Sunday, July 15, 2001

The Marlboro Man

There are some pretty rough places between DC and the mountains.
The ones I saw were sandwich shops and most of those were at gas stations and they all featured a Marlboro Man.

Right off, you would notice his shoes. They were always worn and broken; all scuffed up, with loppy heels. His blue jeans were always dirty and his shirt was tattered, and he would come up to the counter, turn his head, cough on the back of his hand, and say: "Two Marlboros . . pleaseama'am."  The waitress would always plop down two packs, like she had been waiting all week for the chance, and say snippedly, " ...that'tal be six dollar su'nine cents!" Money would pass. A pack would be opened, it's cellophane top left floating to find its way to the floor. A cigarette would be extracted, tapped on a counter and then put in the mouth of the Marlboro Man as he strode out the door.

Once a man hesitated so long after being asked "What do you want?", that I began whistling the tune to the Adagio movement of Dvorák's symphony number Nine in E minor, Opus 95. Almost immediately the man who had not a clue seemed to recognize the melody because he said, "Oh! – I reckon I need a Marlboro – yeah!"

Later, as we were entering another sandwich shop at a gas station, a man and woman came in just ahead of us. The woman was wearing a dirty smock and was shuffling her bare feet along the concrete floor, obviously in pain and stark fear glowed like embers in her eyes. The man held her arm tightly, he, a first line supervisor of a tire repair place, perhaps, turned to me and smiling, said " Scuse, us, she's just had back surgr'y an'disina lota' Pain . . . ". He smelled of old beer, and after throwing his cigarette to the floor and grinding it under his booted toe and while his woman went to the Ladies Room, he went up to the counter, coughed and said " Two Marlboros, please Ma'am."

"That'talbe six dollar sand nine sints!".

"It's a pleasure, thank yuma'am." he said as money was put on the counter.

Well, at least there are no foreigners, I thought, ruefully remembering placid Washington which had been full of Asians. John Rocker, the Atlanta pitcher who had recently made comments about too many foreigners in baseball would be at home here!

The guy ahead of us in the sandwich line was asked: "Merikin cheeze or Swis?" He replied: "hay-marry-can". Until then we all thought he was an American.

"You wont tmeriikin"? she raised her eyebrows as if she was speaking to a child. "Si ... ." he said.

A real American walked in behind me. He had on dirty Nike shoes, baggy trousers and a tee shirt that said something about Hawaii. He also had a switch-blade knife he kept trying to snap open and then close. It didn't work very well. He looked disgusted and said a couple of foul words.

The Marlboro man caught his woman as she came out of the ladies room. They walked out, he with his grip on her arm, she shuffling her bare feet in obvious pain. Springsteen sprang out of the radio: " ... I'll be watchin’ you ..." The tire man’s lady was furtively glancing about with fearful eyes as if looking in vain for help. " ...ev’ry step you take ..." They got in his car and rolled away in a neck-snapping blaze of speed. " ...every breath - you take ... ."

"Umerkin or Swis?" the girl behind the counter looked to me as she wiped her brow with her forearm and then slumped forward, shoving her great weight toward her hands which rested on the sandwich counter.

"Swiss." I said with a hiss on the iss.

"Swis?" She looked surprised - Like I was the first one today.

"Si.” I said.

" She nodded her head as if she understood, but I noticed she put t'merican on it

So we arrived home with the long evening shadows, up on a ridge, high in the mountains, cool and dreamy with happy, tail-wagging doggies and some good pictures, not all of which were on tape or film.

©John Womack, 2005

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