The Line

"Whenever I see someone pull a cigarette from a pack at a party, I'm always reminded of my college days where I once ate a cigarette on a bet. Many people ask me what I got for that and I tell them that the cigarette entered my blood stream through my stomach and I becamse immune to cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, the only place I could make use of my super power was at dance clubs and, unfortunately, I wasn't immune to the ear splitting volume or willing to put up with the bullshit pretentiousness of most of the people I met there. Of course, that was back in college when everyone went places in groups and just got hammered for the sake of it. Now I find myself single and dating people that keep pushing me back to the clubs like there is anything appealing about them. The only reason people go there is to be able to feel free to dance in whatever way they please that would make them look weird at a party. It all just ends up looking like a sea of people with no personal space swinging their arms wildly and rocking their hips."

The red head in the short skirt sucking on a Marlboro exhaled loudly in plume of nicotine enriched air. Standing next to her was a man in his late thirties with a buzzcut and a faded blue t-shirt that used to hold a Cubs logo long ago lost in the pain of seasons failed. He stared wide eyed at her waiting for a response to his unsolicited soliloquy. She smiled a patronizing smile with more than a little lipstick on her front teeth before hissing, "Go away."

"Statistics state that cigarette smokers are more likely to be under-educated or high school drop outs. 20% of white women smoke and I'd say roughly 95% of the men here are not speaking to you right now. You have no ring on your finger and have been sitting alone here for the past 20 minutes. Even if someone is just around the corner coming to meet you, you should heed sage advice no matter what moment in time you find yourself in. If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

The stare the odd man received was meant to melt him to the puddle of nothingness she had already imagined him being before she dropped her gaze to her ash tray and glanced around the room at the single men not coming to see her. She turned her head to the table next to her in time to see a very attractive man in his late twenties glancing her way. She smiled and exhaled another stream of smoke as he frowned back, waved the smoke away from his head and walked away to the bar leaving his table empty. Turning back to her unwanted conversationalist, she found nothing but a hazy view of an empty space in front of the bar. When she turned back to her ash tray, she found him sitting next to her on the now abandoned stool left from the next table.

"I'm Allen. You'll want to remember my name when you call me later." Laying a business card on the table with a phone number scrawled across the front, Allen turned to the door and walked away. He managed to get to the curb before his cell phone rang. He let it go to voicemail and waved for a cab.