop in many of my novels' scenes.  After all, they are historic fiction novels and that's the way it was.  Same planet, different world.