Broccoli, Sex and Cigarettes

I was talking to the heaviest smoker I know, Three Pack Arnold, and he was saying, “WHAT NEXT A CITY BAN ON BROCCOLI!?” His voice rang through the restaurant from the smoking section into the nonsmoking section.

I said, “Well, since there’s no secondary effect to the eating of broccoli, I doubt that it will be a city consideration.”

“YOU MISS THE POINT!” Arnold said angrily. “They’re intruding on our lives! And there is a secondary effect to broccoli! IT CAUSES STOMACH GAS! IT’S DISGUSTING!”

Arnold shouts and talks in exclamation points when he’s excited. His voice roller-coasters from conversational to mega-decibel. At its loudest, it has been compared to jet engines at full thrust during takeoff.

We were in a Mexican restaurant seated across the aisle from where nonsmokers were trying to enjoy their chili rellenos despite Arnold’s voice and his cigarette smoke, which he blew forcefully into whatever direction he was facing at the time.

Sometimes he held the butt in his mouth as he spoke, talking around it and squinting against the smoke that curled up into his eyes.

“How would you like it,” Three Pack said, squinting, “if Big Brother regulated lovemaking!? ACHTUNG! NO SEX WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE CITY DURING WEEKDAYS!”

“You think in odd terms, Arnold,” I said, sinking into my chair.

“NO BROCCOLI AND NO SEX!” Arnold shouted.

Heads turned. “Would you please lower your voice?” a woman asked.

“Go to hell,” Arnold replied.

*

He is upset because the City Council has voted to ban smoking in all of L.A.’s 7,000 restaurants. The law becomes effective in a month. Arnold feels like a Sabine woman in the hands of the Romans.

He argues not only does the ordinance violate his civil rights, it will also cause 80% of the city’s restaurants to close. Smokers will go to places like Bellflower to eat, where a nonsmoking law was repealed last year. Instead of dining on vitello tonnato at Rex il ristorante, you’ll find them puffing and chomping burgers at the Hungry Tummy.

Smoking, like the ownership of guns, is an emotional issue due to the fact that death is involved. Three Pack Arnold is reasonably certain that if he continues to smoke, he is liable to develop emphysema or lung cancer.

“That’s my business,” he said the other day at the Mexican restaurant. It makes him nervous to talk about disease and dying. It’s one of the few times he doesn’t shout.

“If you were sitting in a sealed chamber with the smoke confined to that chamber it would indeed be your business,” I said. “But because smoke drifts upon the air breathed by others, it is their business too.”

“IF CLEAN AIR IS SO DAMNED IMPORTANT, GO AFTER THE ANT POISON CZARS AND LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!” Arnold said.

He has mentioned that before. It is easier to regulate Arnold than it is to regulate what he calls the ant poison czars, i.e., those who fill our lives with toxic chemicals. Ant poison, he claims, will kill us all.

“What next,” Arnold said, “a ban on drinking? NO BOOZE, NO SEX, NO BROCCOLI!”

“You’re going to have to lower your voice,” a waiter said. Arnold scowled and lit another cigarette.

*

I began smoking and swaggering about the same time. I smoked in college and I smoked in the Marine Corps. One of life’s happiest phrases in boot camp was “the smoking lamp is lit.” That meant we could smoke.

In the early days of my newspaper career, city rooms were filled with smokers and drunks. They were phased out at about the same time. City rooms today are chapels of good health. The Journal of the American Medical Assn. will shortly reveal that those who work in newsrooms live 2.7 years longer than those who do not.

I quit cigarettes 20 years ago and cigars 10 years ago. I still drink and eat broccoli. I can’t talk about the other. My wife said if I mentioned our sex life in public, she’d leave me.

“Watch out for the cult vegetarians,” Arnold said. “PRETTY SOON THEY’LL BE JERKING MEAT OFF OUR PLATES!”

It is Three Pack’s contention that vegetarians are behind the no-smoking laws. I’m not sure how he squares that with the broccoli ban. Logic is not Arnold’s strong point. “BEWARE THE CARROT SNAPPERS,” he says.

I’m for outlawing cigarette smoking in restaurants. I wish they had outlawed handguns too, but our council is not composed of lions.

“Sorry, Arnold,” I said to him. “The time has come. History has passed you by. The smoking lamp is out.”

“I’LL NEVER EAT IN A LOS ANGELES RESTAURANT AGAIN,” he said.

Everybody say goodby to Arnold.