I-5

"Desert Silhouette 6" by Lorri Frisbee

On our car ride home the Olympic Mountains rose above Hood Canal, yet we only saw their outlines, barely made out their shape in the white haze. My daughter made a friendship bracelet and it reminded me of a friend who had a permanent bracelet, a tattoo around her wrist. The artist had screwed up the pattern and gave it to her for free. My daughter knows tattoos can prevent you from being buried in a Jewish cemetery, but wondered what would happen if you had them removed.

We dealt with Seattle traffic and August heat and our broken A/C. We couldn’t crack a window because of exhaust and smoke. Do you think that’s a skunk? asked my son, pointing at the roadkill. It’s flat but it has the outline of a skunk. That sign says Help Keep Washington Clean but that’s impossible, my son said. Look at all the garbage beside the road, look at those hubcaps, why do so many people litter and why are so many people driving? I said, We are also driving, as if I were defending something, justifying a ten-hour drive for a five-hour event, our way of life, the existence of a highway, the death of a skunk. We are also driving. We are also driving.

Interstate 5 runs for 1381 miles, cuts Washington, Oregon, and California from the West Coast, connects Canada to Mexico. If a species crawls out of the Pacific and wants to evolve inland, it will hit the highway. In some countries they build bridges just for migrating animals. The I-5 was completed in 1979 with zero animal bridges, built with taxpayer dollars, the collective wealth of millions of proud Americans, so that rich or poor can road trip to the horizon to attend weddings and reunions and ballgames.

We could not see the Olympic Mountains because someone four-hundred miles north had flicked a cigarette out a car window in Kelowna. We traveled up the I-5 and crossed the Canadian border and the wildfire smoke was thicker. We looked for Vancouver’s north shore mountains but they were whited out, drained of detail by the white smoke. I-5 was built on top of another road and before that a trail made by humans and before that a trail made by animals and before that I don’t know. We stayed indoors for days before the air cleared.

The mistake is permanent, you can never fully remove a tattoo, I explained to my daughter, so I don’t think you could be buried in a Jewish cemetery. It’s so hot in here, said my son. You can drain the tattoo ink, my daughter said. How can the animals outside breathe? asked my son. It can never be fully removed, I told my daughter. Like a house burnt to its foundation, you can still see its outline on the ground.

About the author

Aaron Rabinowitz writes creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. He won Meridian’s Short Prose Prize and PRISM international’s Creative Nonfiction Contest. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, Grain, The Masters Review, The Malahat Review, Chautauqua, and elsewhere. On IG: @anotheraaronrabinowitz.

About the artist

Lorri Frisbee lives in Colorado. Her work has been shown at the Lakewood Cultural Center, the Arvada Cultural Center, the Spark Gallery, and 40 West Arts Center. Her work has appeared online and in print at Blue Mesa Review, Gasher Magazine, and High Shelf. Find her at lorrifrisbee.com and @lorrifrisbee on Instagram.