joe green’s choice
Jack came back with his beer and his dog and settled himself at the table, he took a tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket, opened it and removed a packet of cigarette papers, took one out, stuck it onto his lip, put the packet back then removed a slug of tobacco from the pouch with his thumb and forefinger. He placed the slug in his palm, closed the pouch and put it back into his pocket, then he wormed the tobacco into shape with the thumb of his other hand, removed the paper from his lip, wrapped and rolled the tobacco inside it, held it up to his mouth, licked it from end to end, gave it a squint, deemed it acceptable then lit it with a small, silver cigarette lighter he dug out of his trouser pocket.
He squinted at Toby through the smoke.
‘You ever want to ride a horse for a living, young feller, you have to learn how to roll a smoke without gittin’ off.’
‘Ok.’
‘And another thing, ‘don’t keep your smokes and light in the same place, no good losing both of them at the same time, you got that?’
‘Ok.’
‘Ok, now d’you want to hear about how Elsie played cricket?’
Excerpt from a book to published in 2017
header pic is George Orwell, rolling up over a cup of tea
petebowes.com 
Nice work Pete. Haven’t been on for a while, but it looks like there’s a bit of reading.
It’s a dirty, no-good skill you described, but mesmerising. I pictured my old Pop as I read it. Unfortunately he spent his last twenty years with an oxygen bottle by his side. Could roll a fag though.
Glad you liked it, I had a pack of ready rubbed and papers to see how it went before I wrote it – but I never inhaled