There is a man in Marion, who for the last 20 or so odd years has been one of the most visible figures in the community.  He is loud.  He is obnoxious.  He is enigmatic.  He is…Chico.  To say that Chico has lost his marbles completely would be untrue.  To say that he had all of them to begin with would be speculation at best.  Chico is tall with jet black hair and a dark complexion.  His given name is Danny Cress, but its very rare that anyone ever calls him that.  I can only surmise that he aquired the nickname “Chico” because all of his peers just assumed he was Mexican.  There are very few hispanics in Marion and Chico resembles the sterotypical Mexican well enough, so this isn’t a completely unfair assessment.  Chico can be found every Friday night in the fall at the Marion High School football game; in town or out he’ll be there.  He’ll walk if he has to…in fact he’s been
known to walk as far as 50 miles toward the opposing team’s town before being picked up by someone passing by on their way to the game.

You should see him at the football games.  He is the biggest MSHS (Marion Senior High School) fan of all time.  Marion’s high school is called the “Scarlet
Hurricanes” and their uniforms are red and white.  Every year Chico will buy a red and white jersey with MSHS’s current running back or quarterback’s name on the back.  When I was in high school he sported a “Josh Crewey” jersey which he wore for two years.  On a side note, Chico has the most distinctive lisp I’ve ever heard.  Its hard to emmulate, but I know a few people who are spot on.  I find my version to be at least satisfactory.  If this was an audio book I would attempt to sound it out to you, however its not so i’ll be forced to attempt it on paper.  Lets see if this works….

“Joscsh Crewey broke hiscsh dad’scsh ruscshing record in two conscshecutive gamescsh.”  Imagine trying to talk not out of the front part of your mouth like most everyone else, but through the back, behind your wisdom teeth on both sides.  Come on, give it a try!  When you do this, lots of saliva builds up in the back corners of your mouth causing your “s’” to sound very watery and mushy.  Its like listening to Lou Holtz if he was retarted.

At the games he will pace the sidelines on the bleachers; trying to rally the team and also the fans.  Most of the time the team is terrible and no matter how amped Chico gets the boys, they still lose pretty handily, but occassionally it will work.  He will honestly scream until his brown face turns blue.  “Come on Marion!  We can’t let em beat our boyscsh!  They’re runnin’ all over our boyscsh!  Get you’re asscsheschs outta you’re chaircsh and yell for our boyscsh!”  Sometimes people will listen to him and start cheering more.  Most people know that he isn’t all there and just try to ignore him, but when you are there and see it in person its almost impossible to ignore.  Last year he broke his leg.  He was standing at the very top
of the bleachers when he noticed for whatever reason, the opposing team’s cheerleaders were on the Marion sideline doing a cheer.  This clearly enraged him and he took off sprinting down the bleachers toward the cheerleaders, screaming profanities at the top of his lungs.  Before he could reach the sideline he lost his footing and plowed down the last ten or so steps slamming into the fencing that seperates the bleachers from the field.  But in true fashion, as he was being taken from the scene in a stretcher he was yelling and cheering for Marion…..

Just like Booger, we’ll see more of Chico soon.

A few years back Booger was alot more of a visable fixture in Marion.  He could be seen walking downtown from shop to shop more than likely harassing the local shopkeepers; driving them crazy with his constant babble.  This may have been how he aquired his military fatigues.  It didn’t matter if it was 40 or 100 degrees outside, Booger was always to be seen sporting his cammoflauge military issue slacks, long sleeve jacket and green GI cap.  As far as I know he never wore shoes though; only sandles.  In downtown Marion there is an Army surplus store that sells fatigues and backpacks as well as hunting and camping supplies.  I don’t know whether Booger bought his outfit, stole it or if the owner of the store got so tired of him hanging around that he just gave him the clothes to get Booger to leave him be.  Regardless he wore nothing but military garb.  He could be seen at times walking in town pretending to talk on a handheld CB radio or something similar
to that.  It looked broken, but he acted like it worked none the less and who he was pretending to talk to I never knew until my dad entightened me.

My father is a police officer in Marion and one of his job requirements is to actually work in the school systems.  He not only spends time at the local high schools, but also the elementry and middle schools.  A few years ago on Veterans Day, there was an assembly in honor of Marion’s local war veterans at Marion Middle SChool.  Imagine my father’s surprise when he walked into the auditorium and saw Booger, dressed in his soiled military fatigues, getting ready to carry the American Flag across the stage.  Dad immediately approached the principal.  “Mr. Rhodes, do you know who that guy is?”  “He said he was sent by the Army Reserve office to participate in the assembly,” Mr. Rhodes replied.  “Lord have mercy, no he wasn’t.  Thats Booger Heath.  Get him off the stage right now!”  They then extracted Booger from the stage and exited him through the front door.  Dad says that Booger then pulled out his broken CB radio and started calling someone.  “Sarg, Sarg do you copy?”  A few seconds passed and then he continued.  “10-4.  Sarg, they won’t let me carry the flag across the stage.”  There were a few more seconds of silence.  “10-4.  Roger that.  I’ll meet you back at the reserve center at 0500.  Heath over and out.”

Booger then proceeded to lumber down the hill toward main street and carry on with his business as if nothing had happened.  I assume that dad felt too sorry for him to pursue any kind of charges although Booger was certainly trespassing on school grounds.  Dad has a big heart which I think should be a requirement for all cops, but we all know that isn’t the case.

Whether Booger actually walked all the way out to the reserve office or not, I don’t know.  I doubt it, but you really never know with ole Robbie Heath.  For all I know he was convinced that he was in fact Private Robert “Booger” Heath of the 101st Battalion; Southwest Virginia Reserve Branch.

Booger and Richard

Slightly north of Marion is Hungry Mother State Park.  The park hosts acres of mountain trails, picnic and recreation areas and a small lake.  On the far end of the lake is a boat dock with paddle boats, canoes and a few flat bed john boats.  The lake is so small that no boat motors other than electric trolling motors are allowed and on any given day there can be as many as 100 patrons paddling various boats around the water.

The summer after my senior year of high school I landed a job working at the boat dock.  I was not only excited to work outside all summer and make some money before my first year of college, but also all of the attractive girls from my high school either worked as life guards at the beach or would come out there daily to sunbathe.  Life was good.

My employer was a man named Richard Thomas and he, along with his wife, had run the boat dock for more than 20 years.  Richard was in his late 50’s or early 60’s at the time and was as weathered as a leather belt.  Years of working in the sun had tanned him permanently and his greasy salt and pepper hair was always perfectly parted to the side.  Richard also had the filthieset mouth I had ever heard.  Every other word was a variation of fuck or goddamn and racial slurs were an everyday occurance.  Richard also had a knack for confusing words.  I heard this sentence come out of his mouth more than once.  “That sure is a right pretty labratory dog,” refering of course to a labrador retriever.  Aluminum was Alumium, or if he was going to use something he would news it.  You get the picture.

One particularly sunny day I heard Richard say very matter of factly, “Its gonna rain soon.”  I asked how he knew that since it was in fact sunny.  “Dark clouds are formin’ amongst us,” he proclaimed but I still didn’t get it.  Not until I noticed a group of black men and hispanics walking down the stairs did I put two and two together.  The hispanic men rented a john boat for half an hour and when they brought it back in the boat was soaked on the inside.  They had either splashed water in it or a couple may have decided to take a swim, but regardless the boat had to be brought up on land, cleaned and dried out.  “Goddamned fuckin’ spics got water all in my alumium boat and now I can’t news it,” Richard exclaimed.  He was so mad that his dark tan face turned a shade of red and he wouldn’t let it go for the rest of the day. Richard certainly had a way with words.

Now there was a particularly fat, obnoxious and sloppy guy named Robbie Heath who used to hang around the boat dock all of the time.  Robbie rarely bathed, never brushed his teeth and would wear sandles that exposed his crusty, yellow toenails.  His body and breath smelled like literal shit and he simply did not seem to care.  This landed him the awesome nickname, “Booger.”

Richard hated Booger, but Booger seemed to like Richard.  He would come down to the boat dock daily and joke around with Richard and me which would obviously make Richard mad, but I never minded.  I found Booger at least moderately amusing and he was friendly enough, so his coming around never bothered me.  Richard would openly shit talk Booger behind his back, but never said anything to his face until one day when he had visibly had enough.  “Goddamnit Robbie,” he said with a tone meant to grab the attention of everyone nearby.  Booger looked
at Richard a bit startled.  “When are you ever gonna take a fuckin’ bath?  Ya smell like warm fuckin’ garbage.” Booger was mortified.  He had no idea what to say and even as he began to open his mouth to form some kind of retourt Richard continued.  “And do ya ever plan on brushin’ those fuckin’ teeth?  They look like they’re growin’ hair!”  Booger was so taken back but Richard wouldn’t let him speak.  “Robbie, yer goddamn toenails are so fuckin’ yeller it makes me sick.  Ya ever gonna cut em?”  I watched as Richard lowered his head and walking away he mumbled something that sounded vaguely like “fat fuckin’ bastard.”  I felt terrible for Booger.  He was so embarassed and Richard was also so right.  Booger left that day and never came back down to the boat dock.  Richard Thomas died last year.  I went to his viewing and was surprised to find him looking exactly the same in his coffin as he did more than ten years ago when he was blasting ole Booger and making fun of every non-white person that walked down the stairs.  I’ll miss Richard.

Booger, who was not at the funeral, I am not quite through with yet…

Train

Very recently a little boy was hit and killed by a train right outside of Marion in Atkins.  He was four years old.  He was supposedly under the care of his neighbor and she was so used to all of the kids playing around the tracks that it seemed to her to be a non-issue.  She was obviously mistaken.

On a similar note, I knew a kid who used to insist that he only ever be refered to as “Train.”  His name is really Trenton and he is a real life Harry Potter but even weirder and not a real wizard.  He rarely speaks and will answer only if you call him Train.  Before that his nickname was Truck, but I guess the older he got, the less cool trucks were and Truck gave way to Train.

Marion

Forward

I imagine that growing up anywhere would yield some amazing stories.  I was raised in Marion, Virginia; a town that is THE definition of “small town USA.”  At a glace, Marion is really no different than any other small town in the southeast.  A handful of resturants, one high school, rolling hills, six stop lights and about 5,000  people…some of whom are the basis and characters for this collection of stories.

I want to make something very clear.  In order for me to accurately build these stories (which are all true to the best of my knowledge), I have to use the real names (and in many cases nicknames) of the actual people involved.  That being said, many of these tales are not only funny, but quite bizarre, however I have the utmost respect for the town and the people involved.  In no way, shape or form are these stories meant to offend those involved; the purpose is simply to portray the uniqueness of Marion and its diverse cast of characters.

I also want to make it very clear that any stories concerning race, sexuality or any other risque topics do not reflect my personal views on these issues.  I’m just calling it how I saw it!

So, with that all having been said, I give you…

Marion…