Neal

My uncle died 15 years ago, in the summer, of liver and kidney damage. I was a teenager at the time, and I don’t think I mourned much, but I did—and to some extent still do—miss him.
###
The Marlboro thermos was one of his keepsakes. He worked at Philip Morris USA’s headquarters in Richmond, Virginia—my family lived about 10 miles out of town; he lived alone in town—and apparently the thermos was a Christmas gift to all the employees. My uncle worked there for over 20 years, and it was the source of our biggest disagreement.
###
He smoked constantly, and drank constantly, or so it seemed. During the summer I’d see him on occasional weekends, and he always had either a cigarette or a flask in his mouth—sometimes both. I didn’t mind the drinking, except when he drove, and to some extent I didn’t mind the smoking, although when I came back home after being with him I had to scrub the smell out of me in a really long shower.
###
What I did mind was his working at Philip Morris. I was into the environment then—these days, I’m a botanist at the University of North Carolina, with a specialty in fungi—and I thought that what he did for a living was inexcusable. He contributed to death. It was as simple as that, and I told him so.
###
He’d laugh at me, like I was some stupid teenager, and it enraged me. The last “picnic” we had together—we’d go off on some trail, I’d bring sandwiches, he’d bring that thermos full of booze along with a carton of cigarettes—the argument was typically maddening.
###
“Listen,” he told me—I still remember this—“people are gonna die one way or another. Better they should die because of something they like to do—smoke—than get hit by a car or fall out of a building or get electrocuted or something.”
###
“What?” I responded. “That doesn’t make any sense at all! You have enough money. You can get another job. You could probably even retire. Why would you continue to work in a place that kills people?” He laughed, turned around to look at some trees, smoked, and drank. Then he fell asleep.
###
When he awoke, he smoked some more, drank some more, we took a little walk in the woods, he dropped me off home, and died two days later. I’m told he barely made it back to Richmond, checked himself into the hospital, and that was it. The doctors said that his liver and kidneys had been seriously eroded.
###
So my uncle died, and maybe as a result a few more people lived—until Philip Morris replaced him, anyway. I really wish I could have persuaded him to quit.
###
The Marlboro thermos has special meaning for me. It’s not only that it represents the last time my uncle and I spent time together. It’s also because the thermos is where I shoved the Amanita mushrooms I’d crushed; the poison of those mushrooms goes directly to the liver and kidneys, and the taste is easily masked, especially when the drinker is half-drunk. A week after my uncle died, I picked up the thermos at his home and donated it to a curio shop. I told the owner to be sure to wash it good before he resold it.