CRATERS OF THE MOON A thesis submitted To Kent State University in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts by Jack Shelton Boyle May, 2016 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials Thesis written by Jack Shelton Boyle B.A., The College of Wooster, 2008 M.F.A., Kent State University, 2016 Approved by Chris Barzak________________________, Advisor Dr. Robert Trogdon, Ph.D._____________, Chair, Department of English Dr. James Blank, Ph.D._______________, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. iii POLAROIDS ................................................................................................................... 1 HANDS SHAPED LIKE GUNS ...................................................................................... 18 SUNFLOWER ............................................................................................................... 22 QUITTING ..................................................................................................................... 24 THE DISAPPEARING MAN .......................................................................................... 41 CHICKENS .................................................................................................................... 42 UNITY ........................................................................................................................... 48 MOON ........................................................................................................................... 64 THE RING OF FIRE ...................................................................................................... 65 SUNFLOWER 2 ............................................................................................................ 74 [TITLE] .......................................................................................................................... 78 FLYING OVERSEAS ..................................................................................................... 93 A HORSE ON A MAP .................................................................................................... 98 FREE ........................................................................................................................... 108 FROGS ....................................................................................................................... 118 THE GIANT PINK COWS ............................................................................................ 123 VOICES OF TRAINS ................................................................................................... 125 A MAN AND WOMAN MEET ON THE STREET IN YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO .............. 135 THE ORANGE TENT .................................................................................................. 136 SUNFLOWER 3 .......................................................................................................... 150 iv POLAROIDS The full moon rippled behind a river of navy blue clouds flowing through the night sky. Henry, in his burnt out Chevy Caprice, pulled his sheepskin coat close around his neck as he waited for sleep to come. His eyes were heavy watching the way the light of the moon shadowed the surface of the black soil like pools of ink. He had no dreams. In the cool November morning the fogged windshield diffused the sunlight. Henry pulled the wooly lapel of his cracked brown sheepskin coat over one eye to block out the sun, but this movement exposed the skin of Henry’s lower back to the cool morning air. He shifted and covered his other eye. Now he was roused enough to notice how stiff his neck was, how sore his throat was, and how, unless he closed them very tightly, the sun made the insides of his eyelids orange. He sighed, adjusted his coat, and looked over to the passenger seat. There was a flimsy plastic container of corn chips stuck in dried liquid cheese from his dinner. In the cup holder was a half-empty can of light beer from last night’s six pack. He lit a crumpled cigarette from his overflowing ashtray and swigged the flat beer. The chips were stale, but they were always stale. He finished the beer and tossed the can into the backseat onto a pile of Polaroids of people he didn’t know. He cracked his neck, rolling his head, stretching his shoulder blades. Up to this point in his day, things were very ordinary and they would continue to be throughout the afternoon. As always, Henry grabbed his Polaroid camera from where it sat in a 1 pile of beer cans in the backseat and checked to see that he had an extra film cartridge in his pocket. He unlocked the door and kicked it open. With some effort, he raised himself up out of the faded blue interior of the car and into the morning. He had no idea that today he would meet a girl named Matilda who would change his life forever. The morning went on. Tourists came early to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. Henry wasn’t sure why though. What’s the great appeal of barren rocky landscapes resembling the surface of the moon? History, he guessed. Photo-ops. Family time. Henry himself liked it well enough to stay, and he supposed it was on some people’s maps of important geologic places to visit with their families—the least popular of a regional circle of such RV destinations including, but not limited to, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Canyon. Tourists followed the sunrise across the lava fields surrounding the Great Rift and read maps covered in colorful dotted trails and information bubbles telling them the stories of the unique rock formations and just what exactly the Great Rift was—basically, a big crack in the Earth from which magma flowed for 15,000 years. From their foldable guides, they learned about cinder cones with names like “Inferno.” They observed massive rock columns called crags which looked like evil fingers sticking up out of the ground about to topple over like children’s blocks. These “crags,” they read, are made of sedimentary rock which had filled in and preserved the shapes of the shafts of eroded volcanoes. They learned about the scarce and scattered fauna appearing in italicized text with bold genus and species names, pockets of juniper bushes and stray gnarly branches of cedar with corresponding pictures in the brochures. Henry stood watching people awhile. If he was going to make enough money for his dinner and more film, he knew he had to start early and work late. 2 Of course, the tourists had their own cameras, fancy ones with digital displays, autofocus and face-recognition—much more impressive devices than Henry’s Polaroid. The tourists viewed most of the otherworldly scenery of Craters of the Moon through their cameras like little TVs held out in front of them, snapping hundreds of photos of the landscape. They posed in front of the towering cinder crags, huddled in dark caves, and scaled miniature canyons while a smiling stranger told them “Say cheese,” eliciting half-hearted laughter from mothers with mittens on. The kind stranger would depress the shutter, but not before a moment of hesitation to point and question whether the button, placed in the same position on all cameras, was indeed the button to push to capture the photograph. Having received confirmation of this obvious and yet somehow friendly inquiry, he would finally snap the picture, admire the display, say, “That’s a keeper,” and hand the camera back to its owner. Every person had a camera and every friendly stranger gladly followed this series of obligatory steps to generate pictures on assorted handheld devices for each other, so it was more out of pity than necessity that Henry made his meager living taking Polaroids. It helped that Henry was a kind-looking person. His hazel eyes were warm and inviting. His short brown beard and lanky build made him seem unthreatening. He didn’t look like somebody who lived in his car. So when he said, “Wouldn’t you like a nice family portrait to remember this special occasion?” and smiled, the tourists always smiled back. And before they could answer, he’d have the camera up to his eye saying, “Boy, now that looks great. Just get in a little closer.” And they would get in a little closer, tacitly agreeing to be photographed. Henry would click the button and the camera would wind and churn and spit out the white-framed photo. Henry would flap it back and forth, get up next to the family, and hand the photo to a blond-haired child to hold for the rest to gather around and admire. “Oh, now that’s a beaut,” 3 Henry would say emphatically. And the father would scrunch his lips in a forced smile and hand him a folded dollar bill. When the paper hit his hand, Henry would tip an imaginary hat, smiling again, and set off in search of the next family. Amazingly, this worked for Henry and had worked for three years. By the end of the day, with a short break for lunch, he would have thirty dollars for film and cigarettes and dinner which he bought at a convenience store not far from the visitor center on Highway 93. The closest thing Henry had to a friend was Frank who worked behind the counter at the convenience store, and who, importantly, had a red beard. Frank was friendly to Henry and felt a sort of familial connection to him because of the frequency with which Henry patronized his business, so he sold Henry film at cost and never