The first thing I saw of Cameron Holt were his boots. I was sitting down in a patio chair, face in left palm, my right hand massaging my ankle defeatedly. Through the gaps in my fingers the frayed aglets at the ends of his laces stopped at my position. He squinted at me with a rough, yet young face as I looked up, his outstretched arm offering a coin without intruding.

"Are you all right, brother?" he asked, his words distorted slightly from whatever he was chewing on. It left a bulge in his right cheek. "Everything's red here, but boy, you look white as a ghost!"

I straightened up, more out of a sense of obligation to etiquette than anything, and leaned my chair back against the brick of Main Deli. I didn't have much money left, but I needed a small comfort after a week of floating around without a place to land. For me, that was a ham sandwich on a Sunday. 

"I'm tired." I politely pushed the coin away. "Came over from Sparks looking for a job. Haven't found any."

"You've been traveling!" Cameron Holt plopped down in a chair of his own. "I've been myself, not looking for anything, though. Just looking. Got a nice Ford for my birthday, wanted to see the Arches, Bryce Canyon, everything before I go over to college."

"How old are you?" I asked. He said 18. He didn't look his age, though probably the reason was his clothes: he was dressed like a 1800s rancher, russet mustache and all. I told him I was 20, though I knew I didn't look it either. A few bad hospital stints will age you.

This intrigued Cameron. "Well, what for? You haven't coughed once since I've been here, and that's about 20 minutes now; you can't be colic. I don't see any cast or bandage on you, and I can't fathom how you'd be looking for a job and no one'd take pity on you because you're sickly. The government gives you money for that now, besides, I think."

"Ah, I'm not in the hospital anymore, I don't dwell. You're a little southeast of the Arches, besides. Did you hit them already or are you en route?"

"Oh, no, I got some great shots. I take pictures and sell them, you know, sometimes. Raised enough slinging papers as a kid to buy a nice camera. Here, I'll show you. I'm just parked there."

The Ford had sheen; it was a new model, ‘77 or ‘78. Its dark green would have looked out of place in the desert most days, but by now the sun had turned magenta, and the warm colors blended beautifully with the chrome of the windshield frame. On the back was a photo Cameron had turned into a bumper sticker, the word ARCHES crudely stamped on the border. It was the most beautiful image I'd ever seen: a dead tree poked its way out of the rock formation in the center: it had grown a feeble flower. Cameron had paid to have the picture laminated.

"I was proud of that one. Everything else I saw was missing something: it was all just rocks and water," Cameron said, hands on his knees as he leaned to the bumper's level. "Going to miss those in the Northeast."

"Northeast? Are you driving there after Bryce?" 

"Nah, I can't take the car," Cameron replied. "They don't allow them at West Point. Helps in staying focused I think."

"Oh." 

The tree in the photograph was gnarled and dying. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. The flower was blue.

"I really do want to know, what kept you in hospital? You don't have to tell me, it's just I've got to be going, and if I don't find out now it'll eat at me a while."

For the first time in a week, I laughed. "Well, I guess it was that love went bad – twice – and I couldn't take it. Same woman both times, though. I wasn't sick, but I couldn't work or eat, and after three weeks of comp the super decided I wasn't carrying enough stone. I've been out of a job five days, out of love a month, again twice. Just had me a little tired today, is all."

Cameron Holt nodded, and pressed his coin into my hand. Inside the Ford's trunk was his camera: it was as nice as he had claimed, though he was disappointed with the lighting in the portrait of me he took. Then, he drove off southeast, away from the magenta. 

I walked back across the street, and into Main Deli. The butcher was still slicing up a cut of roast beef; his arms labored as he moved meat across blade. End of a work day.

"Excuse me, y'all wouldn't happen to be hiring, would you?" I asked him.