Joey Camire

I started collecting Marlboro Miles when I was 8. It seemed the most effective means to get what I wanted – stuff. Everyone I knew had stuff, stuff they’d got for their birthdays or Christmas, gifts and surprises, even stuff they’d got because they're old stuff had gotten worn out enough to warrant new stuff. I however didn't have stuff. And I wanted it badly.

My father smoked like a chimney. Truly. In the evening when he drank there was what seemed like a perpetually lit cigarette in his hand, a Lilliputian smokestack of American grown tobacco streaming from his body. I always blamed him for my lack of stuff, and it wasn't a wholly inaccurate accusal, but I thought I didn't have anything because he spent all of his money on cigarettes. It was actually because he spent it all on Michelob. 

When I first saw the Marlboro catalog at a neighbor’s house, I didn't understand it. Why would a company just give you free stuff?  

"No, you collect Marlboro Miles, stupid. These things. They're in every pack. Like saving up from cereal boxes for the special toys,” my neighbor told me. “My sister got a pair of sandals from it.”

I wasn't sure what cereal he was eating, because the white and brown boxes of government cereal we got didn't have any prizes. What I did know, though, was that my father had a giant pile of discarded cigarette boxes in between his recliner and the magazine rack I wasn't supposed to look at. A treasure trove if my neighbor was right. I decided I was going to take these miles from him, however curious this currency sounded, and get some stuff of my own. I stole the catalog that night, but promised myself I’d return it. I didn’t like taking things.

That first time I gathered the Miles from next to my father’s unconscious body, strewn akimbo on the worn velvet of the Lay-z-boy. I wasn’t sure what I thought was going to happen. I treated it like the infiltration of a heavily guarded bank vault or the compound of some cartel. I silently snatched them and hurried up to my room. 159 Miles, a number I was sure to count 3 times, stacking the papers in 15 piles of 10 across the wood floor of my bedroom and one pile of 9. Once I was sure I’d counted right, I began to finger through the catalog.

It felt like I’d stumbled upon some great scheme. I ordered a thermos, a portable radio, a towel and a pair of sunglasses, all emblazoned with the logo of the company that was foolish enough to send me all of this stuff for free.

By the time my first package arrived, I’d become quite enterprising in my acquisition of Marlboro Miles. I’d begun sneaking into the teachers lounge at school and found discarded boxes in the trash. I even began going through teachers’ pockets, but never taking anything more than the Miles inside the cellophane wrapped boxes. 

I brought my new stuff out to the woods where I’d stashed an additional 200 Miles in plastic bags inside an old tree. I’d begun to create a camp around the tree, a clandestine compound in the woods to keep and display all of my new stuff, stuff generously bestowed upon me by a cowboy from the west. My life hadn’t exactly accelerated into prosperity, but cold Kool-Aid from a thermos under the shade of a big tree was a welcome hideaway from the disappointment of reality. It’s amazing what an infusion of pride can do for a lonely little boy. 

My father died last week. He never stopped smoking. The irony is not lost on me that the only thing he’d ever given me was part of what ended up killing him. I guess I can’t say that. The act of being artful in getting what you want is not a skill I’d have gained if it weren’t for his negligence as a parent.

There wasn’t a service. I put his ashes into the old thermos. I made a small stand for it next to my diplomas.  The diplomas as proof of how far I’d come and the thermos as a reminder of how I’d learned to get there.