Sometimes, he felt being with her was as close as he was ever going to feel like her, to be something beautiful. And he hated seeing her have that kind of control over him. And there were times when he thought that he wasn't the person who he thought he was. And he almost lost himself.
When Mary hunted her subjects in the streets and she got the shot that she wanted, every limb of her body lit up.
It disgusted him.
On the outside, Joe tried to be happy for her, but he cringed with jealousy. He hated every time he saw her smile about that damn camera. Sometimes, he saw that nothing meant that much to her, as much as a photograph. It was just a damn picture, a stupid picture.
But, it meant so much more to her. Eventually, his jealousy turned into a small ball of hate that he swore to do something about. He would kill it, before it killed him. He would make sure that she did not flourish. And that was the job.
So, he kept on her.
They first started out as friends. Six months later, they started dating.
One morning, Joe stood in front of her small gallery that hung in the hallway. He took one photograph off the wall and held it in his hands. Apart of him wanted to throw it on the ground and break the picture into a thousands little pieces. But when he looked at it, he smiled. He knew that she was watching.
A moment later, Mary appeared in the hallway, as if out of thin air.
But, he did not act surprised. He saw her and looked down at the picture again. He knew that she was watching his every move. So he smiled again at that picture, as if he were pleased by it. Then he looked at her. She walked toward him and he slid his hand around her waist.
As he held the photograph in his hand, he smiled and leaned over by her right ear and told her that he loved her. He told her that he would love her forever.
At that same moment, he promised himself that he would replace the passion that she held for her art with something else.
From that moment on, he was tied to her. He planned every step of the way that would eventually destroy the very thing that captured her imagination. And he would do it with love.
It was his only weapon.
Joe did all the things that a man in love did. He bought her flowers. He took her to dinner. They went on long walks in Astoria Park along the East River with the lights of the city shimmering against the black water.
It was romantic.
Many times, he told her that he would spend his whole life loving her and taking care of her. And she believed him. And when he realized that he had her, he knew that he had her...forever.
In the meantime, Joe allowed Mary to keep her hobby a little while longer. Eventually, he would win. He was sure of it. But, Joe bit his lip and kept cool. He watched from the sidelines, as he tasted his own silvery blood. He had a bad habit of bitting his inner lip when he got excited.
However, only Mary knew about that.
He knew that he had time. He had all the time in the world to kill her art a little bit at a time. With enough patience, he would drown that part of her in a deep ocean, to never emerge again. And he couldn't wait until the day he realized his goal. He would do that one thing, if it was the last thing that he would ever do.
"Marry me." He told her.
He didn't even ask.
It was at this point when Joe started to capture the attention of her inner heart, the place where he reigned free.
After a while, the focus of her camera shifted onto Joe. His stupid pale pink face filled the frame of her photographs. When he saw the pictures that she produced that day, he couldn't help, but feel victorious. All the pictures were of him. He smiled contently, as she photographed him, over and over. It was working. With enough love, he was sure that he could destroy anything that she loved in this world.
Eventually, Joe became the main subject of her picture and nothing else. It didn't take long. But, he had won her over with a few simple gestures and words. It was easy. The more Joe loved her, the more she forgot about everything outside. In the end, Joe and Mary were lost in their own world, a world where he was king.
Over time, she became fascinated with the different parts of Joe's body, like his crooked nose and tattoo covered arms. There was a depth to him that few hardy saw and she felt privileged. She photographed all of him and left nothing out.
But that wasn't enough to satisfy Joe. He had perverse the thing she loved and she didn't even realize it. But he had to take farther.
It took a couple of weeks, but Joe replaced her art with the full measure of his love. He had become her life and they were inseparable. So much so, that her love of photography was squeezed out of her grasp and soon forgotten. And she was no longer the artist she thought she was.
Right before Joe died, her camera sat on a wooden shelf collecting dust, alone and forgotten.
"I love you Mary, more than anything. You don't need that camera anymore. You have me, right here. Right now, you have me forever."
She always listened to him whenever he said that.
Then, Joe died.
Out of no where, he died and it felt like a spell had been, only slightly lifted.
Everything changed, suddenly, abruptly, even profoundly.
Then, Amy showed up at her sister's door.
Soon after Joe's death, Mary's sister, Amy took all of those pictures of Joe off the wall. She furiously went through the house removing every trace of him, as Mary sat on the couch in a stupor. Amy stuffed every picture of Joe and his clothes in a black garbage bag.
And Mary didn't know why.
At the end, Amy made Mary toss Joe's pictures out on the sidewalk, with the rest of the trash. Even now, Mary hardly remembered why she allowed her sister to do that. If she loved Joe so much, she would have kept all those things.
If anything Mary should of made Amy keep those pictures right there, where they hung. She should have taken a knife to her.
As Mary mourned for Joe, she remembered nothing that went wrong in her relationship. Amy tried to explain it to her. But, Mary didn't understand a word. The whole time, Amy prayed for her sister to come back to her senses. But, all the bad things she and Joe went through faded away in her head. No matter what Amy said, only the good parts of their relationship remained in Mary's mind. There were only good memories left.
Then, things changed again.
The following day, Amy came back with Mary's son. The whole time Mary spent with Joe, she not only forgot her art. But, she forgot her son, the boy without a name. Mary looked at the boy standing at the doorway and hardly recognized him.
She was emotionless and indifferent toward the boy.
Then, Mary broke away from the boy's eyes. There was no way that she was ready to take the boy back. So, Amy took the boy back to her house. The boy stayed with his aunt, until Mary got better. Amy understood that it would take a while for her sister to straighten herself out.
For a couple of days after, Mary sat on the couch, thinking about Joe. She missed him and those pictures of him. She regretted letting her sister throw them away. So much so, that she thought she might be able to take those pictures again and rebuild her gallery.
She could do it, if she saw Joe again.
She promised herself not to replace any of the photographs that her sister took down. There were only empty spaces on the wall where his pictures once hung. Now, there were only a few frames left on the wall.
Then, her life changed again.
There was only one picture left one that had escaped her sister's wrath. It was a picture of Mary standing and smiling on a street corner. A girlfriend of hers had taken the picture. From time to time, she passed by that same picture and gazed at it for hours.
Sometimes, Mary looked at the photograph with some sort of sick smile on her face. She did this, as she leaned against the wall in an empty apartment. Sometime, she would fall to the floor with that picture in her arms. Her body slid down the wall while she smiled, madly, to herself.
Fifteen
; The Dead Never Forgot Us
We forget the dead. But, the dead never forget us.
The cemetery was on a large piece of land in the middle of Queens. A field covered with about three million headstones that ran along the Long Island Expressway. The sun descended in the east and the cemetery looked like a dark city in miniature made of stones and bones.
For more than two hours, Mary and her son circled around the perimeter of the cemetery.
Through a rusted black gate, she peered into the field of the dead, examining the different type of headstones that stood in crooked rows. The more ancient the stone, the more it shifted on the land and appeared out of place. And sometimes, the stones gave her ideas about where Joe might be buried. Maybe, she could touch each of the headstones, every single one of them. Until, she found the right one.
Some headstones were monumental and others were no bigger than a brick. The small ones were the kind of rocks that made her think of Joe. His grave was probably a thin one, like the ones out there with less than a couple inches between them. His name was probably scrawled on a throwaway brick in black marker. He was the kind of man that people never seemed to remember.
Mary's mind flashed with memories of him.
They kept popping up in her head. However, one moment stood out more than the others. It was the time when Joe proposed to her. He was smiling over one of her pictures and she accepted with a smile and nothing more.
Right after Joe slipped the engagement right on her finger. He told her, "and now your life will change forever." It was about a month after that, when Joe unexpectedly died. She never really understood how or why.
Mary stayed close to wall of the cemetery. At certain places, she pressed her body against it. Throughout the late afternoon, she felt around for the part that drew her the most. Some of the old stones along the wall felt more hollow than others, as if she could just push her way through to the other side. Everything she touched reminded her of him.
The last time she stepped inside this place was when they buried her mother. Now, the cemetery spoke to her. She hoped that it was Joe.
At the end, it wouldn't matter, though. Mary would end up trapped inside, without her even realizing it.
It would all happen over again. But this time, it would be worse.
It was an hour before the sun was going to go down. Mary and the boy walked back onto Queens Boulevard. Heavy traffic flowed, as they walked pass the last stretch of cemetery wall and headed toward the front gate. The boy hoped that the gates were closed and that they would pass by. There was still enough time to make it home before the night came.
A beam of cars headed up and down the boulevard of death, a nightmarish name on the tips of people's tongues and enshrined in ink by a local rag, the Queens Gazette.
On a bad day, Queens boulevard was like a raging river of plastic, glass and metal. It was a wide street and it took a while for people to cross from one side to the other. The boulevard had taken it's share of innocent bystanders, pedestrians, cyclist and drivers. Everyone took for granted that it was one of the most dangerous roads in the state.
"We should go home." said the boy, as the sky became darker.
Again, she heard and ignored the boy. And the boy kept looking at the sidewalk. His head felt heavy and there was nothing that he could do.
Finally, they arrived at the main gate. She was about to step off the boulevard and enter the cemetery. When just before, Mary stopped and stood there, looking at the iron wrought gate.
For a moment, the boy thought his mother had finally come to her senses and that they were going to go home. However, she stood there peering into the field of the dead. A couple steps more and she would be inside.
A part of her wondered if Joe was really in this place or if this was all in her head. It couldn't be. What she felt in her stomach, felt so familiar.
It was him and she needed to ask him the one question that has cycled for a thousand miles in her mind, since Joe died.
She would ask him why he loved so much. And she would wait to hear her favorite answer. Then, she would follow him to the end of the world.
She stood there, like a stone statue, as memories of her time with Joe flashed in her head. It happened without any effort on her part.
"mom. let's go home. mom Let's leave now. we can make it home before the night comes."
Memories of Joe came back to Mary, like flashes of light. She thought about how many times she and Joe rode around in their car, during the summer months.
She took pictures of his arms and chest. His flesh was covered with an intricate ink drawing of a winged iguana. His simple face barely hinted at what was really hidden underneath his skin. She photographed every ink line on his tattoo covered body and loved the curves of his realistically drawn wings.
"Mom, come back."
Without realizing it, Mary had stepped inside the cemetery. Startled, she saw where she now stood. She looked at her feet and were firmly placed inside.
"Come back,mom."
She quickly turned toward the boy and saw him waiting on the other side. She stared at him, placing her index finger against her lips. Then, she told the boy to be quiet.
For a moment, Mary listened to the sound of the wind pushing through the trees. The dry leaves fluttered and fell upon the cemetery grass. Then she asked her son.
"Did you hear that?"
"mom?"
Her head swung away. "Joe? Is that you, Joe?"
At that moment, the boy lost his mother and his head sunk deeper into his chest. He realized right there, that the bond he shared with her was now eclipsed by something not of this world, by something standing between them.
It was bad enough when she was not listening to him. Now, things were worse. She was inside the cemetery and something twisted the boy's words and used them against him. Every time the boy spoke, she heard Joe.
So, the boy stayed quiet. The night was trickier than he ever imagined. Silencing the boy was not enough to drive a wedge between him and his mother. The night changed everything, everything that was once real.
"Lets's go back home mom. The boy wanted to scream. Instead, he listened to his mother go crazy.
"Joe? Is that really you? Where are you. Tell me where you are and I'll go to you. I'll go to you as fast as I can.
Once she passed through the black gates of Calvary Cemetery, everything else was dead to her. The noise of city's traffic had vanished. Even, the rattling of the wind was gone. Worst of a all, her son's voice was unrecognizable.
All was gone, except for Joe.
However, her son did not give up. He couldn't. She was all that he had. So, he followed her into the cemetery.
"Remember me, not him."
The boy followed after her, wanting to remind his mother of how much she used to love him. But he even she forgot her son's name.
He felt something warm against his face. He raised his head and looked at the red sun in the distance. The night was coming.
"Come back mom. What's going on with you. Why won't you talk to me."
"Don't worry Joe. I'm coming for you. Don't worry one bit. I'll find you, if it's the last thing I do."
Mary whispered and the wind carried her words and her son's voice grew faint. The farther Mary went inside the cemetery, the more she committed herself to the night.
For a second, Mary stood on the driveway and looking over the field of old rocks and marble tombstones, wondering in what direction she should go. She had come here before, when she was a young girl to take some charcoal rubbings off of some very old tombstones. The next time she was here, she came to bury her mother. Now, she was back a third time to do God know's what, to meet God knows who.
It had to be Joe, she thought. It had to be.
She wondered why Joe kept calling to her and why she kept on walking. The question hung above her, like a dark cloud. Until she uncovered the truth, she felt incomplete. Deep down inside, Mary knew that Joe loved her and that made her fe
el warm, against the cold air.
The boy looked at the driveway and it went on for half a mile into the heart of the cemetery. Above the field of dead, the Long Island Expressway was filled with a stream of cars and trucks rolling over a bridge.
Slowly, Mary became transfixed on only one goal, to find Joe's grave, the place where he was buried, just one year ago from today. She knew that he was in there, some where. She could feel it.
"Mom. please. Talk to me. Please."
"Of course Joe, I remember that time. When we used to go for joy rides at night. How can I forget that? I would never forget that."
At the time, Mary was not even a shadow of her former self. Whenever Joe had her under his influence, she always became a different person.
The boy had seen her like this before and the woman who was once his mother was gone. The woman who loved taking all those pictures with her son, lost any good sense that remained in her, like a tin pale of water with a tiny holes at the bottom.
"Mom, did I do something wrong?"
"Don't worry Joe."
"Mom."
"I'll find you, Joe."
There was a time when his mother only photographed the boy. The boy tried to remember something good and hold on to it, like a warm blanket. He remembered how much photography meant to her. It was her photography that gave her confidence to know what was good art and what was not. For a time, he thought that she could create anything with that camera, a time when man and machine obeyed her every word.
The boy tried to remember for her.
His mother started out small at first and she tried every kind of camera that she could get her hands on. She studied photographers like Vivian Mayer and Saul Leiter which were her favorite. They made the gritty streets of New York City so beautiful. With every shot, she made every part of this world look unique and special. Everything in the street that was once ugly and vulgar was gone because of her, because of the way she looked at street from a different angle.
In the end, the boy thought that someday he could do that to. And that was all that he wanted, at one time.
The Dead Never Die Page 8