Page 49 of Good Dirt

Henry

H enry lies there on the bank of the river, watching a terrapin float toward the mud and clamber onto the bank. It would have been nice to have a photo of that little guy, just when it was half out of the water. Webbed feet and tiny claws pressing into the wet earth. Instead, Henry is lying here with a pounding headache and a twisted ankle. How long has he been here? He might have torn something. He tries to get up but between the pain in the ankle and the one in his head, he can see that there is no way he’s going to get to his car. The SUV is half a mile up the road and he can’t find his cellphone.

In short, Henry is surprised.

Henry is not accustomed to being surprised. Henry has always expected things to go his way. Because they usually do. It doesn’t hurt that he was born into a certain family, in a certain town, that he attended certain schools and benefited from a starting push into his profession from his father’s associates. He can admit this. It’s the truth. It’s also true that Henry works hard at his job, despite not being wild about it. And he’s pretty darned good at it, too. But, again, he is not surprised when things go well for him. Only when they don’t.

Henry’s photography, for example, has been going well. Though that, too, involves its share of work. There are things to learn. Adjustments to be made. Techniques to try and retry. Photography is art and technology and instinct wrapped up together. And it’s part of Henry. Whenever Henry looks at the world through a camera, he feels more like himself. But he also tends to be less sure-footed, physically speaking. Lost in his thoughts. Which is how Henry ended up tripping on a root, falling backward, and hitting his head against the trunk of a tree as he went down.

As Henry’s body rolled into the soft mud along the river’s edge, his cellphone must have dropped into the water. The water here is shallow and placid. More like a pond than a river. Henry is sure he could have fished his phone out of the water by now if he hadn’t banged himself up so badly. If he hadn’t left his glasses in the car. Ebby used to bug him about that. He feels so cold. How is that possible? Isn’t it in the nineties today? He needs to rest a bit more. Then he’ll try again to find the phone before it sinks completely into the silt or drifts away.

This is how Henry comes to be stretched out on his belly that afternoon, shoulders and face on the muddy bank of a river in southwestern France, feeling around with his arms, when two policiers walk up to him from behind. The police have been looking for Henry ever since spotting his white SUV in a parking area near the main road.