Counter Culture : Hookah

The hookah glistened in the Spencer’s lighting, as the brown hose lay coiled at the clear, plastic base.

“Tobacco,” I said, unsmiling to the baggy-clothed teen. I remembered the lecture well. Captain Steve had sounded slightly displeased.

Captain Steve was the president of Gordon Brothers Corporation, which owns Spencer’s. Every few weeks, every manager in the company would have to call the home office and listen to a pre-recorded message from the guy whose signature is on our checks: The Captain.

“Hey there Spencerinos,” he would say. Every single time. His voice invoked images of game-show hosts on good cocaine.

I could never make it the whole way through any of his messages. Either he used the adjective sick too many times, sang Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” or shamelessly promoted products like the coughing ashtray or life-like scrotum stress ball.

This last message was different though. Captain Steve warned us of the dangers of the hookah. His voice was somber as he scolded us. He was only half as upbeat and he’d cut back on his corny epithets.

“The hookahs are for tobacco use only. If anybody asks, you do not tell them otherwise,” Captain Steve said. “No smiles, no winking. None of that.”

I hung up before he could finish. I only made it though the whole message once in my Spencer’s career. It ended with “This is the Captain, signing off.”

I never hated hearing so much.

I remembering listening to NPR and they were talking about former Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and his plans for Homeland Security. The one voice on the radio asked the other if he could guess the next item targeted by Rumsfeld.

“Think Spencer Gifts in the ‘70s,” the enunciated radio personality said. “That’s right head shops, the Administration is focusing on drug paraphernalia. Bongs, pipes, hookahs and rolling papers all are coming under fire. No pun intended.”

It was ridiculous and I never forgot it. It seemed so wrong and petty and I wasn’t the least bit surprised.

So when the hookahs started arriving at the end of September, I was nervous. It was fun putting them together and pretending to pull super hits from them, but it only aroused a longing from my lungs.

I assembled an $80 glass hookah with an air of safety. There was an intoxicating security in holding a hookah that contained not one trace of marijuana. The laws had always worked against me any other times I held a hookah. I was also a mall employee, a professional. This mall and its security guards protected me, my company’s layers (I assume they have some) would look out for the best interest of the merchandise at least. I also figured the Constitution had to have my back somehow.

I suddenly felt like taking a walk.

I took a swig of the Coke I’d been spiking with rum my whole shift and went next door with the hookah. It was a sports store and the one guy was a good drinker, but he wasn’t working. I showed his manager instead.

“You better hope they don’t bust you for walking around like that,” the guy in the navy polo shirt said.

“For what?” I said. “Walking around with my tobacco pipe?” I left the store and went to the cell phone kiosk to see Lance.

Lance was looking at the computer screen when I got there, so I just set the hookah on the glass counter, above rows of display Verizon phones. Lance’s eyes inflated when he saw the four-foot hookah.

“Man, get that off my counter,” Lance said between huffs of laughter. “Are you just walking around with that?”

 

“Pretty much,” I said, eyeing the mall security guards walking our way.

“How much they want for that?” he said, looking at the hookah.

“80,” I said.

“That’s not too bad,” he said, folding and unfolding a cell phone. “I gotta get a picture of this.”

He focused his phone on the paraphernalia and I watched the security guards glare at us.

“Watch this,” I said after Lance took the picture. I put the mouthpiece to my lips and bobbed my head, feigning grooviness. “Excuse me officer, is this how you use this thing?” I spoke in an imaginary exhale.

Lance laughed and one of the guards joined him, the other didn’t even smile.

“You bring your toys to work today?” the grumpy guard said.

“Nope,” I said. “This belongs to my store. We sell them. To children.”

Lance was cracking up now.

“You can get in trouble if you sell those to minors,” the guard with the sense of humor said. “It’s a tobacco product.”

“You can get in trouble if a Monroeville police officer comes in and decides to search the place,” the other guard said.

I took it for a ridiculous lie.

After we sold through our initial order of 13 hookahs, the warnings started to come. We would listen to messages about discreet salesmanship while refilling the shelves twofold from our previous shipment. At one point, we had so many hookahs we had to store the extras in the backroom, on a high shelf, where they almost reached the ceiling.

We were told not to say anything about marijuana, or even put anything that had a pot leaf on it by the hookahs. Apparently they didn’t want us to suggest the two may work in some strange combination. According to Captain Steve, we should “use our best judgment” about the person purchasing the hookahs. If we thought they would go home and do illegal drugs, we weren’t supposed to sell them a hookah.

I thought how unfortunate it was that I’m a bad judge of character. It’s just one of my many flaws. I have a hard time knowing who’s going home to do dope and who’s going to smoke tobacco and read something inspirational by Horatio Alger.

The day I listened to Captain Steve’s warning, my coworker told me of a raid by cops in Middleton, a town outside of Philadelphia. The cops closed the Spencer’s for two hours, confiscating the hookahs and anything in the store that had a pot leaf on it. Including the Hawaiian-style leis, cookie cutters, ice cube trays and the ever-dangerous pot leaf wrapping paper.

With that raid in mind, I displayed the blue, plastic hookah for this kid in baggy clothes. His friends were gathered around.

“So that’s where you put the weed,” the kid said, fingering the ceramic bowl at the top.

“Tobacco,” I said, unsmiling to the baggy-clothed teen.

“Na,” his friend said. “You put weed in that.”

“It’s a hookah and it’s for tobacco,” my young coworker said. He was 16 and sold more hookahs than anyone else.

“What did you call it?” one kid said.

“A hookah,” my coworker said.

“Hoo-Kah.” The kid stretched the syllables like they were part of some exotic and new language. Then his friend said it with him, slowly and in unsion. “Hoo-Kah.”

The two other members of the group mouthed the word silently, to themselves. I saw their lips move. One of them was touching the hookah like it was an elderly cat.

“Man, that’s a bong,” the kid, wearing a Chris Webber jersey, said. “I don’t care what ya’ll call it, but to me, that’s a bong.”

He tilted and studied the hookah, caressing the bumps and tracing the curves. He showed his friends the spiral, ceramic bowl-piece on top.

“See,” he said, “that’s where the weed goes.”

The first kid, the one I’d corrected earlier, looked at me like it was my turn to talk.

"Yeah,” I said. “You put your weed in there.”

Adam Matcho writes true stories for the New Yinzer. Names have not been changed and distinguishing characteristics have not been altered. They are all just as guilty as Adam.