The cigar lounge

A month ago, I found a little cigar place that I have come to like probably more than is good for me.

From the outside, it is nothing to look at: a storefront in a strip mall wedged between Indian and Thai restaurants - both mediocre - and flanked by a deli that somehow, confusingly, stays in business despite there being next to nothing to recommend it.

The cigar place has tinted windows which give the place a perpetually closed look from the outside. It is the opposite of inviting. It looks dark and dismal.

I had driven by; parked in front of it; and walked past the entrance a thousand times without ever having had even the slightest yen to go on.

Then, a friend suggested we meet there and knowing no other cigar places anywhere convenient, I agreed.

I figured we’d be there an hour. We were there for four hours, two cigars, and half a bottle of port. It was a joy.

You see, behind the smoked glass and unwelcoming façade is an oasis. Inside, it is warm and cozy and welcoming. It feels like a lounge in an old European hotel. It is largely a single, deep room that opens to a walk-in humidor and a small bar. The open space is filled with leather sofas arrayed around coffee tables and high-backed leather chairs set around small tables for cards or chess… or writing.

I have been several times since. I’ve been when they first open and later when they are readying to close. I have come to know the place and its rhythms. I am known to the manager. He begins ringing up my order before I have even placed it now. A cigar from the humidor, a cup of coffee, and a bottle of water.

Early in the day, the place is quiet save for some music - lately, Christmas classics sung by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and the like. It is exceedingly well suited to me. I need no luxuries greater than a comfortable place. This is one.

Now, most cigar places are largely white spaces. They attract white men with disposable income who likely don’t even notice the way in which means and privilege segregate public spaces that are theoretically open to everyone.

My friends and I frequented a cigar place in the city back when I was exactly as described above: a young, single, well paid, white guy free to spend throwaway money on things like nights in cigar bars. The announcer for the Yankees was a regular. So were an array of finance guys and lawyers. One of them was Rudy Giuliani. You understand the place without me saying more.

This place though, the one in the suburban strip mall behind the smoked glass, is the total opposite.

It is Black-owned. The clientele is largely Black. In the afternoons and evenings, I am usually very much in the minority.

It isn’t just a cigar bar. It is a social club with a loose, unofficial membership. Men and women drift into and out of conversations with people they know or just happen to be sitting near.

It is warm and collegial and friendly… and in it, I am the other.

And, I have to tell you, I happen to love that.

When I first separated, as often happens when you have young kids, I fell into a social group made up of my son’s friends’ parents. It’s just what happens. Your kids become friends with other kids and want to play with them, so you schedule playdates… and then you end up hanging out with the other parents and get to each other and become friends yourselves until the playdates are as much about the adults getting together as the kids.

My son’s circle was a group of six - and so too was the adult circle. Me and five moms. I was the only man, the only white person. Three were Latina. Two were Black. I adored (and still adore) each of them.

And then there was me. The cole slaw with raisins at the barbecue.

They used to joke that I had “guest privileges” and I knew exactly what that meant and was proud to have them. It is a privilege to be welcomed into a non-white space. It requires trust. A shitload of trust. It is one thing to be invited into people’s company. It is another for them to be open and unguarded around you about even topics that are uncomfortable.

Part of earning those guest privileges was knowing when to shut up, just listen, or just not contribute.

White people talk a lot. A LOT. White people seldom feel even the faintest pang of awareness that not every conversation requires our contribution nor are we always equipped to contribute.

That brings me back to my newfound cigar oasis.

The other afternoon, I came in and sat in an out of the way spot with only one other person nearby. Across the room, at two sofas facing each other, were three men hanging out, talking among themselves.

At one point, a man there by himself stood up from a nearby table and walked over to them and said “I don’t mind to eavesdrop but…” and then started talking. Friendly enough guy. Just basically butted into a conversation though… and then kept talking and talking and talking.

The man who butted in was a white guy. The three men were Black. They were polite and friendly but clearly weren’t interested in engaging. Each time the man would stop talking, they’d turn back to each other as if to resume their conversation.

The white guy though… he just would not shut up… and then he invited himself to sit down. Eventually, the guy close to me and I looked at each other. I asked him if he was hearing the convo and then we each shook our heads and tried to go back to what we were doing but without much success.

The talker just kept going about his mortgage business and his kids and the great schools they got into and how much they were making out of school and moved on to complaining about how he has to make loans even when people can’t afford them “because it would be ‘racist’ if I didn’t…”.

And I just sat there as one of the only other white people in the room palpably uncomfortable about this guy and his intrusion and the violation of not knowing your place in a space that isn’t yours.

I ended up packing up and leaving. It was the only time I have felt uncomfortable in this new little oasis.

I absolutely love being in a space that isn’t all about me. I like being the other. It checks me. It requires a situational awareness that makes me consider how I act and what I say and do.

I am mindful to not take up too much space. Not just physical space; emotional space. I am mindful to not need the premium sofas in the middle of the room under the big TV. I am happy to sit along the perimeter and have conversations I don’t overstay. I am happy to leave when the place gets crowded if it feels like I am self-inviting to a social club that isn’t bettered by me being there.

Yesterday, I bumped into the guy who was sitting near me before I packed up and left. I asked him how that whole obnoxious intrusion had worked out. He laughed and said he had packed up and left too.

I like this place… and oddly enough, it took one uncomfortable visit to make me really understand why.

It isn’t the cigars, sofas and good coffee. It isn’t the fact that I’m now known to the manager like a regular with a familiar routine. It isn’t the coziness or Christmas music.

I like this place because I am peripheral to it.

I am a guest.

I have guest privileges.

Those need to be continually earned though… and I think that is what I like most.

I am aware and attuned to how I inhabit this place each and every time I visit.

It is important to me to be a good guest because the access is indeed a privilege.

I like having to earn it.