by Victor Yates
“We were going to sit out here until Brett was in less pain. Then I was going to walk him home.”
“Come into the living room. Carsten, in the morning, I’ll make you and Brett breakfast with deer sausage. Deer that I killed. Omelets with turkey eggs, and pancakes.”
“He hunts,” Brett says.
“And watches wrestling apparently.”
“I do.”
“Did Brett tell you I taught him how to fight?”
“No, he didn’t.”
The light switch clicks. Strangely, his uncle looks younger from in the picture on the cabinet, even with his facial hair. His face, flushed red, could be placed on Brett’s shoulders. Except for his skin color and blond body hair, their bodies are the same. He slides the flask from my hand, drops it in my back pocket, and wraps his arm around my shoulder. Then, he gestures, place your arm in his pit, to Brett.
As we walk sideways into the house, Brett whispers in my ear, “every night should be like this.”
And I remind him every night is like this for me.
Chapter 21
Six, five, four, three, two, zap, the timer rings, a sound similar to barber clippers but more shrill. Twisting the dial to ten seconds, I then press the PRINT button. A stream of light exposes the negative to paper, and as the cycle ends, the timer clicks and turns the lamp off. Soon after, a young bride and groom appear smiling under a shower of rice. Red rosary beads swing on the machine from the fan’s breeze. Pulling from the crucifix to the last circle shrinks how insignificant I feel, after an argument with Father. Penciled notes wallpaper the space beside the enlarger. Rows of destroyed film are pinned above the notes. They remind me that a photographer does not take a photograph. A photographer makes a photograph. Under the red lights, I read his words to my ten-year-old self – 4P’s and Double D’s.
I whisper, “Double D’s,” to myself, and I swear I hear him whisper it too, and then he says it louder.
Wiping the sweat from under my nose, I flinch smelling ammonia, vinegar, and rotting wood. A metallic odor spreads through the room. Without the fan, our lungs would burn. Darkroom work is for the obsessed. The darkroom is our mistress that we betray with our wife, the camera. Dust covers a color enlarger from the 70’s. Each color has a round knob, cyan, magenta, and yellow, and there are knobs for filter densities. On the floor, beside it, a box sits overflowing with enlarging easels and bulbs for cameras and equipment. Some date back to the 60’s and 70’s and belonged to grandfather. When father is not in the studio, I take them out of the box one-by-one and line them up on the floor, imagining what they have seen in other rooms with my father and grandfather. Grandfather’s judgment looms over us in the form of his all-knowing self-portrait above our heads. In his eyes, everything must be perfect, and so it is. There is not a place where his hand is not present, but it is felt the most in the darkroom. To be before his face, is to be in his presence and feel his mastery and feel smaller, but to also know that my father is a child too.
In a tone reversed for friends, Father speaks to me, but not in a language I comprehend. Foreign word, foreign word, more foreign words, and Cecilia, I heard.
“Say that again.”
“You haven’t talked about Cecilia in a while.”
“Because we have work to do.”
“I know that.”
“And, it is a distraction.”
“Not for me. You can still mention her.”
“We have been busy.”
“You haven’t talked about visiting her either. If it’s because of money, I can give you money to take the bus to Chicago.”
“Thank you.”
“Tonight, see how much a ticket costs.”
“Okay, I will.”
“Are you afraid of marriage?”
“What time is it?”
“11:45. Why?”
“We have the Khalids at 1:30. I should double check the equipment. I think I forgot to add extra batteries to the pack.”
“No, leave it. Tell me and be honest. Are you afraid of marriage?”
“No.”
“Are you afraid of girls?”
“No, that’s.” I stop myself from letting out ‘pid, but stu slips. “Strange. A strange thing to say.” The way he stressed the word afraid made it sound like he meant something more, something deeper.
“You hate girls?”
“What?”
“Do you hate girls? Are they intimidating? Do you see yourself getting married to Cecilia? Good. I want to see you married before I die.”
“You are not going to die.”
“When you get married, everyone will be so proud of you.”
The wish every African boy makes, in the magical well of imagination, is for his father to be proud of him. When kneeling with clasped hands, this is their prayer, which will guide their life in maturity, in work, in fatherhood, in old age. Sometimes I think if we only spoke about our work, he would show me off, in wallet-size, at dad events like barbecue cook-offs. Somalis believe a child becomes fatherless, without their father’s approval, and wanders aimlessly through the world. Often when we are not huddled over trays or cradling cameras, I feel lost in my own center.
Water drips from the print as I attach the drying clip. Father’s photographs from the wedding and the ones I shot are as comparable as the colors pink and blue. This photograph is his. The others that are drying are mine. One – the flower girl with thick stockings hides under a tulle mermaid bottom. Two – three women, decades apart in age, in a one-arm embrace, stare critically at something seen off-camera. Three – a woman with bold lipstick and white gloves laughs against a dark background. Maleness is missing from my photographs. Behind me, something splashes, the table shakes, and I hear the rattling of pills, then fan blades. The prescription bottle in his pocket hit the leg. A side cabinet in the front hides the rest of his medications: pain killers, blood thinners, aspirin, steroids, vitamins with foreign names, along with saline spray, ointment, petroleum jelly, Band-Aids, cotton balls, and tissue. A sticker of an eight-fingered hand is on the outside of the cabinet.
“Do you miss her?”
“Who?”
“Cecilia.”
“Yes,” I say because I cannot tell him, curse word curse word no.
“A ticket back home shouldn’t cost more than sixty dollars. I’ll give you sixty plus another sixty for next weekend.”
“Who will help you shoot and develop?”
“You can stay with your cousin. I’ll call him when we get home.”
“No. Let me call the bus station first to get prices.”
“As soon as you know, tell me. Whatever it is, I will pay it. We need to speed this up.”
“Were you afraid of getting married?”
“Yes. I knew so much then, but I didn’t want to give up photography. She wanted me to.”
“I’m sure she didn’t know.”
“She did know,” he loud talks over me.
“What did marriage teach you?” I ask facing the bride and groom.
After a long uncomfortable pause, he says, “If you can’t resolve your problems in peace, you can’t solve them in war.”
Even without seeing his face, I know he smiled saying it, and I know he swallowed three pills, instead of one. Overwhelmed with this knowledge, I look for familiarity and find it in the film, the notes, the beads, and grandfather. One day I will look up, and I won’t see these things.
Chapter 22
Plastic pushes photo paper and a high heel floats to the top. The letters P. L. E. A. S. E. appear on one line, followed by the words, use another bathroom, on another line, in a sign above the flower girl’s head. Black marker turned precious under the flash. In a rush to use the bathroom, she hurls the bouquet at the sign, with one leg kicked up high. The tightly pinned peach roses burst into petals, stem
s, and lace. This picture ends my story of the young bride and groom’s wedding. We have about twenty prints to develop, before finishing. The word, please, written in black marker, shimmers like the contours of Brett’s knife. The word, please, is never heard from the lips of Somali men. Since, it is not an entry word in the Somali dictionary. Therefore, I should have known disappointment would greet me soon after Father said, please drive to the museum last year. After winning a grant from the county, we signed up for a class at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Having worked as a photographer for over thirty years, our instructor was also an attorney. A black and white image that he shot and showed us kindled a fiery discussion. The center of interest was a blond crying holding up a poster that said, less than isn’t equal. Piercing and strong, best describe his stare past the camera. The background was an empty courtroom and beside him the ghostly figure of a man edited into the photo. The man’s partner (the word the instructor used) was struck crossing the street by a driver on a hit and run rampage. Six people died under the front end; however, the husband suffered only a broken leg.
I tried to hold onto every detail in the story. Somewhere in the middle, my thoughts whirled away and drifted to Manhattan to Seventh Avenue to the driver. I pictured myself bundled up in his seat on Valentine’s Day and wondered how it felt watching the life drain out of a man. Through the cracked windshield, Father’s eyes stared back at me, and I punched the gas pedal. My ink pen clacked, hitting the floor. After a simple surgery on the fifteenth, the husband died from blood clots in his lungs.
“The widower filed a wrongful death suit against the hospital. The appellate court concluded he didn’t have the right to sue because he and his partner were men,” the instructor said.
My hand moved to raise a question, but seeing Father’s fist stopped it from rising above my ribs. Father stared over his shoulder multiple times at the cat-shaped clock and huffed. Someone behind me started huffing seconds after him. The instructor ignored them. There was a lesson to the story that would prepare us to become greater artists. And it was – photojournalism is about finding the story’s best image as a way to render text detachable. To explain, he pointed out parts of the photo I had not noticed: an enhanced wedding ring around the ghost’s hand, a smoking gavel, and missing courtroom seats.
“New York law allows not only spouses to sue for wrongful death, but also parents, children, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins,” the instructor continued telling us.
Father’s fountain pen popped against the table, and I nervously glanced over at him. He scooted – cursing under his breath – to the edge of his seat and looked like he was preparing to stab the instructor in the eye. I feared for the instructor’s life. Father was capable of anything. He huffed and right on cue the person behind me huffed too.
“The couple met on Long Island in 1985,” the instructor continued. “Eleven years later they were joined in a civil union and.”
He stopped speaking mid-sentence and I looked to where his eyes were at the baby-faced college student. Tears were coming down his cheeks. In a soft voice, he said he planned to marry his boyfriend, and could not imagine slamming against that concrete wall of grief.
“Khaniis,” Father whispered.
Then, the Latina sitting behind me whispered a derogatory Spanish word.
I wanted to stand up and yell, curse word you, at both of them. I could not of course, or flying fists would have cracked open my chest.
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” Father said, quoting from the Bible. “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”
The student said, “No it is actually. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate called malakoi, nor abusers of themselves with mankind called arsenokoites. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
I wrote the word malakoi in my notebook as tiny as possible to prevent Father from noticing the letters from his seat. The Encyclopedia Britannica at the library in downtown Chicago did not have an entry for it, when I snuck there five days later. However, the male librarian that always winked at me helped me research the word. Originally from Wisconsin, he always told me how he liked to drink beer while eating pancakes, and he had the slight belly and the larger behind to prove it.
“God’s same words,” Father said, in response to the student.
“It’s man’s word,” the student shouted. “Malakoi means spiritually weak. When Paul wrote Corinthians, it didn’t mean homosexual. He was talking about boys who had anal sex with older men for money.”
“Gross! Please, stop,” the Latina said.
Father stared at her with such love that I expected a proposal. I assumed she was a lesbian and regretted laughing with her before class. I even offered her a peppermint.
The student continued, “The sin is prostitution not attraction. A translator made it effeminate. Arsenokoites doesn’t easily translate into English. It referred to an outlawed sexual act between men and women and men and men at that time. A translator made it homosexual. They aren’t about loving relationships between two men.”
“Loving relationships do not exist between two men,” Father said.
“Everyone I wanted to say,” the instructor said.
The student yelled, “That was the King James version written in 1611. The John Wycliffe version, written in 1380, is whether ye know not that wicked men shall not wield the kingdom of God. Do not ye err, neither lechers. A lecher is a man addicted to sex, which became fornicator. Neither men that serve false gods, neither adulterers, neither lechers against kind, neither they that do lechery with men, neither thieves, neither avaricious men, covetous men or niggards, neither men full of drunkenness, neither cursers, neither raveners shall wield the kingdom of God. The sin is.”
“Sin. You are stupid,” Father said.
“I studied the Bible. I didn’t learn to single out a group of people.”
Watching the student debate with my Father, I became aroused at his comfortability with himself, and around strangers. I photographed his face with my eyes, focusing on the frozen youthfulness; the plastic pink lips; the scratch mark beside his mouth, the pinched nose, almost elfish. He was carefully groomed – maybe even wearing makeup – and not quite a man, but long beyond being a boy. I photographed the name written on his shirt pocket while trying to remember what his last name was to find him in the phonebook. However, I could not put a finger on the name he said.
My Father stood up, scowling the student until the student snatched his schoolbag and stormed out.
Everything in my body welled up as if inflamed. I wanted to grab my chair and beat my father until he could not hurt anyone else. When we returned to the studio, I tampered with development solution, destroying negatives of pictures we shot during a bikini competition. A men’s magazine hired us to shoot the women. Father lost three hundred dollars on that assignment. As did I, but I gained something greater – dignity. The women now live on the wall in front of him. That was one of the four times that I saw Father cry. To a photographer, a destroyed negative is worse than death because the negative is lost forever. However, the memory of death sleeps and wakes with everyone who experiences it.
Chapter 23
A photograph of a man’s knife-slashed stomach floats in a black frame beside my dresser. His scar goes from his left hairy nipple, zigzags and goes up and around his chest and under his armpit. Little nicks along the zigzag resemble fern fronds. A rounded chunk of flesh is missing on the lower right side. Thin, finger-long welts dent his pasty belly. The man is holding his turtleneck sweater u
p, and the camera angle decapitates him. Brett traces his finger across the white man’s scar. His work shirt rises, exposing the waistband of his pink underwear. The fear and desire that I am experiencing is so palpable that I might collapse and die this morning. Father could catch Brett in my room, and Brett and I could end up carved up like the man in the picture. Instead of a stark white background, a silver exam table would be behind us. Fortunately, the job that Father left for ten minutes ago is an elaborate wedding fifteen miles away.
“All these photos on the wall,” Brett says. “And you have more photos of women than men. That’s strange considering,” Brett says and laughs.
“Considering men are more photogenic than women.”
“Exactly.”
“Then let me take your photo.”
“Let me use the bathroom first,” Brett says and walks on an invisible tightrope, one foot ahead of the other, into my open bathroom.
The photography editor at The Tribune told me my work questions past and present events. He saw this through tight close-up shots of female Somalis, Ethiopians, Russians, Germans, and Puerto Ricans. Portraits are sensual and intimate; a relationship builds between the photographer and the sitter. I hold my camera close enough to welcome in the sitter’s warmth. That intimacy in a session, I try to avoid, one-on-one with men, especially attractive men. However, many of the male portraits that I have shot, I have them hidden. Next to the dresser, on the floor, is a trunk with a brass decorative handle that Father gave me. It belonged to grandfather. Photographs of mine that are not publishable as determined by my father, and, therefore, have no place in a portfolio I store in the trunk. Some of the hidden photos lie buried at the bottom of the trunk. Seven portfolios, full of my photography, are stacked behind the shaving box. As a photographer, I am interested in mastery of technique through filters, lens, lighting, equipment and environment. Each portfolio represents a different stage in my development.