“Wow. You rocked my world,” Bill said. “I always picture you rushing home and developing the photos with the film still hot in your hands.”
I was jolted back to the present. “That’s what I prefer, but other jobs intervene. Like a bar mitzvah.” I used the area’s Jewish population shamelessly in my lies.
“Hey, a guy told me recently Jews are spending six figures on bar mitzvahs out in Bloomfield Hills,” Bill said suddenly. “He said the host gave all the teenage guests iPads at one recently.”
There was a bit of hypocrisy in Bill’s comments. It was okay to spend a fortune on a funeral, but the rest of life’s ceremonies were priced too high. I didn’t say any of this, of course.
“This bar mitzvah wasn’t about spending a lot of money.”
I decided to foster good will with my invented description of a fictitious event. “It was an extremely religious family and the celebration after the ceremony was dignified. The cantor trained in Israel,” I added, inspired. “Had an operatic voice. A distinguished rabbi flew in from a temple on Park Avenue to assist.”
It sounded like a grand event even to me. I wished I’d been there instead of the places I’d been.
“Must’ve been hard to get many good shots at such a stuffy affair.”
Why was he so interested? Was he playing me? Did he know?
“The family was only concerned with a record of the day—a commemoration of a religious occasion.” Enough! Back to the important issue. “Should I come over right now?”
“Sooner rather than later.”
“Anything I should know?” By know I meant, were there wounds or other issues that might affect my work? Over time, I’d learned to show up well-prepared if at all possible. Taking photographs in the same room had resolved a few of the lighting issues, but other problems occasionally flared up.
“Nah, he’s pretty clean. Took a knife to the chest. Nothing the camera will pick up. You probably saw the item in the newspaper. A hijacking in Belleville? Just a kid.”
“And they killed him over some car?”
“I guess there could have been extenuating circumstances.” Bill sighed. “But I doubt it.”
“And he’s just a kid. Some poor kid in the wrong place.”
“Nothing new in that, Violet. Aren’t you getting used to it by now?”
“Do you, Bill? Do you get used to it?” Silence. “Okay, what are the clothes like? What you’ve dressed him in?”
I was hoping no uniform was involved. The fireman had been buried in his dress uniform. But too many men in uniform would be dull—not that there was any way I could influence the burial dress. I’d already had one guy in military dress. A policeman might turn up eventually and I could hardly refuse his uniform. I hoped this guy hadn’t been an Eagle Scout. It was disheartening—seeing young dead faces week after week. Have I said that enough? That it made me sick. That I had bad dreams about it. That I’d lost ten pounds since the project started. That the taste of bile was now a familiar one. That the feel, smell, and sight of dead bodies were familiar too. That my belief in the project was ebbing. And a twenty-year old. But babies in their cribs were being killed as gunshots went off mark. Block parties were turning into shootouts.
Was it like this in other cities? Did the body count rise daily? I hadn’t wanted to be a photojournalist, but how could these pictures not make more of a statement than any article in a newspaper? Who was I kidding? And my original desire to have a variety of costumes was nauseating. Especially since I personally wanted to be wrapped naked in a biodegradable blanket and planted like a tulip bulb.
“He’s looking pretty subdued. Parents wanted it.” He paused. “Looks nice though. Handsome boy.” His voice rose again. “Killed him to steal his damned Ford truck,” he repeated.
“So how did he get downtown? Did they figure it out yet?”
“No idea. Maybe they dumped him into the back of his own truck and took him along for a night of gambling and drinking. I wonder if the casinos have cameras?”
“Next they took the truck back out to Belleville and ditched it? Seems like they were doing a tour of I-94.” All of the cities Wylie Edwards had been to—dead or alive—were along the Interstate.
“I don’t know. Guess the police will have to figure it out. You could have been down here by now. All this talking we’re doing. See you when you get here. Hey, let’s have dinner afterward,” he said suddenly—as if he had just thought of it. Had he? “I’ll make reservations at The Rattlesnake Club.”
“Okay,” I said, going dead in the feet. Bill never sprang for such an expensive meal. He wasn’t cheap, but this was a $200 evening. Minimum. “I’ll have to get gussied up, I guess.”
“They’ll be glad to have money coming from any kind of pocket on a Tuesday night in Detroit. Wear what you like.”
The Rattlesnake Club? What did I have that was clean? I owned one or two outfits to wear to dressy or work-related affairs—almost uniforms. On a photographer, they looked innocuous, on a dinner companion, dull—unimaginative. I hated to shop and got most of the few clothes I bought online nowadays. More often than not, I wore clothing five to ten years old. Broken in.
As a kid, the few clothes I owned often arrived in cartons from distant relatives, so I learned not to care about clothes. The stuff in those boxes looked like they’d been worn by missionaries. Once I pulled a bright red dress with a full skirt out of a box—only to find the white collar irrevocably stained.
Bunny shook her head when she saw it, muttering, “Bitch.” When she saw the look on my face, she added, “Never mind. We can take the collar off.” But it didn’t look right without the collar and I never wore it. Not once.
Nowadays, once in a while I took a peek in a resale shop a few miles away—one Bill had recommended. Perhaps I was perversely drawn to clothes with wear in them. The shop kept a rack of nicer dresses in the back—items rich people from Birmingham or Bloomfield Hills wore once or twice and passed on. Occasionally I found outfits with the tags still on them. I always wondered if the owner had died or was too lazy or too rich to bother returning it.
It was precisely such an outfit, purchased a year or so ago at Yesterday’s Gone for a client’s sixtieth birthday fete, that I pulled out of the closet: a silky black pants suit that fit nicely. Or had when I was a bit heftier. Four months of this venture and I was wasting away. The outfit begged for a first-rate necklace, but none of mine would work—all of them were funky or damaged. I rummaged through a drawer and came up with a rose made of ivory-like material, given to me as a parting gift at a wedding last year. I fastened it on a piece of lacy black ribbon left over from Christmas and tied it around my neck. Damn. I needed to buy new clothes, but I hadn’t earned enough lately to afford a shopping spree. Lowering the stratum of resale shops I shopped in was in my near future.
Something told me I should look good tonight. Or at least look like I’d tried. I pulled my hair up and tied it with more of the ribbon, glanced in the mirror, and yanked it down. Who was I trying to impress? I nearly pulled the rose from my neck too, but eventually left it alone. I’d change after work.
Occasionally when I looked into a mirror, I’d see Bunny’s mug or my grandmother’s stern, near-sighted peer. If my father’s face had looked back at me, I doubted I’d know it. When was the last time I had really looked at myself? Examined my face for flaws that might be remedied: dry skin, dark circles, a need for revision in my makeup’s color palette. No wonder Bill was drifting away.
I shrugged, got my equipment together, and left.
Wylie Edwards, “the Jackson youth,” as the newspaper described him, looked about sixteen. “His parents signed off on this?” I asked Bill before setting up. We stood side by side over the body for a minute or two, paralyzed by the look on his face. “God, he looks like he expected to die. He looks resigned.” A shiver worked it way down my spine as I peered into his face. My throat closed. This damned assignment grew harder by the body.
Bil
l nodded. “Most black kids expect it down deep. In this town anyway.” He shook his head. “Let’s not talk about it now. Anyway, his folks asked to use a photograph in the service day after tomorrow if you can finish it in time.” Looking a bit embarrassed, he added, “Well, actually that’s part of the deal—you have to finish it in time. Hope it’s okay I said you could do it.”
“Actually it helps a little.” I stepped back. “Boy, this is the hardest one yet.”
We looked at each other. Would an even worse death turn up in his prep room before this was over? Bill was used to it, but my work raised his anxiety level too.
Bill sighed. “Both his folks work at the prison in Jackson so they’re not the squeamish type. I have a printer standing by with a program.”
“No problem. How come they’re having the funeral in Detroit? Jackson’s like two hours away.”
“Mt. Elliot Cemetery’s right down the road. They bought a plot there years ago. Never dreamt their kid’d be the one to use it first, I bet.”
“Christ!”
“Exactly. Guess they moved to Jackson a few years ago to take jobs at the prison.” He slid his arm under the boy and adjusted his jacket to lie flatter. I took my pictures.
“Imagine the dinner table discussions at the Edwards’ house with a prison guard and a prison nurse holding forth,” Bill said, an hour or so later when I was finished.
“Cherry Ames, Prison Nurse,” I said, but of course, Bill didn’t get it. Once in a while a girlfriend comes in handy for references, I guess. “The family business, you mean? Well, what do we talk about at dinner?” Was there ever a time when we’d talked about the usual topics—like movies, books, music?
“Let’s find out. We can use a stiff drink or two.”
I quickly changed and earned a nice smile for my efforts. Our hands were trembling as we walked hand in hand to the car. I could feel his; he could feel mine.
The Rattlesnake Club sat on River Place, off the Detroit River. A hotel was a few hundred feet away and both were bordered by a few blocks of new luxury lofts and apartments, but you could spot trouble by the potholed roads snaking around it. There were one or two other retail concerns, but the area hadn’t managed to shake off its recent past of empty warehouses and questionable river and street traffic. A river walk was slowly making its way up the river, but it hadn’t reached here yet. It remained a tiny pocket of affluence.
The Rattlesnake Club put on its happy face though. The boldness of its location was matched by its insistence on serving expensive food and wine in a sophisticated setting. Our table was by a window. We hadn’t said much on the short drive over and I was still feeling subdued.
“This is all original artwork,” Bill whispered, breaking the silence. “A Jasper Johns, I think.”
Yes, and what are we doing here, I thought—after where we’d been. Our last dinner out had been at Pegasus in Greektown, with the total bill well under $60. Neither of us were devoted foodies despite Bill’s new portliness. Expensive restaurants made me nervous, perhaps because of my mother’s profession. She’d worked at a few fancy places and disaster had always ensued. She could only pull off the demeanor required for so long.
We ordered drinks and watched the river traffic for a few minutes. “Maybe we should have sat on the terrace,” Bill wondered aloud. “Nice night.” We looked outside at a group of largely empty tables.
Well, it was a Tuesday in Detroit, for God’s sake, and well after eight o’clock. Not a prime time for dining. “Nice? It’s humid and we’d get eaten alive by mosquitoes within an hour.”
Bill laughed, perking up. “You know, I can’t think of a time we’ve ever spent together outdoors. Not a single instance. Can you?”
I thought for a minute. “We went to the Thanksgiving Parade last year. Remember sitting on the bleachers on Woodward Avenue?” I almost shivered at the memory. It had been about twenty degrees and snowing.
“We sat for about ten minutes before you spotted an open Coney Island and took off. Never did see Santa. Hey, and we were only there so you could take pictures. It was no outing. No fair counting it.”
“There was no reason to shoot the whole parade. Santa’s too generic to be interesting, and it was damned cold for November.” I thought a minute. “I could have used footage from the past ten years and got away with it.”
“Nope. Some of those floats were pretty year specific.”
Here we were again, sparring and sticking our metaphorical tongues out.
We gave our orders to the waiter and sipped our drinks. I’d thought about mentioning Ted’s ultimatum. I needed Bill to sign off on the fact the photographs were solely mine—or mine and Ted’s. But it seemed like a bad time to bring the pictures up. Especially after spending the last hour with poor Wylie. Despite our mutual depression, this seemed to be a special night although I didn’t know why. His birthday was in January. Mine, December.
When was the last time death hadn’t propelled our conversation? We defaulted to it as a subject for endless discussion, but it was also driving us apart. I decided to put it on hold a little longer. This was an evening for finding less contentious subjects.
Bill brought it up anyway. “So how many photographs do you have by now? I lost track. Eight, nine?”
“Eight. Well, nine if I could see my way clear to using the one of Cajuan Grace, that rapper. Any chance of that happening?” It was my best photo—both in the final product and in its potential for generating public interest.
Bill shook his head. “Mentioned it again to his sister, Athena, a few days ago, told her you’d actually got one by me, but she said Mrs. Grace was adamant about exclusivity. It’d screw up their copyright for the book.” He paused, adding, “We’ve gotten to know each other a little since his funeral. I remembered she was a nurse for an endocrinologist so I called her when my mother was diagnosed.”
I fidgeted with my napkin. I hated to talk about illness. “Is diabetes that serious nowadays? I mean, don’t most diabetics control the disease now without using a needle?”
I’d heard this somewhere, although coming out of my mouth now it sounded crass—like I wanted to downplay his mother’s illness. A woman he’d never thought it necessary to introduce me to. There it was again.
“Sometimes it works out that way,” Bill said, patient for once. “But the disease is still serious—a leading cause of death. It has implications for feet, eyes, the heart. A lot of organs can be affected by it.” He took a bite of his salmon. “Sorry. I’m becoming a bit of an expert out of necessity, I’m afraid.”
I looked at his plate. Salmon and steamed vegetables. “Bill, is it only your mother who’s been sick?”
His eyelids fluttered and he shook his head. “Pre-diabetic. That’s what the tests showed. All the sweating, weight gain, and drinking water had to have a cause. I was putting off finding out what.” He dropped his napkin on the table. “When Mom was diagnosed, it fell into place. Sad to say, it took her sixty-two years to contract it. I have indications at thirty-eight.”
“God, I’m sorry.” I put my fork down, looking with no appetite at the bloody red steak on the plate.
“Hey, it’s not a death sentence and it certainly doesn’t mean you have to change what you eat. You’re a fine, healthy specimen. All the running probably.”
I must have still looked grim because he went on. “Athena, that’s Cajuan Grace’s sister, tells me if I’m careful I may never get it. My cholesterol count wasn’t exactly great, nor the triglycerides. But this new regime will help. I was in a sorry state.” He looked at me, his voice soft. “And you tried to tell me. I remember that, baby.”
I couldn’t believe he was finally giving me positive credit.
“Well it won’t hurt me to make changes either. I’ve been more lucky than smart.”
After our discussion, there was no way I could ask him to sign a paper promising to never demand money for his part in the project. I also got the feeling he wanted to say more but didn’t.
So we were quiet; the evening ended early. If he wasn’t going to suggest sex, neither was I. Maybe sex didn’t fall into the good for you column.
“A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him.”
Man Ray
A day later, I was taking photographs of the new chef at a restaurant in Rochester. I had to carry on with these prosaic assignments if I wanted to eat, although I cut them down as much as I could. I mean how many ways can you photograph a chef? I was bringing no enthusiasm to the meat of my employment. Photographers did such work, and I’d probably never join the elite group who didn’t have to. But my head wasn’t in it, especially after Bill’s news. How long had he waited before telling me? And why? Did he know I was scared to death of any sort of illness or did he think I wouldn’t care? Or—did he not think about me at all?
Years of experience let me work on automatic mode at times, and this day was one of them. The cell rang as I was adjusting the lighting. Only a few people had my number. Well, a lot of people had been given the number over time, but I assumed it was none of them. Did people enter cell phone numbers they were given casually into their phonebook or contact list?
I picked up the phone, glanced at the number, saw it was Bill, but didn’t pick up. Clients didn’t take well to being made to wait while I answered my phone; it always affected the photograph. They got sulky, irritable, impatient. The guy today was already ill at ease, sitting stiffly on a stool in his restaurant’s kitchen, looking like he’d never worn a chef’s hat before. I smiled encouragingly and shot away.
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