Denise

This thermos was filled with cherry red Kool-Aid and ice cubes on the hot summer field day in my fourth grade year. The one day a year we kids were let out of the classroom to awkwardly run around the dusty track field, our chubby arms wobbling from disuse. Our teacher, Mr. Picket pursed his lips in disapproval. My friend Janet laughed after taking a sip out of the big thermos. Her teeth, like mine, were already covered with a faint red film that glistened in the sun.
###
Mr. Picket was the first man I had ever met who did carry the smell of cigarette smoke. I knew this because when he would kneel down next to me in math class, his veined tense eyes asking me why I was so horrible at division. He smelled only of hand soap and wooden pencil shavings. It is possible that the whole room smelled of pencil shavings, and Mr. Picket just smelled only of hand soap and disappointment. When the last school bell would finally ring, bringing his red streaked gaze away from mine, I would be free to sprint across the weather beaten sidewalks home. Slamming the screen door behind me, I could climb into my bed, heart pounding. There I could calm, safely hidden in the darkness under the blankets and stuffed animals, until my nicotine permeated father would rouse me for dinner. It would be better then, him seated across from me, pouring a glass of milk.
###
When he asked me what I did that day at school, the evening after field day, I would shyly lift the yellow folded note out of my pocket and hand it to him terrified. Mr. Picket had pulled me aside that day before I could run away, taking away the dredges of Kool-Aid and melted ice cubes in my red thermos. My father’s deep eyes looked up from the little note, he told me to put on my shoes.
###
The yellowing sneakers ran almost as quickly towards the school as they had away, keeping up with my father’s steady pace through the twilight. It was absolutely foreign when he opened the doors into my classroom, his nicotine meeting the pencil shavings.
###
And there I stayed, in the coat closet entryway to the classroom, glued to the spot, as my father rounded the corner to Mr. Picket’s desk. The note was discussed, both in Mr. Picket’s slow discretionary tone and in my father’s loud guffaw, which boomed louder as he reprimanded him for something which I don’t quite remember. It was about privacy, or income, or human decency.
###
He walked back around corner and handed me the thermos in less than 3 minutes. Outside again with the nighttime chill finally setting in he lifted me onto his shoulders. Safely seated there I rode home, the red thermos with the Marlboro logo swinging in my hand.

Martha

Oh it doesn't look like much, that's for sure. It looks like it could use a disinfecting. But to me it's all about my father and the summer I turned 14.###My dad smoked a pack a day, and ended up with all kinds of crap covered with that Marlboro logo. Hats, jackets, t-shirts, patches. When it all combined he was a walking billboard. But us kids got over it; he was as unmovable as a mountain.###We usually spent summers outside, fishing, jumping into the swimming hole, having footraces through the fields, and generally causing a wild child ruckus. But that summer things started changing. I was the oldest, and I rather suddenly realized that I wasn't what teenage boys were interested in. They didn't want a girl with dirt under her fingernails and tangles in her hair. So I laid aside fishing trips with did and drinking from the spigot of that Marlboro cooler for trying out makeup and listening to trendy music. My father and I drifted apart, the way I guess all daughters do. I was growing up.###Late that fall my dad got sick, the doctors said cancer. We all watched him get grayer and thinner and weaker. It was horrible. He was too ill to go fishing next summer. And by the summer after that, he was gone.

Elizabeth

Dylan West flicked his lighter with one hand and lifted the half gallon jug to his lips with the other. The flame, stubby and stubborn, wavered in the wind but stayed true. Dylan swished. He spit. Grain alcohol met the source and ignited in a churning fireball. He whooped beneath singed eyelashes. When he sucked in a spastic gulp, I imagined the air tasted like hamburgers the way my father always favored them, charred so far past recognition it was as if they had never lived at all. ###
“Here,” Dylan said, passing me the water-cooler-turned-hooch-hauler emblazoned with Marlboro insignia. I’d first taken it out of the storage shed in my backyard when Dylan told me he needed a discreet container for the bottle of Everclear he’d stolen from the package store. Nobody would miss the cooler. It was a throwback from the days when my mom had salvaged Marlboro Miles from the packs dad left as reminders of where he’d been: his recliner in front of the TV, the garage, his nightstand. She must have known the end was near because she sent away for the red jug right before dad gave up his habit. Marlboro Miles catalogs turned into postcards from Omaha Steaks. Now dad burns his lungs on barbecue. ###
I leaned back and poured a shot of grain from the plastic spout into my mouth. I waved off the lighter Dylan offered, the shake of my head turning from polite refusal to a potential case of whiplash when the liquid hit the back of my throat and took off in separate directions up my sinuses and down my gullet. “Dammit!” I shouted. My foot sought invisible flames to stamp out, but the thigh-high cast and my already compromised sense of balance reminded me not to be theatrical. “Not for nothing, Dylan, but literally breathing fire seems kind of superfluous once you taste this stuff.” ###
“I don’t even know what that means,” Dylan said. His voice was like a hand ruffling my hair. It was at once protective and taunting. I was the little dictionary he kept in his pocket but never opened. I was happy enough just to feel him against me. ###
“It means you’re crazy,” I spelled out. “It means you go too far. It means you’re not going to smell anything or taste anything soon.” ###
“You sound like my father.” He would have said ‘mother’ if he’d had one. “Come on, you’re smarter than that. You know what they say about people who lose certain senses, right? It makes the other ones stronger. Maybe now I’ll really be able to feel.” ###
“I know,” I said. And I did know. Not from my own frame of reference, but from Dylan’s. I’d been part of his life for so long that I could see things the way he did. I could attune to the same sounds. I could taste him and I wanted him to taste me. ###
“I would do it again,” he said after a while. ###
“Oh, no you won’t!” I reached for the lighter on the wooden fence post behind him but he swiped it away first, laughing. “Not that,” he said. “I meant I’d run from the cops. Actually, I’d go even faster the second time around. I’d fucking fly.” ###
I made a small sound of acknowledgement. It burned my throat. Dylan looked over at me. I thought I saw the white tip of an eyelash flake off. ###
“You know what’s the craziest thing of all?” I asked him. “Your father doesn’t blame you and neither does mine. They both think it was the police. And the school. Everyone’s responsible but you. They’re going to sue.” ###
“And what do you think?” ###
“I blame you,” I said. “But I don’t think it was your fault.” ###
I wanted to reach out to him. I wanted to move closer. I tried, but my leg ached too much, each nerve ending blazing as the grain coursed through on its way back to my heart. If I thought it would dull the pain, I was wrong. ###
There was rustling on the path behind me then. My mother’s footfalls pounded dried leaves into the ground. “There you are!” she shouted. She wore a shapeless black dress, black hose, and black pumps. There was dirt on the heels. “What are you doing out here? You shouldn’t be alone right now. Besides, it’s time to go.” She grabbed my crutches from their perch against the fence and handed them to me. “Mr. West is waiting for you in the…” ###
She faltered suddenly, and when she did, the silence shattered everything. Even her voice broke. “He’s waiting for you in the hearse,” she said. ###
I turned to Dylan, looking for an excuse. But the only thing left was the Marlboro jug. It had sloshed, bottom heavy, when Dylan first filled it with firewater three days before. Now it was empty, the last remnants turning to burning sugar in my bloodstream. My eyes blurred and I had the strange thought that I could fill the cooler anew, this time with tears.

Harry

The child, a dark haired girl of seven or eight, sat in the well of a front room window, one foot resting on the apartment’s only heat register, the other dangling freely in the air, three floors above the Rue St. Martin. Elyse Bonnaire leaned forward studying her handiwork. Something about the small blue paper airplane bothered her. She placed it on the sill between her legs and adjusted the fold in the right fin several times before giving it one last inspection. Perfect. Holding just below the wings, she tipped it sideways and sent it sailing high into the filtered light of a Paris autumn afternoon. She gripped the window frame and leaned out to watch as it circled down in graceful arcs. Below her, sixty-three year old Maurice Ponard, the ground floor tenant, sat in his garden, smoking and reading the latest copy of L’informateur. The obligatory thermos of coffee, the one with the large Marlboro Cigarette logo on the side, lay on the bench beside him. The glider landed neatly in his lap. He looked up at Elyse and scowled. Without taking his eyes off her, he picked up the glider and sent flying over the marigolds and into the leaf barrel. Elyse imagined that she could hear the slight hiss of his breathing from three floors away. She smiled down at him. Her smile irritated him no end. ###
Ponard turned his attention back to the business at hand. He would deal with the girl when Madame Bonnaire returned from the market. He laid the newspaper in his lap and reached for the thermos. He opened it, placing the cup and stopper face up on the bench. He lifted the thermos to pour, but a headline on the page caught his attention. “Proposed Expansion of Smoking Ban.” He set the coffee down, bent over the paper and took a drag on his cigarette. A long ash hung precariously from the filter. Ponard absently reached out and tipped the ash into the thermos. The reflex was automatic, unconsciously done. He routinely dropped ash and butts into his thermos once it was empty. From her perch above, Elyse plainly saw that it was not. “The chief of the city health commission,” he read, “has recommended an expansion of the public places smoking ban to include private property.” They would deny him a cigarette in his own garden—his one true pleasure? Ponard choked on an involuntary epithet, coughing up a wreath of blue smoke. A woman passing on the walk made no attempt to hide her disgust. He shot her a foul look and mentally projected on her a healthy measure of bad karma. He had plenty to spare. After a time, he regained his composure, but Elyse no longer had to imagine the sound of his wheezing. Ponard turned the paper over, searching for something more pleasant to read. “Man stabbed in Bungled Robbery Attempt.” Ah, yes—much better. ###
A minute later Monsieur Ponard remembered his coffee. His left hand held the paper. With his right, he poured half a cup. His doctor insisted he cut back. With his cigarette lodged between index and middle finger, he gripped the cup between thumb and pinky. Elyse watched as he raised it to his lips and swallowed the steaming liquid. He held the cup out and stared at it for a moment. He took another sip, set the cup down and wrinkled his nose. Ponard then picked up the thermos, grimaced at the Marlboro logo and muttered to himself, “After fifty years of smoking, everything tastes like an ash tray.”

Karmann

Marlborough Thermos

###Five bucks, I decided, after eye-balling the red Thermos and pasted a yellow $5 sticker on the lid and tossed it on the kitchen wares table. It was the last item I had to price and just in time: a small crowd was already gathered at the door, ready to grab the best deals. I stood up, brushed off my knees, wiped my hands on my jeans and took my position behind my table just as the doors opened.
###“Good morning Staci,” breathed a soft low voice. I took a moment to paste an appropriate smile on my face before looking up from glasses I was arranging after the first wave of shoppers had buffeted them around. That was the voice I'd been dreading all morning, Cathy Harris, Queen of the PTO. She'd been president since long before I became involved when my son came here to kindergarten and she'd still be here long after my son moved on to middle school.
###Publicly, we all admired Cathy, widowed at 39 with the youngest child still in diapers, the oldest entering the years of rebellion and two in between yet she always managed to be organized, prepared and have the best hair in town. Privately, in groups of two or three, especially if the wine was washing our caution away, bitterness bubbled through our carefully made-up facades. “The controlling #$**%,” we called her, “she devil.” We pitied her kids, no father, perfectionist domineering mother. We bemoaned our permanent positions on the PTO as her minions. We speculated that her husband had really run out on her and who could blame him. So when Cathy strolled to my table I squared my shoulders, raised my head and prepared to defend my territory. In this flea market housewares were my responsibility. She was not going to come here and critique my hard work like I was one of her kids.
###At first she just smiled and it looked like she'd walk on to attack the display of children's clothes at the next table but then she paused, damn it, and her eyes narrowed and her elegant hand snatched up the old red thermos. “What's this?” she hissed as she examined it at arm's length like it was a dead squirrel one of her kids had brought to show her.
###“Ummmm, it's a thermos, it keeps drinks cold” I drawled as sarcastically as I dared.
###“Yes, I see that Staci,” she breathed in that irritatingly low voice, “but it's cigarette advertising.” The last two words were uttered with such disgust I thought the contents of her stomach were about to come up and end up amongst my housewares.
###“It's retro. It'll sell for sure,” I tried to say this with finality as I grabbed the handle to take back the Thermos.
###“No, it's cigarette advertising and it's not allowed on school property,” she said and this time the low voice was more like a growl. She tried to pull the Thermos away but I was reaching over the table holding tight to my side of the handle. Curious customers were pausing their bargain hunting to see what was worth fighting about and I was beginning to regret challenging Cathy over a stupid $5 item. I was about to let go of the Thermos but then Cathy barked “give it to me,” and yanked on the Thermos and something in me snapped. I'd had enough of this harridan running a small town PTO like a medieval kingdom, complete with slaves. I tugged back and raised my voice, “It's five dollars! Buy it or put it down!”
###“It goes in the trash,” she commanded with a stronger tug.
###“FIVE DOLLARS!” I commanded back fiercely and wrenched on the handle with all my strength. The old plastic of the handle was brittle and had never been designed to withstand the pressure of two egos at war. The handle gave way in the middle with a sharp snap that was quickly drowned out by Cathy's shriek as she flew backwards. In that instant shame and certainty filled me like some lethal mixture of concrete and acid. Cathy was sprawled on the ground, her hair messed her legs spread in a most unladylike fashion, the crowd gawking at her and I leaned forward and croaked, “What brand did he smoke, your husband?”
###“Marlborough.”

Sarah

Papaw was a sound, a thundering, crackling sound. He’d move into a room and the vibrations he caused from his footsteps, his voice, his aura, always made me tense. Like a rabbit freezing into survival mode at the whiff of a predator. I loved my Papaw in a fierce and frightened way. I was just a kid when he quit smoking, so my nicer Papaw memories didn’t form until later.###He was a real cowboy. And that’s not according to me, that’s according to my Mamaw. She said as soon as she saw him bracing his sheep in the 4-H Sheep Showmanship area at the Montana State Fair in 1959, she was “infected with the love disease.” Not to mention they both had on blue cowboy boots, her’s a rusted copper, his a dark denim.###If Marlboro had held auditions for their ads, there would have been a star in our family. But Papaw wasn’t really the Hollywood type; he preferred a big lot of farm land to a stage. You could catch him hanging around in his shed, a cigarette in his left hand. He’d be bent over a John Deer tractor, fiddling with the engine. Or pruning the various trees and rose bushes my Mamaw loved. Or feeding the sheep, shearing the sheep, tending to the sheep. They didn’t have too many sheep, just enough that they still had something to take care of in their spare time. After their children had grown and left, they bought the sheep. Then my dad had me and they remembered how much they missed the curiosity of a child. So I would spend almost every weekend with them and their sheep.###Every once in awhile, I would run outside to get my Papaw for lunch or dinner, and he would be standing in front of a blaze. He’d be staring into the fire burning away all the dead tree branches and dead grass and old newspapers. Like he could communicate with the fire and the heat was releasing all sorts of secrets about the nature of life to him. He was such a force of nature himself, I really believed that he was listening to what the fire had to say. He was probably just finishing his cigarette and enjoying the destruction.###There was a Marlboro thermos he always carried around with him. He used it as an ashtray and trash can. I shoved sticky candy wrappers into it all the time. Pawpaw took me to get my first adult haircut when I was seven. Mamaw was teary eyed because she knew she was out of a job. It was the same place Papaw went, so I felt like I was getting closer to being Papaw by going too. The barber sheared my hair like I had watched my Papaw do to his sheep, bits of my hair falling like dark fluff to the floor. When it was done, my Papaw looked around and then at his Marlboro thermos. He took the lid off and shook it into the barber’s trash can, banging it to make sure everything had fallen out. Then he collected my hair from the ground, putting it all into the thermos. It’ll smell like ash, but your Mamaw will still get her memento, he said to me with a tobacco stained grin.

Gilly

She’d slammed the door hard, leaving the white Chevy station wagon halfway in the shade, half baking in the sun, with her sister pouting angrily in the back seat. She knew her sister’s legs would be sticking to the red vinyl seat cushion, as hers had. Now she strode away kicking the dust, the plastic container dangling emptily from the hard plastic strap in her hand.
###
Their father had gotten the thermos, with a shiny red bottom and a barely off-white top, the large red and black emblem of a client prominently displayed on the white part, from one of the ad agencies on 54th and Lexington. He’d stopped there earlier that week, to drop off his last batch of sketches, shortly before they left on their cross-country trip. They had all argued about having to look at the Marlboro insignia every day, now that he had finally quit smoking for real, and not just while driving with the family. Her mother had calmed it down by promising to find a replacement somewhere on the way, but here they were, nearly in California, and other than some small plaid Coleman tube-like thermoses, with brown plastic cups as covers, they hadn’t found one with a similar volume.
She walked toward the barren looking roadside diner, with the fading metal Drink Coca-Cola signs, and a rack of maps and postcards near the door, too angry to stop and see if there was a card to send to her best friend back home.
###
“Hi honey” was the voice from a large woman, sitting behind the counter in a white sleeveless top, with a sky-blue headband keeping her bangs in check as she brushed them with the back of her hand. She swatted aimlessly at a small persistent black fly. “What can I get you?’
The skinny, knobbly-kneed girl looked around and suddenly stopped. “I’m supposed to get some sodas and fill this up with water, but how much are these?’ she pointed to a dusty box, with a familiar design in pale yellow and white. “Those are a dime each”. The girl picked out a handful of wax-paper covered strips, and paid for them, listening to the cash register ring as the total showed up in metal letters in the top window. After that, she followed the woman’s pointing finger to find the bathroom sink, and slowly filled the thermos with cold water.
###
On the way back to the car, she barely swung the newly heavy, pendulous canister, lifting her feet out of the dust, and the peeling tag of blue rubber that said Keds waved slightly as she raised each foot.
“Look”, she said as she stuck her hand through the open car window, “I got us these”.
###
Her curly haired little sister looked at the offerings in her hand and smiled.
“Banana” she laughed…“banana taffy!”

Jose

“Big Jim's Thermos” by Jose R. Alonso
###
It was moving day. We were finally leaving Big Jim’s house. That is how everyone referred to him. Big Jim was a larger than life character. Jim had worked for a parcel delivery company. He worked his way up from truck loader to warehouse manager. It was his day job. However, his real passion was bodybuilding. He got into it while playing high school football. A knee injury in his senior year blocked his chances at scoring a college scholarship and going pro; so Big Jim pursued bodybuilding instead.
###
Bodybuilding was not very fashionable back then. Guys who were into it were considered to be part of a weird cult. It was viewed as unmanly to be so much into your body. Regardless of public and family opinion, Big Jim pursued the sport with a passion; and he became very successful at it. He was even featured in some magazines devoted to the sport. Jim even picked up some extra cash as a spokesman for some of the muscle-building supplements.
###
When the sport started to gain tsunami-sized momentum, Big Jim was already in the water and riding the earlier waves. He became a hit locally, nationally and globally. But he was starting to age. In the sport of bodybuilding, once you start entering your thirties your body starts to turn on you. Big Jim got into steroids. He also got live cancer. He was dead within three years. He left behind a big house, a trophy wife and Junior (their five year old son). Four years later, I married Samantha, his beautiful wife.
###
So here it was moving day, I entered Jimmy’s room and asked him if he was ready. He nodded his head and grabbed some things and that old Coleman thermos with the Marlboro logo on it. The thermos was about 18 inches tall and four inches round. The bottom of the thermos was red; its lid and handle was white. On the side of the lid was the Marlboro cigarette logo. Jimmy kept that thermos on top of his bookcase. He was very possessive of it.
###
One year into our marriage, I asked Samantha about the thermos. She said that Jim had picked it up in a local bodybuilding contest. Smoking indoors was still allowed back then, and the Marlboro brand had co-sponsored the event. This particular event helped Jim get national attention and launch his bodybuilding career. The thermos had become an inside joke over the years and there were photo albums filled with Big Jim striking classic bodybuilding poses and the thermos next to him. One had him doing some bicep poses with the thermos balanced on top of his right bicep muscles. The whole thing seemed morbidly ironic.
###
Then, I asked her why was Jimmy so attached to the thermos. She flashed her world famous erotically-charged smile and led me ionto the bedroom. Samantha had once been a centerfold model for Playboy. I soon forgot about the thermos. It became just another object in my stepson’s room along with the action figures and sports memorabilia.
###
As soon the moving van left, we jumped into our car and headed out to our new home in a new state. Jimmy, now 15 years old, sat in the backseat with the thermos next to him. I could see it through the rearview mirror.
###
Samantha noticed I was looking at the thermos. She smiled and said, “Ashes.”
###
I gave her a side glance and said, “What?”
###
She took in a deep breath and as she let it out she said, “Big Jim’s ashes are inside the thermos.”
###
It explained a lot. It also explains why the thermos is featured on the front cover of “Big Jim, Bodybuilder: Fame, Steroids, Cancer and Death”.

Neeraj Kumar

MARLBORO THERMOS M4W, 23:
####Saw you at the corner of College and Allen two Thursdays ago just a few minutes after five. You were walking north towards campus and I was going south towards McLanahan's for cigarettes.

####You: Straight brown bangs and black glasses, a navy-blue dress and red backpack. You carried a faded Marlboro thermos, white top, red bottom, and our eyes met dead center of the crosswalk.

###Me: Black hair, skinny jeans, left knee torn, and a gray sweater that I only wore because my wash was going, I promise. Tattoo on the back of my left hand was an Eliot quote. Prufrock, to be exact. I was smoking a cigarette.

### Not sure if you smiled or I imagined it, but get in touch. Would like to see you again.
###And if not, that's fine. I'll buy the thermos off of you though, if you're willing to sell. Five bucks is all I've got.

Ruth

“Hey, Madge honey! My Marlborough thermos just arrived . Here’s the letter that came with it.”####
Dear Mr. Smith. Here is your prize after sending in 10,000 tops from Marlborough cigarettes packs. We know you had many hours of enjoyment from our wonderful product! Good luck on the next contest!”####
“Yeah, yeah, big deal! Now put on your coat and get in the car. We’re late for chemo!”

Keith

"Marlboro Rewards"
####
The year was 1992 and I had just turned eighteen. It was early April, and frequent showers coated the lawns and flowerbeds of Parksville, preparing for the sun that May promised to bring. I became an adult on the first, an appropriate birthday for a fool like myself. I could finally vote, buy lottery tickets, apply to be in the army, and legally have sex with my girlfriend Diane (well, I could have sex legally, she still couldn’t for another two months). But most importantly, I could now buy cigarettes.
####
Neither of my parents smoked, but my Uncle Gary was a chimney when it came to cancer sticks. He was one hell of a rugged man, with his favorite hobbies including fishing, cars, and chopping wood. I remember on Sunday evenings he would sit on his back porch and drink ice tea that Aunt Helen brewed earlier in the day. As somewhat of a role model for my childish self, I looked to Uncle Gary for the brand of cigarettes I should indulge my virgin lungs in. And Uncle Gary, through and through, was a Marlboro man.
####
I remember buying my first pack just after midnight. I walked into the 7-11 with my shoulders drawn back and my chest forward; I was damn proud to be buying my first pack of cigarettes. The lady behind the counter was somewhere between the ages of 55 and 75; I was a terrible judge of age back then, before I had any real understanding of what it meant to grow old. I grabbed an ice tea from the back color, and then marched up to the front counter, and slammed my bottle down.
####
“I’ll be taking this ice tea, and a pack of Marlboro Reds, ma’am,” I said, trying to sound polite and mature, but also with an air of worthiness, as if I had struggled for 18 years and now was finally getting what was rightfully mine.
####
“ID?” she asked, barely giving me a glance.
####
“Of course, of course,” I said, and withdrew my crisp license from my jeans pocket. “Here you go.” She took the card and again barely glanced at it. It was if all this women could do was barely glance at things.
####
“I see you just turned eighteen a whole eighteen minutes ago. First pack?” she asked.
####
“Why yes ma’am, it is.”
####
“Well here, take one of these.” She handed me a small catalogue that read Marlboro Rewards on the cover. “Save your packs, and you can redeem them for stuff.”
####
“Oh, well thank you ma’am. I just might do that.”
####
“$5.27 please.” I paid her and left the store, feeling as though I had finally entered the realm of adulthood. I was mature, experienced, wise, and now a smoker. As soon as I left, I ripped open the pack, withdrew a cigarette, lit it, and after inhaling one puff, coughed like I had the plague. Yeah, I was a man now.
####
I spent the rest of the night flipping through the catalog, looking through the coffee mugs, t shirts and novelty dinnerware. And then on page seven I saw it, the perfect thing to give my Uncle Gary; a gallon thermos with the Marlboro logo smacked right on the front. It would be perfect for his Sunday evenings on the back porch.
####
I looked under the description and it said that I needed 32 packs of cigarettes to get the thermos. And so, for the next two months, me and my pals Eddie and Jon-Patrick smoked Marlboro Reds until we couldn’t breathe; before school, at lunch, after school, before dinner, after dinner, and before we called it a night. We were following in Uncle Gary’s footsteps, become little chimneys of our own.
####
When June came I finally had collected enough packs and sent them to Marlboro’s gift redeeming center in Virginia. I sent it out on a Monday, and it wasn’t until the following Monday when my brand new Marlboro thermos came in the mail. I took the cooler out of the box and examined it thoroughly, while reflecting on all the puffs it had taken me to get there. I then raced next door over to my Uncle Gary’s house and rang the doorbell three successive times in my excitement. About a minute later the door opened.
####
“Oh, kid, it’s you. What do you need?” he said, in his rough and jagged voice.
####
“Uncle Gary, I got you something and it just came in the mail yesterday.”
####
“Oh yeah, boy? And what is that?” I took from behind my back the Marlboro thermos and presented it to him with excessive pride.
####
“I had to smoke 32 packs to get this bad boy, but I knew you had to have it.” Uncle Gary looked at the thermos for a second, and then burst into a fit of laughter, filling the surrounding air with the roar of his chuckles.
####
“Come here boy, I got something to show you,” he said, and motioned for me to come inside. I followed him into the hallway and he opened the coat closet. “Have a look inside,” he said, giving another chuckle. I peered in and saw that the closet was stuffed with all kinds of Marlboro memorabilia, from everything to umbrellas and hats, to ashtrays and lawn chairs. I spotted three of the thermoses. “You see Jared, I have every gift Marlboro has come up with. But thanks for thinking of me, sport. Now, come on, let’s have a glass of Helen’s ice tea.” He closed the closet door and walked into the kitchen. I looked down at the thermos and back at the closet. Boy, I thought, I’m gonna have to start smoking a hell of a lot more.

Mike C.

Thermos®###

It is hot. But I have this thermos. Water distribution has been put on hold until 17:00. So, I can drink. Many can’t. Many will die today of thirst. Behind me I hear Citizen Sam on the Big Voice:###

“Citizens! Good news! Desalinization of Lake Pacific is complete. We shall soon enable distribution. Until then, sacrifice for the good of the Citizenry and the World! This is Sam, the Marlboro Man, signing off!”###

Citizens of the World. There are no countries now for over a hundred years. Also, there’s no water. That Sam guy, the noise he makes. No different from the dust blowing, blowing. There hasn’t been anything growing to block the dust for a long, long time.###

They say at one time blue oceans covered Earth Planet. There was an Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and others. I found this in forbidden non-electro books with flat images. Paper, they called it. So much water in there. Was it real? Before the BioGene Wars destroyed green things? Before wars went into space, cutting the rest of us off from the Great Exodus from this dead, stinking planet? Wonder where the Exoderes are. They never came back for us.###

What? They can’t probe me in here. This old building material blocks any signal. Don’t worry.###

Where I found that book, I found this thermos. We don’t call them that—thermos, right? I saw that word somewhere. Yeah, here it is. In raised letters on this polymerase container. Thermos®. I wonder what the “®” means. It has been so long since these symbols had a meaning. There has been only thirst. Hunger is defeated! Yes! We have much food—flat, round, big, small, lozenges, patties. We have food.###

But to wash it down: You need water. I have some right here in this thermos. I am not allowed to have it. If I am caught, no execution the first time. The W.P.’s will take it, probably drink it on the spot. My name will be heard on the Big Voice. Others will begin following me, maybe kill me trying to find the water. The World doesn’t have to do it. People will kill me. But they won’t find my water and thermos.###

Why do I trust you? Because they would kill you for just talking to me about this, wouldn’t they? Right.###

Funny, this “thermos”. I like to say that word. Thermos. There, I said it again. It feels good in my mouth that word. The thermos comes from a time when they must have had lots of water. It feels cool with the water inside against my cheek. I could die right here. It is my water in my thermos.###

I thought I heard something outside. No, my imagination. Dust storm coming, probably. I won’t put my air-lung back on. Can still breathe this lousy air, but the oxygen they gave us yesterday is fading a little.###

This thermos. It must have cost many Marlboro to buy because there is this big Marlboro symbol right here on the thermos. See it? Maybe it belonged to a Chief Citizen who made bazillions of Marlboro a year. What? You want to smoke? Are you kidding, I only have 300 Marlboro on me. I could buy a lot of water with that much Marlboro. You know what they say: Too much water is bad for you, if you’re not used to it. They tell us you should always smoke when you get the urge to drink.###

No, you can’t fool me. You can smoke anytime. I can see that look in your eyes. You want my water and you want my thermos. Stay right there, don’t come any closer. It is mine.###

Mike

Mike

The lot next to our house was vacant in May 1963 when we moved to Littleton. It held all the earth that was dug from our lot and dumped when our house was built. Johnny Robinson and I used the dirt piles as hills the Indians came over to attack the cavalry or to roll rocks down creating landslides like those we imagined happened in the canyons in the Rockies. Grass and weeds grew sporadically on the mounds and rain created ravines, gullies, and wadis everywhere. ### Then in August a construction crew showed up to build what became the Sheehan’s house. I was the shortest kid in fourth grade. Johnny wasn’t much bigger. To us, these construction guys were giants with broad chests, big guts, big hands and big feet. They all carried metal toolboxes, and lunchpails and thermoses, and smoked liked crazy. In two months they turned our Rocky Mountains into a plain old suburban landscape.### Every day after they left, Johnny and I snuck into the house under construction, looked out the windows, rummaged through the extra bricks and shingles, cigarette butts, and bits of discarded wood to find make-believe weaponry and loot. We threw rocks out the windows and defended the outpost from imagined German and Japanese attacks, as if we were our dads during the war. When the house was done and they installed the door locks, the war ended and the Sheehans moved in. ### My family moved away when I went to college and I didn’t go back until my tenth high school reunion. That was 1983. After the dance, a lot of us went to the lake. Some guys brought beer. Jimmy Sheehan (he now went by Jim) brought screwdrivers in a red and white thermos with the Marlboro logo on the side. He found it in his parents’ basement. It was the same one used by the fattest carpenter in the crew that built their house. Johnny and I couldn’t believe it. God, that brought back memories.

Curt

Three packs a day got me that cooler and a half a lung short of a full chest. It was 1977 or 78 and I was smoking Marlboros and saving coupons like it was a second job. What I really wanted was the leather jacket with the logo on the back. I’d even grown the mustache I thought went along with it. But after three months I counted up my coupons and finally did the math. There was no way I had the patience or the paychecks to save up for the jacket. I ordered the cooler instead.###
That summer the cooler made me more friends than the jacket ever would have. We went to every rock concert at the “Bowl” that year and drank margaritas, slammers, kamikazes, and all manner of mixed drinks we could think of. In those days, (BC-Before Concessions) they let you bring in any kind of drink to the lawn seating as long as it was in plastic. When we didn’t have the cash for a ticket, we’d hang out in the parking lot close enough to hear the tunes and tailgate before, during, and after the show. It was an epic summer.###
Then I got married and the kids came along. The cooler gained a second life when we started camping. Except this time its cargo was Kool-Aid and lemonade instead of “adult juice”. We looked forward to passing that jug around and tasting the ice cold beverage after a long hot hike on the trails. Probably more than we did at the “Bowl”.###
I lost track of that cooler and a lot of things the year I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Between the operations and the chemo, 12 or 13 months slipped away from my life without much to remember, at least not events I want to remember.
Then last week I remembered why I stopped smoking. I found the cooler wrapped in an old rain poncho in the corner of the eaves in the garage attic. Inside were two stale cartons of Marlboros and a handwritten note. It said “No more Daddy. We love you”. Thank God I didn’t have the patience or the paycheck.

Emilia

Lucky Thermos######
I consider myself one pretty lucky thermos. I’ve had many adventures. Known love. And have only had to schlep my way through heartbreak once, a long time ago, in the spring of 1994.###
My owner, Josephine, had carried me around with her for just about 3 years. We met in Seattle; she got me after trading in 20 Marlboro coupons (one in each pack!) she had collected over several weeks. It came down to me and a t-shirt; and clearly I was both the more attractive and the more practical choice than the one-size fits all, 100% pure cotton white shirt, who was, bless him, truly an unflattering starched bore.###
Indeed, it was in keeping with both aesthetics and utility that Josephine faithfully measured and balanced her way through life. To her I was the package deal: boasting the confident color-block of a Swiss flag and the truly versatile nature of an empty vessel... Conformity was not something she seemed to acknowledge existed, thus turning my everyday into some adventure or another.###
I was the quintessential American product, she was French both in name and nature, and it was love at first sight. Petite with short dark hair and a small gap between her two front teeth, visible only to those who made her laugh. She was beautiful. I so loved our strolls through Belltown; her hand tightly clasped around my handle and headphones on. And on really good days, which were far from few, she would swing me back and forth to the music. It was our very own dance. I felt so light, we hadn’t a worry in the world. And also I was rather proud as I observed the glances of the men passing us, wishing they could trade places with a plastic thermos.###
She filled me with all kinds of things. Regularly with pens, glue, paper. She filled pages and pages with words and drawings, found notes and scraps. Of course I would try to decipher these before she would close the lid and it would go dark inside. With knightly pride I carried and protected the secrets and dreams she entrusted me with. I was her lunch box, her purse and sometimes draped in a sweater in the park, her pillow. Other times I would hold the flowers she received by one lover or another. I can’t remember ever being filled with coffee though.###
Our very favorite thing was go to shows. I would carry a single beer, and a pack of Marlboro's, thus we would tour the night. Nirvana before it got crazy. And then when it got crazy. We didn’t care too much about the people or the buzz; we were there for the music. Well I was, she was also there for the drummer. He was alright I guess, but only because in the early days of our encounters he noticed me lying on some dingy couch and ran after her to return me. He didn't fool me though. I’d developed a quick read on the type of sheepish grin on his face as he handed me over. She didn’t seem to mind, so I didn’t mind, their fingers carefully brushing and glances lingering. Couldn’t complain either, she touched me everyday. Come to think of it, that was the only time she ever left me behind. That is until that spring she left me for good.###
It was all over the news. April, 1994. Some poor electrician was just doing his job and found him dead in his house, three days after he shot himself. I remember her crying and myself thinking about those three days. How wretched. And then somehow, I became collateral damage. We biked all the way to his house, which took forever. Drummer boy had suggested we go together by car, but she declined. Luckily it was one of those rare sunny days, not a single cloud in the sky. She picked flowers on the way; the few already blooming, that is. Once we got there she took me from the basket. Filled me with water. Put in one flower after another. Noooooo!!! Josephine!! What are you doing??!! Don’t leave me! Please! Never had I wished more for a voice. She looked at me and kissed me smack on my Marlboro spot. It was my happiest saddest moment and my saddest happiest moment all rolled into one. Carefully placing me next to the numerous other flower arrangements, she turned around and walked away.###
I was her gift, her gratitude and respect. And I was absolutely devastated. After the sadness and the anger, I found solace in our last pilgrimage and her sweet gesture. I knew she cherished me, which was why she gave me away. Because it meant something. Because I meant something to her. Which is all that ever really mattered to me.###
And that is how I became more than I ever was. One damn lucky thermos. Hell yeah.

Claire

Parleys’ served the greater Nanticoke peninsula with bait-and-tackle and a wide range of convenience items, and it was one of the area’s last remaining commercial establishments. Sure, Road Runners hunkered down in its parking lot closer to Salisbury, and the old department store kind of clung on to life there by the old oyster dock—but Parley’s was the only place with any real life in it.###Bip Parley and that little mongrel Tiffany manned the store most days, being the last remaining Parleys out here since Bobby went up to Jessup. Tiffany spent most days coloring on the walls outside the bathrooms, watching the customers warily—no one really knew whose she was, but she was a Parley for certain. She had that suspicious look.###Bip kept a little of everything in the store, which is how she came to sell Pete Margitt that thermos. (He called it a cooler, said he was taking it down the boys at the ocean.) Pete was tickled by the Marlboro logo on the front, being the brand he smoked, and so he spent the last few dollars he’d filched from his wife’s penny-saver jar and walked out with some bait, some tackle, and a brand new red drink cooler to show Ed and Tommy, Jr. before the trio went out on that last marlin trip. Some folks would say the marlin fishing at Ocean City was for pussies from Washington, DC and Baltimore, but Ed and Tommy, Jr. and Pete’d been deep ocean fishers since they could walk. Probably that’s why they didn’t see it coming—the dark clouds didn’t scare them, not on a clear silver day just off the Inlet. Six, seven beers in, taking the ice cubes out of the thermos or cooler or whatever Pete’d bought, even the first raindrops went unnoticed.###By the time the storm struck up it was too late. The Marlboro cooler floated better than the rest of the wreckage, and years later Pete would wake up in a cold sweat, the sight of Ed’s arm reaching up a third and final time to gain purchase on that damn Thermos, watching it roll away.###The currents that year were strange and rough, the weather unpredictable. Little children found pieces of the accident from the Inlet up to Cape May, incorporating the bits of fiberglass and wood into their sandcastles, for better than three years. When the cooler finally came aground in Atlantic City, its Marlboro logo a little faded but none the worse for wear, it was 12 year old DeShaun Williams who picked it up. ###Until he’d found the cooler, DeShaun was by turns bored, mystified, and unsettled by this family vacation. Dad wanted to hit the casinos in AC, claimed he’d gotten a great deal, and didn’t everyone love the ocean? Mom was much quieter than usual. Every morning she’d pack the beach bag and march DeShaun and his baby sister Kiki (who was such a moron, DeShaun thought, that she couldn’t even pronounce her own name, Katherine) down to the weirdly deserted beach. ###DeShaun brought the cooler to his mom, who regarded it with a triumphant glare; later that night she’d present it to her husband Gary with quiet menace. “Isn’t it nice the children can find trash to play with on the beach?” she asked him, before turning her back in the large hotel bed. ###In the chaos of packing up to leave, the Marlboro cooler travelled back to Philly with them, and found a home in the back of the cabinet. Through DeShaun’s death, the divorce, the remarriage, it simply disappeared until the day Kiki had to clean out Mom’s things. ###Pulling the big red Marlboro thermos from the big over-fridge cabinet, she was bewildered—she didn’t remember Atlantic City, and as far as she knew she hated beach vacations and so did everyone else. The cooler went on the pile for the AmVets, who took it to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Distribution Center to be sorted and either destroyed or sent to the thrift stores. ###Tiffy Parley, art student, wandered the aisles of her favorite Baltimore thrift, touching each object and imagining she could feel their past owners. The Marlboro cooler stood on a shelf in the kitchenwares area, beside a snowglobe with a tiny village inside and a Big-Mouth Billy Bass, the kind that sings and moves its mouth. Beat up and kind of uninteresting, it was overpriced at $5, but Tiffy picked it up anyway, thinking she could use it on a trip to the shore. ###For some reason the cooler reminded her of Nanticoke—of home. Reminded her of Aunt Bip, the crazy old lesbian, and the days in the little boat on the river, halfway hoping nothing would bite. She took the cooler home that afternoon and left it on the kitchen counter, where it would squat, unnoticed, until they all moved out. ###

William

It was popular, and I was in college. Everyone was getting them. Okay, I might have been a little imbibed. There were certainly some a lot more offensive than mine. Anyway doc; crank up that laser. Let's make a memory.

Sarah

He drummed his fingers against his knee to keep them from shaking.###The wind, he knew, would keep blowing that damned dust everywhere and there was no escape from it.###He was trapped inside his tent and his only companion was his father's old Marlboro thermos.###It was kept as a reminder of the way his father had been and where his father was now.###His dad had been so proud when he'd saved up enough miles for his first prize, his child-like enthusiasm filled the house.###When the thermos arrived it became the center-piece of each picnic and camping trip.###Every fish caught glimpsed its magnificence, it had a cameo in every one of his father's tales of the great out doors.###The man could picture his dad lighting a red with grace and gesture to the thing like it was a part of the conversation, he'd take a sip from it's rough plastic mouthpiece, and nothing.###The anger in his memories halted the next scene.###There was always a cigarette, and there was always that thermos and that was life.###At 67 his father was surprised to find he had cancer.###"A complete shock," was his father's answer when anyone asked.###The man looked at the thermos, it was a symbol of what killed his father and at the same time a life line.###He hadn't expected the sudden sand storm, and the beaten thermos was now his only chance for survival.###He had used up two of his three water pouches getting lost, and had lost the third making a shelter from the storm.###Now all he had was the old Marlboro thermos that he had brought with him even though its added weight was a burden.###He figured there was about eight ounces left, enough for the rest of the night if he was honest with himself.### ###There is silence in the sand, memories in each granule.###Sometimes there are stories if you lose yourself completely to the desolation.### ###The thermos was found with a message inside, no one could guess how long it had been roaming in the desert with it's cheerful red logo.###"I miss you dad."###

Erin

Mom was always a smoker. In my earliest memories of her there is always a thin stream of grey smoke cutting vertically upwards. With cigarettes, she was brand loyal. It was always Marlboro reds. Not 100's like her sister, or lights like my sisters and I later in life, just the regular Marlboro reds. With everything else; soup, laundry detergent, lunch meat, she'd buy what was on sale or that she had a coupon for. Mom was thrifty and knew how to stretch a dollar. A useful skill in my childhood home. Not that we were poor; but we were careful. You had what you needed, not much more; which is why it was particularly galling to her when we decided to go to war against smoking.

I'm not even sure how it all started. Maybe we heard some adults talking about it? Maybe an item on the AM news station the Grandma always played? "News and weather on the 8's!" Regardless, at some point, we learned smoking was bad. Not just bad, but BAD! Like stealing and lying...and not little white lies...big fat fibs that get you sent to your room without dinner. The first volley involved the magazines. I don't remember anyone buying or reading magazines in our house, but they were there. Lying on the coffee table by the avocado green velvet sofa in the living room. Paging through them, we searched for the ads. Cowboys on horses. Thin women taking a break from tennis. All smoking. And at the bottom of each ad was that little rectangular box with the plain text warning from the surgeon general. I assume it was meant to be inconspicuous, but it was the only thing that stood out to us. We cut them out with our brightly colored, blunt-ended scissors and relocated them. To the medicine cabinet, the bedroom mirror, on the cans of Del Monte green beans in the kitchen cabinet; anywhere we thought it was least expected and had to be noticed. We were C. Everett Koop's little soldiers. We were determined. So, when that didn't work, we escalated to destruction. We flushed them. We dug holes and buried them. We broke them and put them back in the pack. That second battle did not last long. And we did not win. The cause wasn't worth the punishment.

Eventually each of us picked up the habit as well, but Mom was the pro. We all knew she collected Marlboro Bucks. We saved ours for her too. Cleaning out the house, we came upon boxes and boxes of red and white stuff, most of it never used. Decks of cards, fleece blankets, sweatshirts, duffel bags, and this red and white Coleman thermos. It was one of the few things I took after she died. My sisters thought it was weird, that I felt sentimental about something mom got for free and never used. I threw out letters, refused furniture, and kept the plastic Marlboro thermos.

I don't smoke any more. None of us do. I don't use the thermos either. It's in the back of a kitchen cupboard that I rarely go into. I happen upon it occasionally and think about Mom. About how she always saved things she didn't use. About the thermos that she'd fill with red Kool-Aid for back yard picnics. Holding the thermos, I can recall the smell smoke from a freshly lit cigarette and it's like she just left the room. That she's just around the corner.