My family lore is a photograph I took as a young boy — the first artistic artifact — which still bobs in my mind like a mackerel with a ripped bladder. I took it on a Kodak, one of those late-90s digital cameras where the screen had a broken line running down the middle. I posed my uncle, grandfather, and father outside on the driveway. It is summer. My uncle and grandfather almost never come to North Carolina. I am a tiny boy with a bad bowl cut and a lisp. I do not know these men. I assume I ordered arms around waists, not concerned about the hundred degree heat and barked at them to smile.