Jean Strong

Skeeter had been saving Marlboro coupons for three months. It was the longest project he ever stuck with long enough to finish. His mother called him a no-good but he had plans. Big plans that would take him far away from the Chesapeake Bay and his dad's oyster boat.
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Smoking up a storm, picking through empty cigarette packs in the trash at Pig Outs restaurant and haranguing his friends and family to keep the little slips of red paper so he could mail them in for a special extra points smoke reward, he was determined.
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He needed 200 coupons to get the Marlboro party Thermos to bring to the Fourth of July picnic. It was so cool. He would offer Sherry a cold drink and a place to lie out in the sun next to him on his giant American flag blanket.
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Sherry had long hair that flipped by like Farrah Fawcett and the same big toothy grin. Skeeter knew Sherry would think that the tall red and white cylinder with the Marlboro logo was cool, too. He knew what caught her eye. It was too hard to approach her at school where she was always surrounded by her friends, always laughing and looking around for their next target. But she would be with her family at the Bluegrass Bicentennial picnic and fireworks, the perfect time to make his move.
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Skeeter had a Ford Mustang that sat on cinderblocks in the backyard and had never run. He had been working on it for two years. It was a constant reminder that he was stuck where he was. But if somehow he had that Thermos next to him as he worked under the car he could make her run somehow. He just needed that special kick.
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That September, Skeeter, then a senior, drove that Ford Mustang to school every day, picking up Sherry on the way. The Marlboro Thermos was already forgotten, sitting in his basement in a box of junk marked to be sold at the school’s Autumn Bazaar.