Shot In Detroit

by Patricia Abbott

  “Hey, his family didn’t pay for the slouch you created.” Or, “Messed up his suit but good.” Today my forearm smeared the cosmetics on his neck and Bill threw a fit. “You know how long it takes to get that applied correctly?”

  He hauled out his cosmetics case, bigger than any woman’s and housed in an even larger commercial tackle box, holding things up while he touched up Ramir’s face. To me, it seemed unchanged.

  Ramir’s suit, much too big for the body of a decades-long drug addict, was pinned in the back, giving him the appearance of fine tailoring. Expertly tacked by a tailor, in fact. I shot away, taking more pictures of Ramir. Being a drug addict had taken a lot out of the guy, and I wanted to put some of it back for this final picture. He was handsome beneath the ravages of too little food, too many nights in the rough, and too many drugs. The bone structure was still there. I wasn’t doing an exposé of heroin-cool cadavers. I’d save it for another time. An audience would notice the beauty in these men; cry out at their untimely deaths. I tried to forget my next piece of business would be photographing a dog show, followed the next day by a retirement party.

  Buck up, Ramir, I told him silently. I’ll make you a star. And maybe you’ll make me one.

  “She liked being afraid because there was in it, the possibility of something great.”

  Doon Arbus on her mother, Diane

  Later, I headed for the gym. Spring was in sight and with it more revealing clothes. I liked to run at night and that night seemed especially fitting for a hard thirty minutes. I needed to shake off Bill and his growing animosity to my work, discard my own pessimism about this project. Or maybe it was the deep look of betrayal on the drug overdose’s face making my shoulders kink with tension. Damn, I’d done it again, if only in my head.

  “Sorry,” I silently apologized to Ramir. “I didn’t mean to call you that.” How did Bill forget those faces?

  The gym was open till eleven. Showing up late pared down the body count on the machines, giving me breathing space. Once in a while, the management threatened to roll back their hours and I’d write a letter saying if they shortened their hours, I’d move to one of the larger chains that stayed open till midnight. The owner always gave in.

  Why were people who came into the gym at six a.m. seen as virtuous, but night patrons seen as kooky? This was a maxim seeming to hold true in any situation. No shame in going to bed at nine p.m., but try rising at nine a.m. A girl could spend the entire night in the darkroom and still get treated to a superior tone from a client or employer who phoned at eight and found me sounding sleepy.

  “I couldn’t allow myself such an indulgence,” one suburban matron, who’d never been employed outside her home, told me when I let a yawn escape the morning after a wedding reception lasting till one. “You artist types.”

  The people who ran the five-minute mile on the treadmill at the gym were gone by nine p.m., and the folks who watched themselves in the mirror were also scarce, probably getting the ten hours of sleep their good looks required. This was the best time to enjoy a little peace. Better yet, the TV monitors, turned to Fox News and the golf channel earlier, were now blank. I could watch what I wanted or play my iPod. Or better yet, I’d concentrate on the late-night trainer who usually shut the place down: Levi.

  Detroit Body Works was a nineteen-fifties sort of gym. No pool or yoga classes, no state-of-the-art machinery. No healthy snack bar, no massage room, no baby-and-me Pilates. The locker room smelled vaguely of mold and I’m certain there were mice. But DBW was cheap at thirty-five dollars a month and near my apartment. The only apparatus that interested me was the treadmill. I’d twice become entangled in the intricacies of the elliptical machine and spinning made my back ache. Lifting weights seemed humorous, an activity for cartoon muscle men. Thirty or forty minutes on the treadmill a few times a week cleared the head. I could’ve gotten a cheap light model like the guy upstairs, but space was a consideration—photography was a room hog. Plus I had to consider my downstairs neighbor, an elderly woman who put up with enough coming and going.

  Most nights that I showed up, I closed the place down—me and whatever employee was working the late shift. If I was lucky, it was Levi Gardiner, “short for Leviticus,” he told me once. He was effortlessly handsome and hiding his muscles under a big T-shirt and baggy shorts. I liked that about him though. Anyone could tell the kind of body he was packing despite the loose cotton he cloaked it in.

  When the gym quieted, he stopped to talk as he wiped the equipment down, polished the mirrors, turned the machines off. We’d never had a real conversation, just niceties spiked with a mildly teasing air. Unlike the other trainers, he never examined himself in the wall-to-wall mirrors. Not an easy feat when mirrors encircled the room.

  “So what are you—a phys-ed major at the university?” I asked him.

  There was something going on with Bill now that made flirtation more palatable. Was it time for a more satisfying conversation with Levi? We’d been circling each other for two months. I knew he was older than the typical college guy. Perhaps early thirties? At least I hoped he was that old.

  He shook his head. “Studying for a master’s in library science. Classes are over by three so this job’s a good fit.” He made a face. “Being a trainer can only be entertaining for so long. No offense, but you’re not a gym rat, are you?”

  “You’re kidding,” I said, ignoring his last remarks. “You’re gonna spend the rest of your days in the stacks.”

  I almost added, hiding your magnificent body away, but decided it was too early for such a blatant come-on. He intuited it though.

  “I’m hoping to hide out there—if only in daylight,” he said with a sly smile. He waved his hand around the room. “This is purely a temporary stint. Have to keep up a certain level of fitness to keep the paychecks coming in though. So far my natural metabolism’s helping out. But I can’t see myself around more than another year.”

  I turned off the treadmill and bent over to retie my shoe, giving him a glimpse of my best asset. “A librarian—like in the gray bunker on the corner?”

  The tax-poor suburb I lived in boasted mostly bestsellers, dated encyclopedias, and children’s books, with two old ladies guarding the inventory as if the library was the big one in New York—the one with the lions outside.

  “I’d like to work at a place like the Reuther, a research library. Terrific collections.”

  “On the Wayne State campus, right?” He nodded. “I took a few classes awhile back.”

  “What were you studying?” He sat down on the bike across from me and pedaled slowly.

  “Digital photography when it first came along.”

  “Hobby?”

  Why did people assume that? Did I look more like a salesclerk or a waitress? Had the Bunny genes doomed me to the restaurant circuit? Wash my mouth out with soap, I thought to myself. Bunny’s million miles of servitude supported me for eighteen years. Even if she’d never really been there for me, she was there with a checkbook. Unlike…well, you know.

  “No, I take pictures for a living.” I stepped off the treadmill, deciding twenty minutes was enough. If I began running again, he’d probably disappear in the back room. I picked up my microfiber towel and wiped off the treadmill. An overt show of consideration for my fellow members was bound to impress him.

  “Weddings—that kind of stuff?” He glanced at the clock on the wall out of the corner of his eye, pedaling a little faster.

  “Yeah,” I said, suppressing my sigh of resignation. This was going nowhere. “But I exhibit occasionally. Projects of my own.”

  “Sounds great. You’ll have to tell me the next time you have a show.”

  I could tell him about the current project—which was sure to scare him — but he was finished with me. Bored, ready to go home, get back to his books. Perhaps to his wife or to a male partner? No wedding band, but I didn’t think he was gay. I had caught him looking at other women through that mirror, if not me.

&nb
sp; “Okay,” he said, switching the bike off and rising. “Guess I’d better see to the locker rooms. I’ll do the men’s first so you can—well, so you can do whatever you wanna do in there.”

  I’d have liked to think his words were meant to be provocative, but he walked inside the men’s locker room without a backward glance. I walked into the women’s and sank down on the floor. Before I knew it I was crying. Some kind of dam had ruptured. And crying loud enough to attract him apparently. But not in a good way.

  “Hey,” Levi said, walking in, the door slamming into the wall behind him. “What the hell!” He crouched down and put a hand on my back.

  “It’s the humidity,” I told him, wiping my eyes. “You need to put in a dehumidifier. Ever hear of mold?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to see to that,” he said, helping me stand.

  “At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands before our camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are.”

  Robert Adams

  After the night’s interlude at the gym with its embarrassing finale, I scratched Levi’s name off my list of future possibilities and drove home. I rarely cried, and when I did it was usually at a tearjerker movie rather than events in my own life. And tears never had the cleansing effect others claimed. But the work was getting to me. More and more my days were filled with googling my dead men and dead men across the country. Aside from my work commitments, I barely left my apartment. Di and my mother seemed busy with other things, making my isolation even more severe.

  Should I bail? Bill seemed to think so. But if someone suggested to him that dressing the dead in preposterous costumes was insulting, would he stop? Or was that what made his practice interesting? Was that what made him an artist?

  Putting on the stony face I’d used so often in the past and girding myself against psychological involvement with the men I was photographing was the only solution. But Bill found my feigned aloofness repulsive. It’d probably all come to an end topped off by another breakup. This time the reasons would be professional rather than personal—not because of a pop-up wife or the infamous “it’s not you, it’s me” speech. I’d given a few of them myself.

  I was never confident about the commitment of any man—beginning with my father and ending with Bill. Men didn’t seem to attach themselves to me in any discernable and uxorious way.

  I was looking through my calendar, noticing again my lack of a social life and dreading the upcoming appointments and events—a sweet sixteen party, a portrait of a prize-winning dog, two retakes of photos a client hadn’t liked—when I heard a scratching sound at the door. Not a knock but a minor disturbance in the hall. Like the noise a tree limb makes brushing against a window. My door did have a peephole and I looked through it. For a second, I was stymied. But that was quickly replaced by irritation.

  It was that kid from Belle Isle. Derek Olsen. I hadn’t thought about his ending up on my doorstep. I could tell he’d heard my feet cross the floor and knew I was examining him through the peephole. So there’d be no pretending I wasn’t home.

  “It’s me, Ms. Hart,” he shouted, grinning and moving closer to the hole.

  I paused. I didn’t want to let this Derek I’d dug or dreamed up into my apartment. He seemed harmless, but wow, he also seemed crazy. It looked like he hadn’t changed his clothes since the first time we met. I didn’t want to be the next body on Bill’s table. Or the next addition to Derek’s artwork on the island.

  “Derek, do you see those steps going up to the next floor?”

  “Yep,” he said, swiveling around. “Geez, anybody ever sweep or mop in here? Or even paint?”

  Wow. Who’d believe a guy who looked liked Derek noticed such things. I knew what he meant about the stairs. Filthy battered linoleum poorly cut and held down with metal strips, now coming loose. A loose railing next to them. A wall peppered with handprints. Okay, so I didn’t rent in a classy building. But it was galling to hear him say it considering his attire and because he spent his days on Belle Isle—a place famous for being unkempt. He must come from a middle-class home—probably a mom who took a white gloved finger to her tabletops. Sadly attempts had been made, not so long ago, to tidy my floor up.

  “Never mind that. Go sit on the steps while I throw something on.”

  “Just saying, it’s good I’m wearing my work clothes.” The thought of him in his Sunday best caught me up.

  I waited another minute or two before opening my door as narrowly as possible, and slipping out, I walked over to the steps.

  “Derek, when I gave you my card, I didn’t mean for you to come up here. My street address isn’t on that card for good reasons.” I started to launch into those reasons when he interrupted me by standing up. A large paper bag sat on the steps.

  “It’s not hard to locate anyone now—not with the Internet,” he said. “Took me about two minutes to track you down. You’re in business, so there’s that. And you have your phone numbers and email on that card. With Goggle Maps I could practically look in your window.” He grinned, happy to be spooking me.

  “Well, here I am,” I said, cutting through a long conversation about proprieties, investigative abilities, and computer skills. He reached behind him and picked up the bag.

  Instinctively, I stepped back. “Okay, what’s in there?” I was getting the idea I wouldn’t like it. A smell hung in the air. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was there.

  “You said you wanted to see weird shit, right? Things I found that were kinda dark? Edgy?” He paused. “I’ve been scouting the place ever since.”

  Ah, yes. I’d said it in a weak moment. But the possibility that what Derek found would be interesting was pretty remote, and I’d given him access to my life without thinking. Still, I was curious.

  “All right, you’d better come inside.”

  I was taking a chance, but in a fist fight I could probably take him. He didn’t run miles on a treadmill or cart heavy equipment around. I probably outweighed him.

  “Good idea,” he said and followed me in. He was clutching the paper bag—one from the long-defunct Farmer Jack’s Grocery Store—as if the family jewels were inside. “You need to see this right away. I think it’s already deteriorating.”

  Swell. I shrunk back a bit.

  “What is it?” I repeated, not sure I wanted to know. The bottom of the bag was wet and threatening to disintegrate before our eyes. “Maybe you should take that into the kitchen.” I gestured in the right direction with my head.

  “Good idea.”

  I followed him into the kitchen, where he carefully placed his “jewels” in the sink, wiping his hands on his pants. “Okay, I think what I have here is an aborted fetus.”

  A little preparation for that statement might have been nice. “Jesus! A what?”

  “An aborted fetus. Or embryo. I don’t know the difference.” He looked at what was probably my green face and said, “Well, you told me you wanted edgy things.”

  “You mean a human fetus? A baby?” I doubted I was ready for this and a wave of nausea swept over me. “How did this…fetus…come into your hands?” I was hoping he hadn’t aided in an abortion to serve my weirdness. I could picture an ad offering his services in the city paper.

  “I was scrambling around down there earlier today—on Belle Isle—and I heard a sort of yelping, like someone was in pain. By the time I got over there, it’d taken off and the only thing left was this.” He opened the bag and we both peeked in. “It was lying on the grass.”

  It certainly looked like something once alive. A few inches long, it was pinkish white tissue with the beginnings of arms and legs—even hands and feet, a large head of sorts, a neck. I felt nauseated, yet sad to admit, interested. I couldn’t photograph it, but this embryo or fetus was spectacular in its own right.

  I’d never seen a fetus before—not even an ultrasound version of one—so I’d little experience in evaluating such a thing. There was mucus and blood. It was exc
eedingly wet. This probably hadn’t been a painless expulsion of tissue.

  I couldn’t help imagining teenagers scrambling around desperately in the weeds and debris of Belle Isle. I’d never had to abort a child but it could’ve been me. Could’ve been a lot of women. How many women hadn’t watched the calendar at one time or other, their hearts pounding? There were no happy stories to tell no matter what your feelings about such things. Pain, sadness, regret perhaps.

  “Wait here,” I told Derek and went to get one of my magnifying glasses. I also put on a pair of latex gloves. I’d be damned if I was going to touch this—this—small mass of tissue. I got a pair of the tongs I used in developing to handle it and returned to the bag’s contents. Under the magnifying glass, I could make out more features. There were eyes and the beginnings of ears perhaps. I wasn’t sure about that. Amazing that a few inches could reveal so much.

  “So you heard people talking?” I repeated.

  Derek gave a start. He’d been looking at my CD collection while I rounded up my instruments and still held a Jane Siberry CD in his hands.

  “Well, I couldn’t swear they were human voices, but I did hear a sort of screaming or shrieking and a lot of thrashing around.”

  I still hadn’t put my hands on the tissue and felt little desire to do so. I poked it, gently turning it over two or three times.

  “You know, I think it might be an animal embryo,” I said. “It doesn’t look human under this magnification. Maybe a possum or a rabbit. I’m not sure what animal life there is on Belle Isle. They haven’t had a zoo there for ages, but parts of it are pretty wild. Do they have beavers? It could also be a deer, although the legs would be longer I think. They do keep deer there. Fallow deer. The four extremities would be of a uniform size though. These don’t look like legs.”

  I pointed to the upper extremities with my tongs.

  “There’s enough water for a beaver with the river but no mud. Don’t they need mud?”