And so they stared into the bubbling mudpots of Yellowstone. The hazy heat of this August afternoon seemed redundant when compared to the boiling geothermal belchings that gurgled before Rosie and Jack. Jack idly grasped the leash of his instant camera, which swung to and fro in the thick, scorching air. Rosie's cheeks and shoulders glowed in a pink, pitiable testimony to her lack of solar protective lotion. They had been "on the road" for only two-and-a-half weeks and already it seemed a millennium. Neither would ever admit this fact, however.
For Jack, this vacation was the only thing keeping him away from that beastly place called the "Real World." This "place" held for Jack certain mythical qualities reminiscent of the hellfire and brimstone stories he had heard in Sunday school. And besides, driving a car was a thrill for Jack, just so long as his tape played in the deck and he was driving and Rosie was not talking , filling his bored ears with tales of her common childhood - No, Rosie's complete absorption in the Road was the major assurance of Jack's driving bliss.
And for Rosie, who did indeed love Jack (for he truly loved her as well), the vacation was more of an incubation period. She had already received her dose of real-life hellfire and brimstone during the previous two months, during which time she had dropped out of college for the second time, confronted the revolting alcoholism of her entire social group, as well as realized that - at least according to her own measure of self-esteem - she wasn't worthy of any sort of pleasant existence whatsoever.
By the way, Rosie also loved geothermal activity. It made her want to shoot straight up into the air and go "shoom!" flying off into the sky above; it made her so excited. So she looked to Jack, who was turning a bit pink-on-the-neck himself, and she said, "Give me that camera and stand over there."
Jack reluctantly obeyed. He swung Rosie the camera (which he considered to be his possession) and proceeded to "stand" before the stewing paintpot at Yellowstone. Yellowstone also emitted a mythical vibration for Jack. To him Yellowstone was the land of Old Faithful, Yogi the Bear, burly park rangers, and camera-laden turistos. Jack had not, however, expected paintpots. Nor did he expect such a vast plethera of said camera-laden turistos, all accompanied by swarms of miserably bored-and-showing-it children, the kind of children who could make anyone think twice about becoming a parent. Jack wasn't mentally prepared for the bleachers surrounding Old Faithful, or the wooden walkways that wove through seemingly manmade geothermal wonders, or the scores of dads filming Jr. in front of a geyser and beside a marmot, or all the signs depicting little kids falling to gruesome deaths through the thin crust of the geothermal treasures. Jack wanted a cool hotel room but had nothing but the thin layer of a cheap tent's floor to look forward to, and he certainly did not feel his most attractive and photogenic that afternoon, standing there before the sputtering paintpots.
Rosie didn't care though. She new Jack was in a pissy mood, and she also new that this mood had been a strong presence within both their lives for the past two weeks. Rosie knew Jack both did and did not deserve his pissy-ness. She knew the photograph didn't matter; whether or not she took it Jack would remain tee'd off. She wanted to play with him and against him at the same time. In other words, despite Rosie's love for Jack, she was sick and tired of his shit.
"Look cute," said Rosie, as she struggled with her sweaty brow to find the viewfinder of the camera.
"Cute," muttered Jack, as if the word was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. "I feel real fucking cute just about now." And he stood there and smiled a shit-eating grin, a grin which, much later, would become the source of much amusement for Jack and Rosie at photo album times. But for now, Jack's grin was serious business. The Photograph consisted of this: Jack, somewhat blurry yet brighter than all the rest (because the flash went off) standing there with his stained white T shirt, drenched with sweat, wearing an orange T shirt as a bandanna, sunglasses (by Guess), and also wearing his shit-eating grin (which was for all intents and purposes a sincere effort on Jack's part to try and look "cute"). Behind Jack was what appears to have been a brown-gray wasteland shrouded, or rather, smudged, with brownish smoke. And in the far distance was a small speck on a green hillside which Rosie can tell you is a buffalo. The sky was completely white, except for a hint of blue on the horizon. It's an awful picture, really.
And Rosie knew it, and Jack sure as hell knew it too. But after it was done Rosie handed Jack his camera and they proceeded back to their dusty car, which sat in a fuming parking lot at the end of a winding, raised wooden path.
(Meet old boyfriend.)
Jack inserted the key into the ignition and sat waiting for the A/C to pick up. He sighed heavily. "Well," he said, "do you think we should head back to camp?"
"What do you think, Jack?" uttered Rosie, who was playing with a banana-shaped sunblock container.
Jack blew air out through pursed lips and began maneuvering the car about the infested parking lot, filled with such obstacles as feckless children, forgotten youth, and decrepit passivity. Jack mouthed his words but did not actually say them, and to Rosie, it was as if he did say them, but she pretended not to notice.
"Remember when we were apartment hunting?" she asked him.
"When?"
"Last fall. And you wouldn't say a word to me for an entire afternoon just because I couldn't figure out the map?"
Jack tensed up his shoulders out of embarrassment; he hated those memories. "Yeah?" he said, hesitating, "Do you feel like I'm being that way again?"
"No, honey, I just remembered..." (Pause.) "Are you angry with me?"
Jack was out on the road now, tooling along at an annoying 22 MPH because the RV in front of him was busy sightseeing. The road was all windy curves, so Jack knew he wouldn't be able to pass before they got to their turn-off road.
"Why don't you pull out, Mr. Slowberg?! Fuck! These people are so damned self-centered!" Jack cursed the RV's captain, and became almost homicidal in his tail-gating . But when he finally resigned himself to his own powerlessness in relation to the RV, Jack turned back to Rosie's question.
"I'm not angry. What makes you think that?" There was a tension in Jack's voice, a tension which resembled the stretching of a rubber band, a tension that could be only one thing: Anger.