Photo by Steve Wrzeszczynski on Unsplash
In their accidentally identical khaki shorts, my brothers stood about a yard apart from each other with the same expression on their faces. Mike, his hands on his hips, Henry, his hands just below the hem of his shirt in a low-energy or perhaps only half-formed ‘what-the-fuck’ gesture. Rather than the universally understood gesture of palms facing upwards near the shoulders, elbows bent to aid in the effort, his arms were fully extended downward with his thumbs pointing outward, fingers slightly bent as if curled around a horizontal pole preventing him from getting closer to this landmark. Their thin shadows almost touched, reaching across the cracked, dry earth. We had arrived.
Nineteen, twenty-one, and twenty-three, we had embarked on a cross-country road trip to drop Henry off in Utah for the summer. Mike and I were along for the ride, grateful that we would not be staying with Henry as he did whatever he was supposed to be doing with papyrus for a few months. We had been driving on Route 66 for God knows how long when we reached Amarillo, Texas. Opening the car door and stepping into the June air felt like two people had stretched a bedsheet thin and tried to walk right past: the heat caught my breath and I stood, blinking, unable to move. People lived here? On purpose? What happened in July, August? Surely it only got worse.
As my body adjusted to the lunacy that was 111 degrees Fahrenheit, I shielded my eyes and looked around. It was impossibly flat here, except for the ten Cadillacs jammed nose-first into the ground, all at the same angle. An art installation, Cadillac Ranch attracts tourists from all around. We hadn’t expressly set out to see this, but I wasn’t sure what else there was to do in Amarillo besides sweat and watch families bicker in the nearby Olive Garden. The cars are angled to mimic the Great Pyramid of Khufu’s faces, which is one of my favorite things I didn’t know at the time. That seems like the type of fact to put on a plaque to help illuminate the general public and alleviate their apathy. Attempting to establish a correlation between these cars and the Great Pyramid is nothing short of incredible. What’s more American than that? Perhaps if people knew of the art installation’s hard-earned connection to Egyptian culture, they would be more respectful. At some point, the cars boasted the paint they had torn up the roads with. Now, however, they were coated in decades of inane graffiti. At some point, repainting efforts ceased, and the graffiti is just part of the experience. Much like at the pyramids, I’m told.
A bent sign at the entrance to the ranch intones, “Graffiti painting of anything on this side of fence is illegal.” The pole on which this sign rests is covered in graffiti. The gate, too, is polychromatic thanks to local “artists,” one of whom is or was quite fond of someone named “Carol” judging by the crooked letters carved into a metal support beam. The best piece of graffiti, behind the sign and therefore acceptable, was a simple “Hi DEB” in white on the parched dirt. No comma needed for this direct address. DEB, whoever she was, was loved. Or was it the reverse? Was this greeting only meant to last until the next rainstorm washed it away? But given the landscape and thin layer of dust that had already settled all over my body, rain didn’t seem to be a coming attraction. No, DEB would be greeted here for weeks, if not months, to come.
The cars themselves were confusing. I rarely understand art, so I wasn’t expecting for this to click right away, but the installation seemed odd. Apparently the intent was to show the “evolution” of Cadillac fins, surely a worthy endeavor. The graffiti, however, had taken on a life of its own. I couldn’t give the cars the focus they undoubtedly deserved because of the names people proudly stamped on them. Who was “LUNCh BoY”? Was “John Duty” a name or a job one had to take on when a member of that friend group got particularly unruly? Who named their child “Blaine,” and how did they imbue that child with enough confidence to spray paint their name, followed by an exclamation mark, along the length of the driver-side doors? (Investigative work revealed that Blaine had also visited the underside of the car, near the front axle, though this time without exclamation. The enormous penis painted above the name stole the show from this angle.) Some used their colors to draw designs instead, geometric or otherwise, providing a brief respite from the chaos of the names around them. The pair of question marks on the hood of one car most resonated with me. I don’t know how to form the questions I have about this place, but I know I have at least two.
Caroline Bartlett Samoiloff lives and teaches outside of Boston. She hasn't been on a road trip since this one, and may need to wait a few more years.
