When I Was Twenty-Two

They used propane for cooking, and bare bulbs that lit a couple of rooms inside the house. It was a very hard life, and the strain of it showed when we offered to take them to eat at the local restaurant (and I use that term very loosely). Each child scarfed down two hot dogs apiece, a pile of French fries, and a tall chocolate milk. We all ate apple pie with vanilla ice cream. We repeated that meal four nights in a row.

By the end of the week, countless rolls of film had been shot and we had surely gotten at least one good picture for the America book. But I had mixed feelings about leaving. Sure, I wanted to get back to the “real world” for truly hot showers and some good food, but I felt pangs of guilt at leaving the family there to fend for themselves. All was not rosy. Nick and his wife sniped at each other a lot and had no qualms about yelling in front of the kids. And since Nick had just been laid off from the lumberyard, his steady paycheck was soon to become a distant memory. Then there was Beth’s mysterious broken arm…they’d had it set at the emergency room and it was healing fine in its cast, but her story of falling on her way to the outhouse seemed a little too rehearsed. She was a sweet, loving, ten-year-old girl. She asked me to stay with them, because ever since I showed up, she said, things were “real good.” It was tough to say goodbye.

About two years ago, I exhibited a photo of Nick feeding his chickens at an art gallery. People thought it was a movie set. But I assure you, it was not.

Photo by Lori Epstein