2002 Summer Edition, Conceptions

Bill Vassey’s sister’s husband
was a supervisor at the big Ecusta paper mill
up in Brevard
and i would tag along sometimes when Bill went to visit
staying up all night
to play poker with his brother-in-law who would
take our every dime without
blinking an eye
a cocky guy with a wicked sense of humor
who liked to poke fun at us lintheads
from the Piedmont and couldn’t quite hide
his feelings of superiority
an attitude he shared with most of the other employees
and their families
especially the teenagers who would come to the ballfield
in their Chrysler convertibles and souped-up Pontiacs and lean
against the gleaming steel
chain-smoking Pall Malls and Old Golds
and give only sideways glances
at me and Bill as we played catch
beside the polluted
river where Ecusta dumped its wastes and sent them
downstream alongside the swaying trainloads
of cigarette paper headed for Winston and the other tobacco towns
and maybe you think
this is about the evils of nicotine or how the spoiled teenagers grew up
and had beautiful children of their own
who went swimming in the polluted river just
like their parents had done
but don’t forget Bill who moved out of state and became a big-time preacher
in the Methodist Church in Dallas Texas where most people
had never heard of Brevard
until that Sunday Reverend Bill broke off in his sermon to tell them
his brother-in-law had worked
at the great Ecusta Paper Mill back in the fifties and sixties
supervising the manufacture of the paper on which most of the King James
Bibles were printed until (how can we
explain these things, Bill said) his sister’s husband
took his own life the very day
the original Marlboro Man died of lung cancer
which had nothing to do with Ecusta
Bill’s sister said
because that actor on his horse had been smoking
since he was ten years old
and if it wasn’t paper they put around cigarettes
it would have to be something else

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