Jack ground the polished wheel-hubs of Bill’s splendid automobile along the kerb before Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar and came to a juddering halt.
Eddie, who had seriously been considering converting to Mechanology and preparing to make his personal apologies to whom it might concern for not joining earlier, climbed down from the car, waddled around to Jack’s side and, as Jack climbed out, head-butted him in the nuts.
Jack doubled up in considerable pain.
“When I say ‘slower’, I mean it, you gormster!” said Eddie. “Now act like a professional.”
Jack crossed his legs and wiped tears from his eyes. “If you ever do that to me again,” he said, “I will tear off your head and empty you out.”
“Jack, you wouldn’t!”
“Right now I feel that I would.”
“Then I’m sorry,” said Eddie. “So if you are up to it, do you think that you could see your way to limping into Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar, doing your toff act and finding out who bought the cigar?”
“I’ll try,” said Jack. “Sometimes I really hate you.”
“Do you?” said Eddie.
“Not really,” said Jack.
Jack did a bit of trenchcoat adjustment and fedora tilting, pushed open the door and entered Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar. The door gave a merry ting, ting as he did so.
“You shouldn’t do that,” the bell told the door. “That’s my job.”
Jack stood in the doorway and breathed in Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar. And for those of you who have never been in a cigar store, that is just what you do: you breathe it in, is what you do.
There is a magic to cigars, a magic never found in cigarettes. Cigars are special; there are complicated procedures involved in the manufacture of them. There is certain paraphernalia necessary for the proper smoking of them, such as special end-cutters, and certain matches for the lighting thereof. And who amongst us does not know that the very best of all cigars are rolled upon the thigh of a dusky maiden? A cigar is more than just a smoke, as champagne is more than just a fizzy drink, or urolagnia is more than just something your girlfriend might not indulge you in, no matter how much money you’ve recently spent buying her that frock she so desperately wanted. And so on and so forth and suchlike.
Jack breathed in Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar.
“It really smells in here,” he said.
Eddie Bear made growling sounds.
“A fine smell, though,” said Jack.
Mahogany-framed glass cases displayed a multiplicity of wonderful cigars, cigars of all shapes and sizes and colours, too. There were pink cigars and blue ones and some in stripes and checks. And of their shapes, what could be said?
“These ones look like little pigs,” said Jack, and he pointed to them.
Eddie cocked his head on one side. “Do you see what those ones look like?”
“And how might I serve you, sir?”
Jack tipped up the brim of his fedora and sought out the owner of the voice: the proprietor of Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar, Smokey Joe himself.
“Ah,” said Jack as he viewed Smokey Joe.
The proprietor smiled him a welcome.
Smokey Joe was a sight to behold
A sight to behold was he.
His head was a ball,
And his belly a barrel,
His ears were a thing of beaut-ee.
He was built out of brass,
And if questions were asked
Regarding the cut of his jib,
He’d reply with a laugh
And a free autograph,
Signed by a pen with a nib.
And he chugged a cigar
In his own cigar bar,
For bellows were built in his chest.
And he blew out smoke-rings
And numerous things,
Which had all his clients impressed.
“What exactly was that?” asked Eddie.
Jack shrugged. “Poetry?” he said.
“Odd,” said Eddie. “Now go for it, Jack.”
And so Jack went for it.
“My good fellow,” said Jack, “are you the proprietor of this here establishment?”
“That I am, your lordship,” said the proprietor, sucking upon his cigar and blowing out a puff of smoke in the shape of a sheep. “Smokey Joe’s my name and I am the purveyor of the finest cigars in Toy City.”
“Well, be that as it may,” said Jack.
“It may well be because it is, your lordship.”
“Right,” said Jack. “Well, now we’ve established that, I require your assistance concerning a cigar.”
“Then you have certainly come to the right place, your lordship. If there is anything that needs knowing about cigars and isn’t known to myself, then I’ll be blessed as a nodding spaniel dog and out of the window with me and into the duck pond.”
“Quite so,” said Jack.
“And you can use my head for a tinker’s teapot and boil my boots in lard.”
“Most laudable,” said Jack.
“I’ll go further than that,” said Smokey Joe. “You can take my wedding tackle and –”
“I think you’ve made your point,” said Jack. “You know about cigars.”
“And pipes,” said Smokey Joe. “Although that’s only a hobby of mine. But every man should have a hobby.”
“Well, if they can’t get a girlfriend,” said Jack.
“You are the very personification of wisdom.”
“Well …”
Eddie gave Jack’s left knee a sound head-butting. “Get on with it,” he whispered.
“Cigars,” said Jack, to Smokey Joe. “Well, one cigar in particular.”
“Would it be the Golden Sunrise Corona?” asked Smokey Joe. “The veritable king of cigars, made from tobacco watered by unicorn’s wee-wee and rolled upon the thigh scales[6] of golden-haired mermaids?”
“No.” said Jack. “But you sell such cigars?”
“No,” said Smokey Joe, “but a proprietor must have his dreams. And speaking of dreams, last night I dreamed that I was a chicken.”
“A chicken?” said Jack.
“They worry me,” said Smokey Joe.
“They do?” said Jack. Eddie head-butted his left knee once more. “Well, I’m sure that’s very interesting,” said Jack, “but I have urgent business that will not wait. I need a straightforward answer to a simple question. Do you think you could furnish me with same?”
Smokey Joe nodded, puffed out a question-mark-shaped smoke cloud and said, “I’d be prepared to give it a try, but things are rarely as simple as they seem. Take those chickens, for example –”
“I am in a hurry,” said Jack. “I merely wish to know about a cigar.”
Smokey Joe let free a sigh of relief, which billowed considerable smoke. “Not chickens, then?” said he.
“No,” said Jack. “What is your problem with chickens?”
“The scale of them,” said Smokey Joe.
“Chickens don’t have scales,” said Jack. “Chickens have feathers.”
Smokey Joe fixed Jack with a troubling eye. “Beware the chickens,” said he. “If not now, then later. And somewhere else. I am Smokey Joe, the only cigar store proprietor in Toy City. I am one of a kind. I am special.”
Jack sighed somewhat at the word, but Smokey Joe continued.
“I have the special eye and I see trouble lying in wait ahead of you. Trouble that comes in the shape of a chicken.” Smokey Joe blew out a plume of cigar smoke, which momentarily took the shape of a chicken before fading into the air of what had now become a cigar store somewhat overladen with “atmosphere”.
Eddie Bear shuddered. “Just ask him, Jack,” he whispered, and fumbled the cigar butt from his trenchcoat pocket. Jack took the cigar butt and placed it before Smokey Joe on his glass countertop.
“This cigar,” said Jack, “did it come from this establishment?”
6
The debate regarding whether mermaids can be described as having thighs continues. And remains unresolved.