Sky stretches overhead. Dramatic clouds, perfect shadows
on the rocks. Dolly watches not shadows, but pick up trucks
on the horizon. She imagines a new song. Underfoot: clay pigeons, broken
by birdshot or bullets, and one real pigeon, neck exploded. The No Hunting sign is full
of holes. Ansel's on his knees fiddling with f-stops and shutter speeds. He doesn't notice
the trucks coming or the song Dolly hums, tapping her fingers on the spare tripod.
When she begins singing about forsaken love, imagining Ansel ignoring her,
he whispers, "Shhh, you'll scare the heron." The pick up trucks speed toward them.
The first truck donuts in the wet field, spraying mud on the Hasselblad.
Dolly Parton giggles. Nervously. Her breasts jiggle, but Ansel Adams, wiping mud
off the camera with a hankie, smearing the bright white, doesn't notice breasts. It's not enough,
the hankie. He'd like Dolly's skirt, all that voluminous fabric, but untucks his shirt instead.
The next truck fires not only mud, but a half-filled beer can. When it hits the camera, the spay
splashes Ansel's face. The third truck is shooting at the first, and red shells pop out the window.
Buckshot whistles around Ansel Adam's head. His geese rise from the pond, the heron
lifts from the shoreline. It's not hunting season, but three of the geese fall around Dolly
with plump thuds. She thinks goose dinner, until one moans,
soft and gurgly. She rushes over, wants to be sick, wants save it. But the rednecks
are splashing by again, spraying her dress and the round flesh above it with mud. Cold
mud. The goose moans. Dolly shrieks. She swings the spare tripod at the next truck, cracking
the windshield. She runs toward the third truck, screaming and waving the tripod.
Through the muddy lens, Ansel captures a shot of it, and another
of the truck bearing down on Dolly. In the last shot, the grill is inches from the Hasselblad
and Ansel airborne, arms akimbo.
Mary Stebbins
060313b, 060312a
--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary
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