In the photograph I am standing near the edge of the Columbia River Gorge. Behind me brown strata of rock step down to the wide flat river. The color of my shirt matches that of the sky and water. You can see the breeze coming up from the canyon by the way my tousled hair bends to one side. I’m standing at a three-quarters profile looking off to the left. I have a bemused look on my face, my eyelids droopy, my cheeks round, pushed back in a half frown. I am looking at Randy making faces at me, distracting me as Artie, my cousin, snaps the picture.
This photograph is the only one Artie took of our time together on the road. No pictures exist of the foot-tall ice cream scoops we bought on the dusty roadside in Central Washington. There are no pictures of the ranch where we stayed because my childhood fantasy was to be a cowboy. There are no pictures of the giant horses, nor are there pictures of my terrified expression as I sit atop one of the gentle creatures. There is nothing to record the hot tears of shame and frustration at the realization that I will never be a cowboy. There is nothing to help me remember except this, the last frame of film remaining on his camera. The rest of the roll are hazy pictures of dorm rooms, Artie’s friends with slurred smiles and glazed eyeballs.
What I do remember is disjointed and dreamlike, overexposed by prairie sun, wilted by uncooled auto interiors. I remember the admiration with which I looked to Artie, thinking how great it must be to be an adult, to own a car, to know definitively what is cool.
The two lane strip is endless, rolling in either direction forever. I sit astride the center of the backseat despite the lack of safety belts. I notice peculiar things about Artie’s car, the ways it differs from my parents’. The stickers on the dashboard, the dirty laundry and garbage, the audio cassettes of strange new music, the boyish smell, the general way everything frays at the edges.
Artie asks me something. With the windows rolled down, he has to sort of shout.
“So, Andrew, do you have a girlfriend?”
“I’m nine,” I say.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t have a girlfriend.”
I make a face to show my distaste of the opposite gender.
Randy says, “Andrew has a boyfriend.”
“I do not.”
“Yeah you do,” Randy says. “You’re married to Super Mario.”
“No I’m not. I don’t even play Super Mario. I play Metroid. Super Mario is gay.”
“And you’re his boyfriend.” I never had a older brother so I don’t understand this teasing as a way of showing affection. Randy is the oldest of three brothers.
“You asshole,” I say. I remember this because it’s the first time I ever swore at someone my senior. I almost choke on the words.
“Did you just swear at me, little boy?” Randy asks me. “You’re cousins got a dirty mouth.”
“I’m not little, anymore. I’m going to be in fifth grade.” It must be about a hundred degrees in the car, even with the windows down. The vinyl seats make my shirt cling to my back with sweat. I imagine we pull over and leave Randy abandoned on the roadside, and I watch gleefully from the front seat as we drive away, just Artie and I, as Randy slowly melts in the devastating heat.
I awake from a nap because I sense we have stopped. I feel sticky with the residue of the long morning. A breeze blows through the car’s open doors. Out the driver’s side is the highway. I look out the passenger side, there’s Artie and Randy standing at the cliff’s edge smoking a cigarette, watching something in the canyon beyond. As I approach, they see me and extinguish the cigarette. Down on the river is a wind surfer. I wonder what it’s like to be pushed by the wind when I notice Randy making faces at me. At that moment Artie snaps the picture.
