How does Cholly embarrass himself asking for a cigarette in The Bluest Eye?

The defining moment in Cholly's life occurs not long after his Great Aunt Jimmy's funeral. During the wake, Cholly's playing around with some of his cousins, one of whom (Jake) offers him a cigarette. Cholly embarrasses himself by placing the cigarette over the match instead of putting it in his mouth. Unable to light the cigarette, he angrily throws it to the ground.
Feeling the need to prove himself as a grown-up, Cholly agrees to go looking for girls with Jake. Eventually, they meet up with a couple of girls and everyone makes their way to the nearby vineyard. After Jake pairs off with a girl calls Suky, Cholly tries to gets intimate with Suky's friend Darlene. But their act of love-making is interrupted by a couple of armed white men who force the young couple at gunpoint to continue having sex. During this terrible ordeal, the men shine their flashlights on Cholly and Darlene, attacking them verbally with racial slurs.
Eventually, the two men leave, but not before Cholly's whole life has been changed forever. From now on, Cholly will always associate sex with violence—an associated that has damaging consequences for both himself and others.