Over the River

Through the open window the green trees moved fast, the burnt red rock slow, and the blue sky above seemed not to move at all.

We’d lost cell service at the entrance of the canyon and with it, our music, too. It’d been half an album since Bert rolled the windows down, and this he did without asking. Hell, it was his right. His car. And, boy, was I glad. To remove the barrier between interior and exterior was to fill the void without either of us having to say a single word. No longer were we observers passing by nature, now we were just as much in it, participants flowing through it. The difference is substantial.

With the seal of our fart-laden echo chamber broken, I felt a cool blast of morning air from the bottom pocket of the canyon, which had been insulated overnight under black blanket of infinity. The same wind that whipped through the Jeep aroused the green trees outside, awakening stiff branches, shaking loose leaves. “It is I, Mr. Coconino.” these trees seemed to be saying. “Welcome to our forest.”

I heard the cracking of sunflower seeds, followed by sputters of spit. Bert’s breakfast. He offered me the bag but I was not hungry. I stuck my head out the window and imagined I was one of the gutless carcasses Bert was launching out the open window, happy to be heading back into the world whence I came.

The wind blew the dirt from my hair. My face felt refreshed. Indeed, we were inside a beautiful morning, and so I chose to break our silence.

“This reminds me of Thanksgiving,” I said.

“Why?" Bert asked, his cheeks about to burst.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

But really, I did. It started with a brown paper bag and ended with a song. “Cut a hole in each side,” were the instructions of my kindergarten teacher. “Big enough to fit your arms through.”

My grandparents had arrived later that afternoon. It was Dad who picked them up from the airport; he met them directly at their arrival gate and then carried their bags to the car. This is what my mom told me when she picked me up from school early that day. She saw my paper bag shirt and told me to put it on in the car — just in case they beat us home.

“You look like a sack lunch,” my grandpa said as he dropped his suitcase on the mat near the door. I tried to give him a hug but my arms would not bend. I heard my mom explain the costume was a school project for Thanksgiving. “All the kids were sent home like this,” she said. “You should have seen them. Half dressed as Indians.”

“Did the pilgrims also wear paper bags?” my grandpa asked.

“No,” I said. “They wore paper hats.”

He patted me on the head and said I chose correct. His grandmother was Mohican, he said. This was family news to me, but it did explain why their house was in the desert and decorated almost exclusively in turquoise.

Of course, this is just a memory. One that took place almost thirty years ago, back when people still said Indian.

Bert slowed the car. “Were getting close,” he said.

The river butted up against my side of the car and I could see the water moving fast, swollen from the late winter’s melt.

I thought of Thanksgiving and the children’s song that played as we made our paper shirts. It didn’t matter that it was the beginning of May or that it was already eighty degrees outside. We were hungover in Arizona with a trunk load of empty beer cans and loose fishing lures.

I looked out the window as we crossed over the river and into the woods.

“We’re here,” Bert said.