I’m in the midst of my first genuine east-coast autumn in six years. So, feeling wistful and introspective and happy to be stuck in this weird little corner of the Northeast, I collected a few leaves and tried to draw them–like an elementary school craft project.
And it is a little weird, our new hometown. Here’s a striking oddity that I didn’t expect to encounter: I have never lived in a place so completely under the thrall of cigarettes. Even New York, where way more people smoke than they should, has nothing on Portland’s astounding ratio of smokers-to-non-smokers. It’s like Paris, except everybody is wearing Red Sox hats.
Portland, did C. Everett Coop forget to send his public service announcements to you guys? Did you not see that Yul Brenner commercial? Have the youth not read Scott Pilgrim?
A mother, towing children to the bus stop, smoking, a lady in a bathrobe standing on her stoop, coughing and smoking, a cable television technician, waiting for his meatball sub, smoking, a decrepit old lady shambling up to her doorstep, clutching a carton of cigarettes; drivers, with their windows closed, smoking, pedestrians, bicycle riders, smoking, in front of restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, office parks, and of course, bars. A few days ago, after grabbing an afternoon slice, I watched two waitresses from Otto’s stare in bemused stupefaction at the bar next door’s outdoor cigarette butt container, a metal box that kind of looks like a mail slot. It had been opened, perhaps for a cleaning. There was about twelve inches of cigarettes piled up, easily a square foot of discarded butts, slowly emulsifying into a sickly black sludge of tar and paper and rainwater and nicotine. One of the waitresses shook her head in amazement. “Well, that’s appetizing.”
Portland, I do hope that you wise up. After we solve the cigarette crisis, I’ll need to talk to you about your fondness for tie-dye and white-people dread locks. I think we can still be friends, though.
