The Cigarette Vignettes – Wining with Mark

This week’s Cigarette Vignettes enjoy a drink with a frenemy.

I’m bored this afternoon so I stop in the library to see Mark. He’s been studying pretty heavily for his new paper on the migration of Eastern European kestrels. He’s tried explaining his findings to me on more than one occasion but I can never bring myself to understand it. I usually feign interest and slip into a state half way between a zen trance and a deep coma. The thing is, Mark is a really interesting guy, why does he need to write a paper on the migration of foreign birds? Unless Eastern European kestrels have a penchant for stopping at a duty free for cheap Marlboro Reds and Ray Ban imitation sunglasses then I have no reason to assume that their migration is any different from any other bird in the world.

I make small talk with Mark for a few minutes, asking him about his class and how his students are doing and he suggests that we go shopping for the party. As much as I like Mark, I only wanted to stop in and see him, not spend money that I don’t really have and spend an entire day talking about Kestrels and general academia. To coin an old phrase, you give Mark an inch, and he’ll take a mile; plus half of Minnesota while he’s at it. Mark is one of those people who’ll demand to spend an entire day and evening with you if you so much as buy him a pack of Newports. I don’t really mind his company, but when he calls you every day asking if you’re free in the evening, it gets a little tiring.

“Oh shit!” He gasps, almost making me spill coffee down my shirt.

“What?”

“We haven’t got wine for Eric’s party!” He looks me directly in the eyes as if this is tantamount to leaving the gas on in ones apartment and flying to China.

“You know, I’m not even officially invited. I told Marcy, I’m not coming on a secondary invite, it’ll be awkward.”

“Fuck that, you’re coming, and you need to buy wine, it’s just good form, its going to be one of those kind of evenings. You’re fucking coming, end of story.” Students are openly gasping at the spectacle of a college professor swearing in a silent library. I look around, the librarian is fingering a copy of War and Peace in an almost threatening manner. We need to leave soon, death by literature isn’t a life-goal of mine, which is possibly the reason I avoided reading Dostoyevsky in college.

“Fine, I’ll come. But I’m not bringing wine.”

The resulting argument spews out onto the street. Mark seems adamant that neglecting to bring cheap wine to this party would mean social death and, judging by the utter fear in his eyes, physical death too.

“Look,” I say, getting very slightly agitated. “When did someone arbitrarily decide that every guest of this party had to bring wine? Surely Eric doesn’t expect us all to waste our own money buying low price, off-flavour wine for a party that he’s throwing?”

“That’s just what people do.” I swear I can see him trembling, he’s getting worked up about this and I can’t really understand why. “Its just good form at a party, its kind of a compliment to the host.”

I light a cigarette; I don’t think I can take this. “Hang on, so if Eric is hosting the party, shouldn’t he be providing the drinks too?”

“Look, its just rude if we don’t, we’ll just go get some now.”

“No, we won’t. I’m totally not buying wine for someone elses party. If I threw a party, I’d buy my own wine, I wouldn’t expect everyone to bring me a bottle like some sort of tribute. Besides, how many people are invited to this party?”

“I don’t know, about twenty maybe?”

I roll my eyes quite noticeably. I can see Mark shooting me some murderous glance. It’s hardly like I’m suggesting that abortion should be compulsory, it’s only wine for christ’s sake.

“Exactly, that’s twenty bottles of wine at least, and we’re not even counting the ‘secondary guests’ like myself. That has to be what, thirty bottles of wine at least? Is Eric opening a winery or something? Building a shrine to the grape god? This is beyond belief.” Mark seems to get noticeably annoyed at this point. He lights a cigarette and says nothing for a while. This brief reprieve allows me to reconsider my decision to throw my small change at him and escape before he gets his bearings. I’m starting to wonder if Marks study of Kestrels has left him slightly unhinged. I can see drops of sweat forming on his brow, and I swear he’s squeezing the tobacco out of the top of his cigarette. He takes a deep breath and stops.

“Look, can we just go and get some wine, please.” He begs. Christ, its like he’s trying to persuade me not to shoot his dog. He runs his hand through his hair and looks at me with noticeable distress. I cave.

“Fine, but I’m not spending more than three dollars. Where do you want to buy it?”

Two cigarettes later and we’re walking into some discount liquor store. On the way here Mark attempted to steer me into stores with names like “Superior Wines” and “Exquisite Liquors”, the kind of shops where you’d have to take out a second mortgage to sample a thimble of chateau shit. These stores were vetoed and we ended up in front of this annex of a shop. It hardly boasted a private ‘Wine sampling Lounge’ like some of the others, but there was no way I was going to splash out buying drink for a party I didn’t even want to attend in the first place.

The clinical fluorescent lights make my eyes feel strange as I flick through the off-white plastic shelves looking for the cheapest wine I can possibly find. If I’m being forced to buy wine for this party, I’m going to make a point with it. After seeing bottles with ridiculous names such as “Tom Wood’s Special Batch” and “The Jolly Ranchers Merlot of Choice” I eventually settle on my weapon of choice. Even holding it in my hands makes me feel dirty, the label on the clear, plastic bottle may as well simply read, “WINE”. I can’t actually decide whether its contents are red or not. It could just be the lighting overhead, but whatever murky liquid is sloshing round inside the container looks more like pinkish still water. I attempt to reason with myself. Maybe I’m being too cruel. I wouldn’t even wish this foul concoction on my worst enemies. But no, someone is actually forcing me to buy wine for a party that I don’t entirely want to attend. They’re going to get this, and they’re going to live with it. In all fairness, for a dollar fifty, you can’t possibly go wrong. Let me rephrase that, in terms of wine, you CAN go wrong with a dollar fifty, and this pinkish purplish abomination is the very definition of wrong, in so many ways.

However, curiosity gets the better of me half the way to the checkout and I run back through the aisles to get a second bottle. The devil-may-care side of me is sending out incomprehensible urges to actually try some of this foul stuff for myself. I notice that I’m being very careful that nobody sees me buying this shit. They’d think I was one of those guys who wait outside subway stations claiming they ‘lost their wallet’ and need to get a taxi to Long Island before 4PM. No, being seen with this ‘wine’ would be the ultimate low point in my life so far. Even so, I find myself paying for another bottle.