The Wind Is Not a River by Brian Payton

A week? Two? With the supply on this beach nearly exhausted, they will have to travel increasingly farther afield. He skewers the two chunks of hindquarter and sticks them out over the flames.
    The boy is pensive, uncharacteristically silent.
    “When I was your age, I was in art school,” Easley says, to prime the conversation. “I wanted to be a painter. Still life. Natural history. The new Audubon.”
    “New what?”
    “An artist. Thought I’d travel the world, then hole up in some garret in the city—drinking and screwing. I even grew a little beard.” Easley looks over at the boy and catches him in a smile. “Didn’t do much painting, though. That was part of the trouble.”
    “What’s the other part?”
    The bird’s fat bubbles. It runs down the skewer and sizzles on the coals. The smell is overwhelming. It speaks to a part of Easley’s being unconnected to mind or soul, something deep and compelling he is only now getting to know. He turns both pieces over to expose a fresh side to the heat. Fat dribbles down his hand, he licks it off like gravy.
    “The other part was what my favorite teacher said to me. One day, he took me aside and said that I had just enough talent to torture myself for the rest of my life but not enough to make it as an artist. Said I was old-fashioned. Lacked vision. Showed no real promise of developing a style of my own. He told me to look for something else. It’s not too late to be good or even great at something, he said. If only I’d put painting behind me.”
    “Mean old coot.” The boy slowly licks his lips in anticipation.
    “He was about as old as I am now.”
    “Still, couldn’t’ve felt good hearin’ it.”
    “So I became a writer, of sorts.”
    “But do you have any talent for it?”
    Easley gestures around the cave. “Enough to pay for all of this . . .”
    “What kind of stories you write?”
    “Articles about wildlife, people. Heard of the National Geographic Magazine ?”
    “Yeah, they even have those in Texas. Good pictures.”
    The bird is not quite ready. Easley sticks the knife into the little thigh and the juice runs quick and opaque. He tosses a few bulbs of the wild celery up into the hammock. “Salad,” he says. “Main course will be served directly.”
    “College wasn’t for me.” The boy gets out of the hammock and comes down next to the fire. “Too many rich boys for my liking.”
    “What did you study?”
    “History, English, a little chemistry. Had no idea what I was doin’.”
    Easley hands the boy a hindquarter, puts the other aside for himself, then sets the breasts on to roast.
    “When I turned twenty, my friends took me out and got me drunk,” Easley says. “Woke up on the floor of a stranger’s house. Had no idea how I got there . . . Ended up walking home with no shoes or wallet.”
    “My last birthday, I was in basic training,” the boy says. “I didn’t tell nobody. The birthday before that, I had a fight with my mom. She wouldn’t leave me alone.” He takes a bite of the meat and his eyes light up with the flavor.
    “Wouldn’t leave you alone . . .”
    “My mother ruined my life is the easiest way to tell it,” he says. “She ruined me.”
    Easley bites into his chunk of meat and considers options. Pick up the scent and follow the trail where it leads, risk fouling the day, or gently shift things in another direction.
    “We’ve all got parents,” Easley offers.
    “No we don’t.”
    Easley stirs the coals as the words hang in the air.
    “My daddy left us when I was three. I was the only child. He couldn’t stand my mom no more so he just walked away one night. Left everything. All his money, clothes, you name it. Never came back. Well, she couldn’t take it. She never treated me right. Like a boy. A son. She always doted on me like something else. Like she needed me too much. She wanted me to sleep with her all the time, keep her company. Then, when I got older and needed my privacy, she