A woman paid us ten dollars to let her take pictures of oil tanks in the salvage yard. She said the light was just right, whatever that means. Late afternoon and a few big clouds making shadows. I looked at Dale when she asked about it, and he popped his torch off and said it would have to be at her own risk, what with all the weeds grown up around everything. Rattlers, maybe, or scrap metal with sharp edges. She just smiled and was okay with that. She must have been in her fifties but was pretty. Handed me the money and there she went. She was wearing a white shirt kind of like a business man would wear, jeans, and red shoes.
Dale went back to welding and I went back to scratching my scratch-off ticket. It was nothing. But I guess we were still ten dollars up. I started to walk out there to see what she was looking at but Dale said—Wayne, she might want her money back if you go out there bothering her. So I hung back. From what I could see she was taking pictures of rusty patches on the sides of the biggest tanks.
I went out there anyway after a while. It was hot so I asked her if she wanted a cold drink. She smiled and said no thanks, and went back to her picture taking. She was taking pictures with her phone.
I said I didn’t mean to bother her, but what was the deal with rust spots and chipping paint? We both stood and looked at a big curve of pitted silver paint over what used to be blue or maybe green, with rust pretty much covering everything in blotches. She said it looked like the surface of a planet seen from orbit. I asked her if she had been up there to see that and she laughed. Said no, but she could see it. Like listening to music in your head. I said, Like what? But she went on looking, taking a picture sometimes. I liked the way she was careful where she put her feet, like a barefoot kid walking through weed stobs trying to catch a bug.
She went around one tank and came to where somebody had cut a door in it, probably to use it as a big shed. She asked if it was all right to go in it, and I said, I wouldn’t. Might be wasps in there. But there she went, right on in. I stayed outside. It just seemed like she wanted to look at that dark all on her own. There was an inspection vent on top that was open, light coming down through it. She stood there, looking at how dark the walls were except for here and there picking up tar colors where the light almost reached. She said, Wow, Rothko Chapel. I said, What? And she said, Rothko Chapel, down in Houston. Dark paintings in a room that come to life like this. She closed her eyes and swayed a little, like she was soaking it up. I said, Lotsa big oil money in Houston. She said, Many big hospitals, too. I don’t know what that was all about but I wasn’t going to ask her.
She came on out and smiled again. She smiled like that was part of anything she might ever say to anybody. I walked with her out to her car parked by the service road ditch. She was driving a Japanese car looked kind of like a station wagon, and I asked her if she liked it. She said she did, because it had a high ground clearance and all-wheel drive. I said I had a good truck I could sell her that has all of that, but she said she was okay with what she had.
She drove off and I went on back in. Moved some metal around to look busy. I thought about telling everything to Dale, but it seemed a little like that might ruin it. I looked at all those tanks, out in the weeds, rusting. But rusting like a world would. After we put all the tools away and closed up for beers on the porch, I watched the tanks go all black against blue-black and then stars. I don’t know why, but I felt like I had more of something good, even if it was hard to say what it was.
Bio: Daryl Scroggins
