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Black River
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Little Rock, Arkansas, January 31-March 12, 1993
for Steve
Black River came to me in a flash in the summer of 1989 as
I drove northbound alone on I-81 just south of Fall Branch, Tennessee,
the coalescent product of some half-forgotten road song, a mind
made receptive by fatigue and the dimming light, and the gnarled
silhouette of a single tire fragment on the highway shoulder. I
pulled over, backed up, and retrieved the rubbery souvenir in the
first of countless similar roadside rituals to be performed over
the next three years. It is easy and pleasant to recall that moment
of inspiration – the warm June night, the solitude and freedom,
the ordinary object turned suddenly extraordinary, the visual possibilities
nearly tangible in the mind's eye – but somewhat less agreeable
are memories of carrying out the task formulated that evening. The
accumulation, storage, and documentation of more than a thousand
blown retreads ranging from one to ten feet in length is an undertaking
to tax even the most obsessive of souls. So what began as another
highway song, another Whitmanesque homage to the open road, has
become something else. As I collected the bits and pieces which
make up Black River, the timeless reverie of driving was
replaced by a confining vigilance. An extraordinary moment had spawned
another routine, another odd responsibility. I suppose it was the
drudgery of this self-imposed burden, coupled with a recent family
tragedy involving a car, that de-romanticized the road for me, carrying
me to the realization that, like everything that man invents, the
road is both magical and mundane, full of both promise and threat.
And so the blown retread, a permanent record of unanticipated turbulence,
has become for me a fitting symbol for life's journey. Scattered
everywhere along the highway, they are both beautiful and sinister.
Each silent fragment holds a story of potential danger ending in
tragedy or only temporary relief. << |