“Photographing young dead men might make a statement. In Detroit, I mean.”
He whipped around, chuckling. “A statement! Didn’t know you made statements, Violetta. You’re about the most apolitical person I’ve ever met. Do you even vote?” He paused. “Think quick, who’s the vice president?”
Ignoring his question, I followed him to the door. “It’s hard to understand why you’re up here, Bill. You seem to find me so lacking…in everything.”
“Baby, baby, baby,” he said, turning to put an arm around me. “Sorry if it seems like it. You know I treasure your quirks. Mama always said I’d try to change the stripes on the flag to up and down if they’d let me.”
“So you’ll let me know when you have…someone?” I put a hand on his arm. “A suitable person?”
“Suitable for framing?” He started to laugh, but cut it off and nodded, still reluctant or unable to show much enthusiasm. “Remember, though, I can’t let you shoot them without getting someone’s permission. Things might not work out every time. You’d have to get to my place between arrival and interment.” He put his hand on the doorknob. “Operations at a mortuary can move pretty quickly. It’d be strictly at my convenience. And with the families’ blessings.”
His feet were heavy on the steps as he added, “Never thought I’d find a girl who lusted after me for my dead bodies. Would’ve saved me a lot of sleepless nights.” He flashed me a rueful smile. “Death, where is thy sting?”
I must have look puzzled because he added with a laugh, “And here I thought you liked me for my big, brown—eyes.”
Laughing more, he took the steps in twos, then hurried toward the lobby and the light.
Detroit Free Press: Two people were found stabbed to death Tuesday morning at a sports bar owned by former Detroit Tiger infielder Travis Slack. Slack’s Shack, owned by the 1980s era infielder since 1998, is a popular downtown bar. The victims, a man and a woman, both long-time employees of the establishment, were found by the office manager shortly after 9:00 a.m., bound together with an extension cord and locked in a refrigerator unit in the back of the establishment. The victims were identified as Willis Dumphrey, 36, of Detroit and Carla Roberts, 48, of Dearborn Heights. Dumphrey was a bartender and Roberts, a short-order cook in the establishment. Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene. The restaurant will remain closed pending an investigation.
(April 2011)
The call came the next week. I was waiting for it—hoping for it—having read the news story a few days earlier. With no reason to assume either the bartender’s or the cook’s family would go to Bill for the funeral, I still hoped, waiting while the bodies were released from the city morgue.
“How do they send them over?” I’d asked him a few days ago. “The bodies, I mean.”
He’d showed me the pouch. “Nothing fancy,” he said. “The letter counts, not the envelope.”
It took me a second or two to get what he meant.
Bill’s assistant, Ronnie, called me. “Someone’s ready for his close-up downstairs,” he said in a ghoulish whisper as soon as I answered. “Picked him up a few hours ago.”
So Bill had filled Ronnie in on his grisly girlfriend. Just as well he knew about it if I was going to be running over there frequently.
“Be there in twenty,” I said, consulting my watch and gauging the traffic on I-75.
Ronnie came to the door, and I crowded past him lugging my equipment, nearly knocking him over.
“Bartender at Slack’s, right?” I asked, peering at the body on the table.
Bill, who’d come in, nodded. “Cook’s over in Dearborn.” He walked around the table, looking at the body from all angles.
I followed him, taking my own visual measurements. “I was so relieved to find out you had him. The guy. I was afraid the woman might be down here.”
“Listen to yourself, woman,” Bill said, his face stiff. “You’re talking about two folks just murdered.” He shrugged it off. “Woman’s white. Nope, I don’t get white ones much. Not unless they’ve gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd.”
He was joking or being ironic, but either way I didn’t know how to respond.
Bill had dressed the bartender in an expensive-looking tux. Subdued. His hair looked freshly barbered, his beard too.
I ran my fingers lightly along the fabric of the black jacket. “What a fabulous piece of clothing.”
“His wife told me he liked to go out dancing when I asked about him. Ballroom variety. Thought he might be pleased about wearing a tux like this one for his final waltz.”
“Don’t they—the relatives—mind that kind of question? Hours after they died? Talking about something so trivial?” I must’ve snickered or made a face because Bill came right back at me.
“It may sound callous, but it isn’t, Vi. Been saving this tux for a man who’d appreciate it. So I asked. He had the look of a dancer somehow. A mayor in the sixties wore this tux to his inaugural ball—or whatever they call the festivities when it’s for a mayor.”
“At the Manoogian Mansion?”
He nodded. “Jerry Cavanaugh, I think. This suit probably dates from the first year the mayor lived in the Mansion. Right after the Manoogians willed it to the City.” He brushed off an invisible piece of lint on the deceased’s sleeve.
Bill bought most of the clothing for his “loved ones” from high-end resale shops in the burbs—ones specializing in expensive garb. He’d paid a pretty good price for this suit, I’d wager. How did he decide who merited it? Being the right size would factor in, although Bill knew a woman skilled at alterations.
I shivered thinking about it—wearing a former mayor’s suit to be buried? Why didn’t they bury the mayor in it?
“I was at the Mansion once to shoot a luncheon the mayor gave for the City Council. Maybe it was Mayor Archer. Not as big a house as you’d expect.” I looked at the body again. “Did they freeze to death? In the backroom, I mean.” Bill looked at me blankly. “I’m talking about the dead bartender”—I gestured toward him—“and the woman.”
“Nah. Both victims were stabbed—stabbed right through muscles, tendons. Newspaper did make it sound like they froze to death in that first story, didn’t it? Second edition laid it out.” He sighed. “Guess if you’re gonna die, you might as well do it faster than you would with freezing.”
“He would’ve had a strong arm.” When Bill looked at me quizzically, I said, “You know—Travis Slack.”
Bill hooted. “Doubt it was him behind it.” He paused to think about it. “If it was his idea, he’d hire the job out. What makes you think he did it? Got some inside info?”
I shook my head. “Maybe they saw something they shouldn’t have. Maybe it happened quick.”
“Well, the cops’ll look into it.”
I stood on a stepladder to the right of his feet and looked into the viewfinder. Wrong again. I got down and shifted the ladder. “Robbery maybe?” We’d dragged a special 60s arc light Bill had in an office in as well as a portable studio light I’d brought along. The lighting was good. Now for the perfect angle.
“Who knows? Maybe the two of them were slinging drugs in the a.m. Before any regulars showed up.”
He stepped out of the light when I motioned him away. “Something’s off about it though. I don’t think Travis Slack’s exactly raking in the dough with this economy. Would he leave much money in that neighborhood overnight?” Having found the best angle, I wanted to get to work. But I tried to adopt an air of casualness and let Bill finish his thoughts.
“Not like the old days when Slack played in Tiger Stadium. We thought life in Detroit was bad back then—that the city was falling apart. Hooey! Good thing we didn’t know what was coming down the pike.”
“I remember him—Travis Slack. He was the resident heartthrob when Bunny and I first moved here. Gift shop at the stadium—heck, stores all over the place were full of stuff with his picture on it. Coffee mugs, key chains, T-shirts.”
“Before the bobble-head phenomenon though. Slack could throw out people at first from shallow left field. Had to ’cause he liked to play a deep third base. Swung a good bat for a little guy.”
“Little? I remember him as pretty big. Came into the restaurant where my mom worked. Joe Muir’s. I saw him there once.”
“Back in the day,” Bill said. “I didn’t know your mother was a waitress there. You never talk about her much, do you? Or your father. Do you have one?” He paused a minute. “Oh, yes, the sax player. I’d forgotten.”
“Trumpet. And my mother’s always been a waitress. Born with a uniform on.” I started to elaborate, but his cell rang and he turned away to answer it.
A consoling tone came into his voice, and I knew he’d be a while. I could still remember Travis Slack coming out the front door at Joe Muir’s years ago. I was doing homework in the car, waiting while Bunny ran inside and picked up her paycheck. Travis came out with a girl looking like an exotic dancer on his arm. Long legs in a pair of eighties patterned stockings, a feathery boa wound around her neck. Metallic blonde hair. She hung on Travis’s arm like she couldn’t walk without it. Perhaps she couldn’t in her six-inch heels.
And Travis was big; Bill remembered him wrong. His shoulders seemed massive, even in the days before padding. Travis kept looking around, as if he were expecting a photographer to snap their picture. He said something to the girl that made her stop suddenly and plant a kiss on his cheek. But Travis was still looking around for fans or cameras or reporters and didn’t react to it: either the girl or the kiss. She was there as eye candy, maybe before they called it that.
Oh, I remembered Travis Slack. Each incident of my childhood ran in my head like a film—should I choose to flip on the switch. I wasn’t willing to flip it often. Just once in a while.
Detroit News: Ramir Obabie, age 32, was found dead today in his home in southwest Detroit, the latest victim of an apparent opioid overdose. Death by opioid overdose, the third in recent weeks, highlights the devastating possibilities of a dangerous new illegal drug mixture: the combination of heroin with fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller used to treat cancer pain and in surgical anesthesia. Obabie was found by his girlfriend, Sheila Metzger, of Troy, who went to his house when phone calls and email went unanswered. It is believed Obabie had been dead for several days before Metzger’s discovery.
(April 2011)
Both Bill and I were surprised when the first two bereaved families readily agreed to allow their loved ones’ picture taken. He handled family discussions alone, not wanting it to look like the two of us were ambushing grieving parties for nefarious or commercial purposes. My photo of Rodney, and eventually the ones of Willis and Ramir Obabie, helped to assuage any worry it’d be something to be ashamed of. The most common reaction was that no further harm could come to their son, or lover, or brother, now that the worst had occurred. And perhaps I was offering a kind of lasting tribute with their loved one’s inclusion: a reminder of a life taken too early. An acknowledgment that something wrong had occurred.
Bill became part of the project, albeit reluctantly. I wondered how long I could hold his feet to the fire. His interest in my work only went so far. He looked uneasy when I was setting my equipment up, finding the right angle, adjusting the light. I was conscious of his crossed leg, bouncing like a metronome as I snapped away, of his stifled yawns, of the slight whish of the hand fan he waved like an old lady at church. Getting it right was a longer process than Bill had the patience for. The “subjects” had better come along quickly if this was going to amount to much. Exactly what it would amount to was still up in the air. Would anyone find my portraits of the dead palatable—much less see them as art? Or would it fall into the queasy territory of photographing naked children, burning monks, or death camp survivors?
Bill’s attorney drew up a contract, which the families signed, stating that I, Violet Hart, could exhibit the photographs of their loved one should the opportunity arise. I could also use the photos in a book or a film or in any way I chose with suitable notice and acknowledgment to the family. The photos would be the ones they saw and approved—I couldn’t doctor or alter them. Bill offered each family a copy or two of the best photo and each one took it eagerly. I would’ve liked to have been there, but Bill flatly refused. I’d yet to witness any enthusiasm for my work—from anyone. And certainly not from Bill.
“So did they think I captured him? Did they seem pleased?”
“Pleased? I think it will take them a while to feel pleased.” He reminded me I’d not been present for gallery sales of my past work either. I didn’t bother correcting his mistaken notion there’d been many sales.
My suggestion that the family provide me with a photograph of the loved one before death had been scotched too.
Bill rolled his eyes. “Absolutely not. Look, you don’t know what you’re asking not being there for these discussions or watching their faces when they see the pictures. You never know how people are going to react to a photograph of a person they don’t quite believe is dead.”
Maybe the families were able to accept the photos because the men were still young and beautiful. Those first two deaths had been terrible shocks; neither man had died of disease or from any sort of lingering death. To my eye, each man had a slight look of surprise on his face. The photographs were remarkable—but in a macabre way. At night, I lay in bed imagining their deaths—how it’d been—how it’d happened—what their last thoughts had been. I followed the news, hoping the murderer of the bartender and woman at Travis Slack’s bar had been caught. Nothing. Like it or not, I’d become invested in the outcome of those deaths. I began to hear news about the deaths of black men everywhere I turned. Had I been immune to it before or was it new? Some new phenomenon perhaps ushered in by recent events.
“You do know this has been going on since the ships brought us here,” Bill said. “You just didn’t have your antennae up until now.”
I’d added more lighting to the work by this point and also moved from the basement to a much better room upstairs. The look of the morgue photo had disappeared. Three bowed windows filled the space with light. Only the first photographs—the ones of the rugby player—had been done in the prep room. There was no asset in making the lighting depressing, especially not with Bill’s ornate wardrobe to show off. I wasn’t sure whether I could exhibit Rodney. It had the air of student work. Still, an exhibit would be incomplete for me without the impetus for the project.
I used an unfortunate term aloud a minute later—referring to the cadaver as “the drug overdose”—and Bill grabbed my arm. “Don’t ever call the departed by what killed them,” he said, twisting my wrist in his fervor. “Don’t call them ‘the overdose,’ or ‘the gunshot wound’ or ‘the aneurysm’ or ‘the cancer.’ Learn the deceased’s proper name and use it if you want to work with me. These men might be dead now, but they were recently alive, with people who loved them. People they loved.”
He dropped my arm. “Or I swear I’ll call this whole arrangement off. You’d have been drummed right out of mortuary school with that callous attitude.”
He stomped across the room, making me wonder again how long this enterprise could last. Not two months into it and I might be finished. Morticians dealt with the living too; I only spent time with the dead. I felt like an interloper or an opportunist, a woman without the proper respect. In order to live with this project, I had to distance myself from the subjects as living, breathing men. And why couldn’t Bill see the pictures as a tribute to the men or to his skill in the prep room? Perhaps he saw me as getting a kinky pleasure from photographing black men.
Yes, perhaps my subjects were all African-American men, but nearly Bill’s entire clientele was black. I hadn’t initially planned on exclusively photographing young black men, but it seemed the right way to go. I was drawn to black men. It had always been there—this feeling of kinship. Perhaps because I’d always felt like an outsider too.
The guy tod
ay, Ramir, I made myself remember his name, was dressed in an electric blue suit with a pink tie. He also wore a fez.
“Does this costume have anything to do with his real life?” I asked Bill. It seemed almost pimpish.
“His real life was trying to get away from his real life, Violet.”
Bill was sipping his usual Diet Pepsi on the sidelines, his legs stretched out on a wheeled stool, which he kept pushing back and forth. The squeak of the wheels was distracting, but I let it go. He was also eating a big chicken sandwich slathered with mayonnaise. His tongue darted out every few seconds to pick up stray smears from the side of his mouth. I tried not to watch. Tried not to look like I was trying not to look.
“This is an epidemic,” he added.
“You mean thirty-three deaths from drug overdoses?” I asked, thinking piously of the apple I’d called lunch. Thirty-three overdoses didn’t seem like an epidemic. “Over how long?”
“Not your ordinary drug overdose, dearie. You’re not listening.” He shook his head.
Bill never understood the concentration necessary to get it right. Instead, he chose to see me as not listening to him.
“Look,” Bill continued, “this guy died because someone mixed his heroin with fentanyl. Ramir Obabie didn’t know it was in there until he couldn’t breathe. It’s a drug they use in surgery mostly. Poor suckers who get it mixed into their heroin stop breathing or suffer cardiac arrest. It’s been in the newspaper for months.”
Leaning against a sideboard now, he grabbed a huge peanut butter cookie from a china platter, glowering at me like it was my fault the guy died. He rarely left me alone with the bodies, but seldom offered a hand. I had to haul them into a suitable position without his help. And if I changed anything at all about their presentation, he gave a quick yelp.
Shot In Detroit Page 6