From the first green shoots triumphantly bursting through the earth to the long fragrant leaves curing in the sheds, he loved the cycle of the weed, as he and his family referred to it. He made trips to Connecticut to inspect cigar-wrapper tobacco and trips to Kentucky for cigarette guts. If there was one tobacco plant in a state, Billy paid it a visit. He knew which leaves to brighten and which to let be. He could take a leaf between his forefinger and thumb, gently rubbing it, and tell you its qualities.
A cigar man, himself, although Atlantic Tobacco specialized in cigarettes, Billy longed to see the great cigar makers of Cuba. If only Cuba would wake up. But he had cast his eyes over the undulating crop of cigar leaf in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, and sweating like a laborer, he’d bent over those old masters who had escaped Cuba in 1959 and set up shop in Tampa. Old men with nimble fingers could roll a cigar in seconds. Machines were for phonies.
Tobacco, glory of the New World, along with chocolate, the banana, maize, and chicle. Tobacco, that soother of raw nerves, that congenial drug to puff merrily amidst friends. Doctors, health fanatics—oh, sure, they could add a few years to your life, maybe, if you listened to them and gave up smoking. If you didn’t live longer, it would seem longer.
Billy believed devoutly in self-determination. No one had the right to tell anyone else how to live his or her life. Smoking, drinking, drugging, and fornication were individual decisions, as well as what career one pursued, where one lived, and so forth. Who the hell were these people swooping down on Congress, that assemblage of carrion, these crows of retro-Puritanism? Except that now Puritanism had to do with your health and not just sex. He sighed and lit up a contraband Montecristo.
His secretary, a curvaceous bombshell, tottered in on her Ferragamo high heels and put his mail on his desk. She also kissed him on the cheek. Georgina adored Billy, but then most women did. He winked and she exited. He observed the sway to her rounded backside. He didn’t get it. How could that turn men on?
He read a letter from the Jockey Club, another from Atlantic’s lobbyist on the Hill, and then he picked up Frazier’s letter. As he was accustomed to Frazier’s personal stationery, he didn’t recognize the blue-speckled paper as hers, although the handwriting looked familiar. A call interrupted him. He dispensed with that in short order and opened the paper, folded over once.
Dear Billy
,
By the time you read this I shall most likely be dead. I shall, however, be a dazzling corpse because Terese worked overtime. Thank you for that gift.
I
have many things to thank you for, not the least of which is the gold Montblanc pen, which I cherish and adore. And what about the sensational Jean-Léon Gérôme painting we found in Poland and smuggled out? Or the time we went to Venice to pick up the Tintoretto you just had to have, along with those well-hung gondoliers? I think my favorite memory of you is the summer that you met Kenny Singer and we hopped in the car and drove to Harper’s Ferry on a whim…. Those little brick buildings with high-water marks on them and the dates that the river flooded.
I don’t
know, there was something special about that trip. And the raid—John Brown wasn’t playing with a full deck. Then we climbed up to the rock where Jefferson supposedly said there wasn’t a better view in all of Europe and we ate sandwiches and talked about everything and nothing.
We’ve trotted out to every damned ball in the UnitedStates. We’ve swirled at the Waldorf-Astoria for the Disease of the Week, all those dreary Palm Beach fundraisers—for new face lifts no doubt—the Polo Ball—that’s more fun—and we’ve never yet missed any ball that Carolyn Devane has organized, whether it’s been in Houston, New Orleans, or Timbuktu. We’ve opened libraries and held vigils at condemned theaters on 44th
A cigar man, himself, although Atlantic Tobacco specialized in cigarettes, Billy longed to see the great cigar makers of Cuba. If only Cuba would wake up. But he had cast his eyes over the undulating crop of cigar leaf in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, and sweating like a laborer, he’d bent over those old masters who had escaped Cuba in 1959 and set up shop in Tampa. Old men with nimble fingers could roll a cigar in seconds. Machines were for phonies.
Tobacco, glory of the New World, along with chocolate, the banana, maize, and chicle. Tobacco, that soother of raw nerves, that congenial drug to puff merrily amidst friends. Doctors, health fanatics—oh, sure, they could add a few years to your life, maybe, if you listened to them and gave up smoking. If you didn’t live longer, it would seem longer.
Billy believed devoutly in self-determination. No one had the right to tell anyone else how to live his or her life. Smoking, drinking, drugging, and fornication were individual decisions, as well as what career one pursued, where one lived, and so forth. Who the hell were these people swooping down on Congress, that assemblage of carrion, these crows of retro-Puritanism? Except that now Puritanism had to do with your health and not just sex. He sighed and lit up a contraband Montecristo.
His secretary, a curvaceous bombshell, tottered in on her Ferragamo high heels and put his mail on his desk. She also kissed him on the cheek. Georgina adored Billy, but then most women did. He winked and she exited. He observed the sway to her rounded backside. He didn’t get it. How could that turn men on?
He read a letter from the Jockey Club, another from Atlantic’s lobbyist on the Hill, and then he picked up Frazier’s letter. As he was accustomed to Frazier’s personal stationery, he didn’t recognize the blue-speckled paper as hers, although the handwriting looked familiar. A call interrupted him. He dispensed with that in short order and opened the paper, folded over once.
Dear Billy
,
By the time you read this I shall most likely be dead. I shall, however, be a dazzling corpse because Terese worked overtime. Thank you for that gift.
I
have many things to thank you for, not the least of which is the gold Montblanc pen, which I cherish and adore. And what about the sensational Jean-Léon Gérôme painting we found in Poland and smuggled out? Or the time we went to Venice to pick up the Tintoretto you just had to have, along with those well-hung gondoliers? I think my favorite memory of you is the summer that you met Kenny Singer and we hopped in the car and drove to Harper’s Ferry on a whim…. Those little brick buildings with high-water marks on them and the dates that the river flooded.
I don’t
know, there was something special about that trip. And the raid—John Brown wasn’t playing with a full deck. Then we climbed up to the rock where Jefferson supposedly said there wasn’t a better view in all of Europe and we ate sandwiches and talked about everything and nothing.
We’ve trotted out to every damned ball in the UnitedStates. We’ve swirled at the Waldorf-Astoria for the Disease of the Week, all those dreary Palm Beach fundraisers—for new face lifts no doubt—the Polo Ball—that’s more fun—and we’ve never yet missed any ball that Carolyn Devane has organized, whether it’s been in Houston, New Orleans, or Timbuktu. We’ve opened libraries and held vigils at condemned theaters on 44th
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