The dim light of the restaurant’s private room grew a bit brighter. An older man had struck a match. He did so to light his smoke. It was real—no synthetic fake—but an authentic Cuban. He brought it up to drink deeply of its smokey flavor, and his dry lips wrapped gently around the cap of it. He waited, gnawing on the end of it, staring down at the intricate band that wrapped the long barrel—but eventually grabbing a single shallow breath from it.

  That shallow breath gave birth to a short coughing fit, which worried the man’s dinner guest, who was staring with a great deal of confusion. “I never did understand—how do you puff on those things, if you don’t like it? Do ya like coughing?” The other man’s eyes were drawn close to each other, so tight they were almost twitching. Brow furrowed, and drawn closer over the table to better hear what the man would say. “Why do you drink? I have seen you recoil from a strong drink many times.”

  His face showed the minimal effort he took in processing this. He was looking at his glass of wine, peripherally. Eyes drifting away from the pinot to the old man across from him, he pointed a finger and leaned further over the table.“Oh, that’s different. The drink tastes good, just strongly so. It’s a natural reflex.”

  “So too is coughing when smoke enters the lungs.”

  “You don’t get intoxication from that, I fail to see how it’s worth it!” The second man threw his hands up and he backed away from the table. Bringing himself back, he picked up his glass and drank from it. Making conscious effort not to recoil from it. His friend did likewise with his own vice—though more effort was required to suppress the cough than the sour face from liquor. “We have proved nothing to each other, other than that we are both liars, and damn bad at it.”

  “Agreed. So then, why’d you make us go through this game? Why not just answer the question? I don’t want to seem rude by pressing it, but you make me feel like there’s something there. C’mon, you’ve got to have some geezer wisdom about ya, about it!” The ‘geezer’ balanced the Cuban on the edge of his lip, pushing small breezes in and out. The tip pulsed like a moribund forge between puffs. He took on the posture of what people thought an old man thinking ought to look like. Hand on chin, legs crossed, face turned like he was hit with a bad smell.

  “Why does anybody do anything?” he asked calmly. The life in the other man left. “I’m serious.”

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  “As am I!” The insistence broke him more. The older man could tell, and decided to think some more on the question. “Because I want to.”

  “That ain’t much better, there’s gotta be something deeper than that! You hate the smell, you hate the taste, and you can’t puff it without coughing. Something deeper has to drive a man to do that.” He was back to overhanging the table, nearly knocking over their shared bottle—though mostly for him.

  “I meant what I said. I do it because I want to. But I do what I want to for a deeper reason.” He drew closer to the table, but not matching the energy of the other man. He was a friend, but he drove him mad. He didn’t want it to show.

  “Heh? Finally, we’re getting somewhere.” Pouring another shallow glass, he took light sips as he listened. “I do what I want, because I am—” Forks jumped as the other man smacked the table and rose. “Don’t make fun with me, I want a serious answer damnit!”

  “And I’m giving it, just let me finish. No jokes, I assure you.” His friend sighed and slowly took his seat, turning to ease the waiter with a gentle hand patting the air. “Sorry, go on then.”

  “I am a man, I exist, I have free will—therefore, I exercise it.” The other man brought his hand to his face and rubbed it all over—leaving his face by way of his chin. “You do something you hate just to prove you have free will?” He was now taking on the mocking tone that he had been expecting from his old friend.

  “Why else would I? If I do something I like, I only prove that I am a slave to feeling good. It takes doing what you don’t want to do, to prove that you’re truly free. How do you think I got so wealthy?”

  “That is it?”

  “Need anything else? That’s the point of life to me—to live truly as an individual.”

  “You certainly are that, a true—one of a kind—infuriating old coot.”