戒菸故事:永別了 我親愛的香菸

Like every other Gen Xer, I learned to smoke because a neighborhood girl named Tammy had a grandmother who was dying of cancer and therefore didn’t have time to notice that Tammy was stealing her Benson & Hedges 100s.

和所有的“X一代”（指嬰兒潮過後，在20世紀60年代中期至70年代末出生的美國人——譯註）一樣，我學會抽菸是因爲一個名叫塔米(Tammy)的鄰家女孩。塔米的祖母身患癌症，奄奄一息，沒注意到塔米在偷她的本森100s(Benson & Hedges 100s)香菸。

It was a heavenly time. In the mid-to-late-’80s, non-chain liquor stores would sell to my baby face. Evanston Township High School even had a luxurious smoking courtyard for us teenagers. So easy to be goth all winter!

那是個無比美好的年代。在80年代中末期，就算我長着一張娃娃臉，也能在非連鎖販酒店買到酒。埃文斯頓鎮高中(Evanston Township High School)甚至給我們這些青少年提供了一個奢侈的吸菸庭院。整個冬天都走哥特派(goth)路線太容易了！

After school we could sit for hours in the brick-walled rooms of Cafe Express, smoking indoors like an infestation. Suburban summer nighttime was Night Train time, for drinking 40s of Olde E on your bike, smoking into the wind, followed by vomiting into anything.

放學後，我們在快捷咖啡館(Cafe Express)的磚牆房間裏一坐就是幾個小時，像一羣害蟲，在室內抽菸。郊區的夏夜是騎夜行火車摩托車(Night Train)的好時候，我們騎着車喝着40s of Olde E啤酒，在風中抽菸，然後對着任何東西嘔吐。

When I see teenagers like the one I was, I want to make a senior citizen’s arrest.

如今，當我看到像我當年那樣的青少年時，我想像老年人那樣去制止他們。

I strode through the end of my high school years in a smoke bubble, insulated from the horrors of emotion and exertion. Smoking is one of the perfect solutions to being a teenager, right up there with Manic Panic hair dye and murder. Teachers and counselors must have felt like the Hubble telescope, peering across a vast gulf at a gaseous planet. My exterior was an opaque blue-gray swirl of carbon monoxide. No one could even glimpse the human trash can within.

整個高中，我都在菸圈中度過，把自己隔絕起來，免受情緒和努力的折磨。對十幾歲的青少年來說，吸菸是最佳排憂途徑之一，僅次於Manic Panic牌染髮劑和謀殺。老師們和輔導員們的感覺應該像哈勃望遠鏡，隔着一個巨大的漩渦，遙望一個氣態星球。我的周圍是一圈不透明的藍灰色一氧化碳漩渦。甚至沒人能看見裏面的人形垃圾桶。

Somehow I forgot to apply to college. I happily became a teenage bartender instead. Finally, a job where you could smoke all day.

不知怎麼的，我忘了申請大學。我愉快地成了一位青少年酒保，終於得到一份可以全天吸菸的工作。

My friend John remembers the first time he saw me: I was 18, sitting in the back seat of the Market Street bus in San Francisco, smoking out the window. He was disturbed. That was precisely what I wanted. I wanted to be off-putting, a cascade of macho and feminine, a vibrating range of all extremes. Cigarettes were just another middle finger.

我的朋友約翰(John)還記得第一次見我時的情形：當時我18歲，坐在舊金山市場街巴士的後排座位上，對着窗外抽菸。我讓他覺得不快。那正是我想要的。我想令人不快，我想接連不斷地表現出男子漢氣概和女性陰柔氣質，我想走各種極端，讓人震驚。香菸只是我伸起的另一根中指。

At night I’d sit with my roommate Philo at our little yellow Formica kitchen table, listening to records, and we’d smoke endlessly, until it was time to worry about the sun coming up.

晚上，我和室友菲洛(Philo)坐在福米卡(Formica)黃色小餐桌邊，聽着唱片，沒完沒了地抽菸，直到太陽即將升起、憂心的時刻到來。

Doesn’t that sound dreamy still? You could do that then in San Francisco; a bedroom in a Castro Victorian was $300 a month. (Couldn’t you die, Silicon Valley bros? Please do.)

那聽起來是不是仍然很夢幻？在當時的舊金山，你可以那樣做。當時，卡斯特羅·維多利亞一間臥室的月租金才300美元（硅谷的夥計們，你們就不能去死嗎？請去死吧）。

I went from Marlboros to Camels to Camel Wides to Parliaments to my delicious mainstay, Winston Lights. They were so macho. They made me a hotter dude. Winstons are aggressively rural, a Camaro dashboard cigarette, a soft pack from the dusty trailer park. Even I wanted to have sex with me, and I hated myself!

我抽過的香菸品牌從萬寶路(Marlboros)換成駱駝(Camels)、肥仔駱駝(Camel Wides)、百樂門(Parliaments)，一直到我最喜歡的溫斯頓(Winston Lights)。它們都很有男人味。它們讓我更性感。溫斯頓具有濃郁的鄉村氣息，它是放在科邁羅汽車(Camaro)儀表板上的香菸，是來自塵土飛揚的活動房停車場的香菸。連我都想跟自己做愛，但是我討厭自己！

But I was just a horny lovesick brand slave, like any Lanvin enthusiast or Coca-Cola chugger. Every devotion to a brand is eventually revealed to be a lie.

我只是一個害相思病的淫蕩的品牌奴隸，和朗萬(Lanvin)或可口可樂的狂熱愛好者沒什麼兩樣。對品牌的熱愛最終都證明是謊言。

I never left a spinning class without smoking. I never left the subway without smoking. I went exactly one day without a cigarette: April 25, 1995, when I spent the night in jail, courtesy of a protest against Rudy Giuliani. I got out of jail and immediately bought some cigarettes. It was just like a scene they forgot to put in “Rent,” only boring and also kind of sad.

每次上完動感單車課，我都要抽根菸；每次從地鐵出來，我都要抽根菸。只有一天我沒抽菸：那是1995年4月25日，因爲參加抗議魯迪·朱利亞尼(Rudy Giuliani)的活動，我在監獄裏呆了一晚。我從監獄裏一出來就買了包煙。就像《吉屋出租》(Rent)裏漏掉的場景，只是有點無聊和悲傷。

I smoldered on. I smoked on my East Village roof while watching the World Trade Center burn. But I was fine. I could still easily and enthusiastically practice cardio-intensive activities such as terror sex. I could run up three flights of stairs in the event of a subway station panic attack or during that whole year that I refused to use elevators.

我繼續借煙消愁。我在東村的屋頂一邊看着世貿中心燃燒一邊吸菸。不過當時我的身體狀態還挺好。我仍能輕鬆熱情地進行對心臟強度要求很高的活動，比如恐怖性愛。在地鐵站恐慌事件中或者在我拒絕使用電梯的那一整年裏，我能迅速跑完三段樓梯。

Where were the consequences from doing the worst thing on earth? My T-zone never dried into a baseball mitt. I burned only one article of clothing — though it was a pair of jeans from that perfect moment between boot cut and superskinny, and now I’ll never have jeans that fit my calves properly again. I refused to keel over (uh, so far).

我一直在做世界上最糟糕的事情，也沒什麼不好的結果啊？我的T區從未乾成棒球手套那樣。我只燒破過一條牛仔褲，不過它產自喇叭褲和鉛筆褲之間的那個完美時代，如今我再也找不到那麼貼合我小腿的牛仔褲了。我拒絕倒下（呃，至少到目前爲止）。

Humans quickly accustom themselves to terror looming. A plane crash would probably be scary only for like the first hour. After that, we’d start wondering when the snack cart is coming by.

人類很快就能適應隱隱可見的恐怖。飛機失事大多隻在頭一個小時讓人恐懼。之後，我們就開始思考乘務員何時開始送餐。

But they call it a life expectancy, not a life certainty, and a daily question became: Was everyone just going to let me keep smoking? Didn’t anyone care?

不過，他們說的可是預期壽命，而不是確定的壽命。我每天都在想一個問題：每個人都打算讓我接着抽下去嗎？誰都不在乎我嗎？

My doctor told me I’d be fine if I quit before I was 40. I don’t actually know if he was a very good doctor.

醫生告訴我，只要我在40歲前戒菸就沒問題。我不確定他夠不夠稱職。

Then 40 came speeding past like an express train, leaving me stranded and panting on the local track. The Daily Mail ran a surely totally accurate summary of research that said I’d be fine if I just quit by 44. That specificity made it sound like a final deadline. My exceedingly handsome and patient husband was now starting to lose patience, but I was losing my denial faster. The smoking party had ended and I was huddled out in the rain alone. “Smoker, party of one!” — something Carrie Bradshaw typed and deleted, probably.

40歲像快速列車一樣飛馳而過，我卻被孤零零地困在慢車道上氣喘吁吁。《每日郵報》(Daily Mail)進行了一項肯定完全準確的調查總結，稱44歲前戒菸就沒問題。這個數字如此具體，聽起來像是最後期限。我異常英俊、耐心的丈夫開始失去耐心，而我更快地失去了拒絕的動力。吸菸派對已經結束，只剩我一個人在雨中縮成一團。“吸菸者，一個人的派對！”卡麗·布拉德肖（Carrie Bradshaw——電視劇《慾望都市》[Sex and the City]女主角——譯註）肯定在電腦上打過這行字，然後又刪除了。

And so shortly after midnight this New Year’s Eve, I left my 10 cigarettes on the lobby radiator on my way out of Max and Ari’s party, lit the 11th for good luck and smoked it out into the night. I tossed my lighter into a garbage can on the way home. It was not a moment of hope.

所以，在今年新年前夜午夜後不久，我從馬克斯(Max)和阿里(Ari)的派對上出來，把十根香菸留在大堂的暖氣片上。爲了祈求好運，我點燃第11根菸，吸着它走進夜色裏。在回家的路上，我把打火機丟進了垃圾桶。那並不是一個充滿希望的時刻。

After a week, my eyeballs stopped sweating. After the first two months, my feelings tsunami subsided. Honestly, what had I been waiting for? Quitting smoking was simple. The secret, you see, is hidden in the phrase itself. You stop putting cigarettes in your mouth.

一週後，我的眼球不再有分泌物。兩個月後，我不再有劇烈的情緒起伏。說真的，之前我一直在等什麼？戒菸很容易。你知道的，戒菸的祕訣就藏在戒菸這個詞裏——就是不再把香菸放進嘴裏。

It’s like KonMari, except easy, because the only things you throw out are your cigarettes and your entire sense of self.

它就像近藤麻裏繪(KonMari)的整理魔法。只不過戒菸更容易，因爲你丟掉的只是香菸以及你整個的自我意識。

My friend Emily said she was happy for me, but wistful, too. The last smoker quitting seemed like another kind of gentrification. Now I’m gone, too, along with the gas stations and all the stores that aren’t 7-Eleven. But the emotional rent was just too high.

我的朋友埃米莉(Emily)說，她爲我高興，不過也有點惋惜。最後一個吸菸者也戒菸了，感覺像另一種士紳化。加油站消失了；所有不是7-Eleven的商店消失了；現在連我也從吸菸者的隊伍中消失了。但是，吸菸的情緒代價太高了。

Quitting smoking is the khakis of existence. Quitting smoking is the Chipotle on St. Marks Place. I am totally not cool. I may as well be someone’s stupid Brooklyn dad. My hair is its natural color. Most days I’m just wearing whatever. I do yoga endlessly. What am I now?

戒菸之後，我就像樸實的卡其褲，就像聖馬克斯市場(St. Marks Place)的墨西哥快餐。現在的我一點都不酷。我可能看起來像個無趣的布魯克林老爸。我的頭髮是它本來的顏色。大部分時間，我穿得很隨便。我沒完沒了地做瑜伽。我現在是怎麼了？

But also? I feel like anything could happen. Unencumbered, naked and glassy, I feel perilously close to a dozen superfun midlife crises. I could move to anywhere before I even knew I had done so. Someone told me Belgrade is amazing right now, you guys.

而且現在，我感覺任何事情都可能發生。現在的我沒有阻礙，毫無防備，堅定平靜，我警惕地察覺到十幾種超級有趣的中年危機離我更近了。我可能會搬到任何地方，自己卻渾然不覺。兄弟們，有人告訴我貝爾格萊德現在很有趣。

Someday, if I’m lucky, I’ll get to smoke again. For now, all I have is the chip on my shoulder. At Equinox every day, surrounded by millennials sweating on their mats, I think about the old joke about Ginger Rogers. Just as she did everything that Fred Astaire did, except backward and in heels, I’m doing everything the young people are doing — except with lungs that smoked for 30 years. I’d like to see these pink-lunged kiddos try it.

如果幸運的話，將來有一天，我會再次吸菸。但是目前，我心裏只有忌妒。每天，在Equinox健身房，我被千禧一代包圍，他們在運動墊上揮汗如雨。我想起了關於金傑·羅傑斯(Ginger Rogers)的一個老笑話。她做着和弗雷德·阿斯泰爾(Fred Astaire)一樣的動作，只不過是穿着高跟鞋向後退；而我也在做着年輕人做的一切，只不過我的肺已經被煙燻了30年。我很想看到這些有着粉色嫩肺的孩子們也嘗試抽菸。

Thing is, if I live long enough, my lungs may end up as conch-pink as theirs. Meanwhile, they should use caution when I’m around. Underneath all that smoke, it turns out, I’m a little jagged. Someone could easily get cut.

如果我活得足夠長，我的肺最後可能跟他們的一樣如海螺般粉嫩。在那之前，我在周圍時，他們要當心。結果證明，煙霧之下的我像參差不齊的鋸齒。很容易傷到人。