The news from here isn't very good right now, and though I said I was going to quit writing "the daily report," I'm going to today so that those of you who still come to read the blog will understand if the whole things goes wonky.
My mother called the pain doctor yesterday while I was at the gym. Then she called me to tell me that she had made an appointment for Friday at 8:30 to get a steroid injection in her spine.
O.K.
This morning at two a.m., she opened my bedroom door and told me we had to go. She was dressed and ready. I told her to go back to bed, but she was manic and wouldn't listen to me. I had no real idea what to do since she would not let me go back to sleep. I tried as hard as I could to tell her she was wrong but she just kept staring at a piece of paper on which she had written "8:30 Friday" and telling me we had to go right then. What to do?
I put her in the car and drove across town to the doctor's office to show her no one was there. She said we were in the wrong place. There was no making her understand. After awhile, I got her back in the car and drove back to her house. It was four a.m. when I got back to bed, but I couldn't go to sleep for a very long time. I got back up at seven thirty and got her ready to go back to the doctor's office. She didn't remember what had happened in the night.
When we got there, I found out that her appointment was for November 4th. They would not be able to give her an injection today. When the doctor came in to look at the MRI, things went south very quickly. Anything that could be wrong with a spine was wrong with hers. He said that he didn't think the shot would do any good. I asked what could be done, and he just shook his head. It would require a hard surgery, he said, that would have her under anesthesia for a very long time which she probably couldn't survive. It involved fusing the spine and something else. He said he didn't think any surgeon would be willing to do it.
"What do we do?" I asked.
He just shook his head. He said he could give her a stronger pain med, Dilaudid, but that would increase both her cognitive breakdown and her chances of falling, and, he said, if she has a fall now, it is over. I said let's do the Dilaudid because my mother was in constant pain. He said he'd do that and we could try the injection on the 4th, but he didn't have much hope that it would help.
There was no good news. Now I must make some big decisions. I can't be here in the house twenty-four hours a day with her. I'll need to make some arrangements. But everything at this point is headed in the wrong direction.
I won't report on my own failing health except to say just that doing this alone for so very long has had a profoundly negative effect. That nothing lasts forever is ok in the abstract, but when the reality takes hold, it is another thing altogether.
My mother heard it all. I can't imagine what is going through her thoughts just now. There is nothing to be done. When we got back to her house, she went to bed.
There is to be no joy, I think, this holiday season.
I believe I've come to a sad crossroads. My life is of no interest to anyone including myself, and my opinions about things. . . well, we all know about opinions. The result is that my writing is of no consequence. Was it ever? I think for awhile it was a bit entertaining. There was a real enthusiasm if nothing else. I have no enthusiasm for anything any longer. My concerns are only for the day's agonies. It is nearly impossible to get outside of them. For now, at least, I must give up writing "the daily." I'll just end it by saying things are not going so well with my health now. It is the new normal I will have to get used to. I'm going to need to learn how to observe the world in a new, less personal way. If I don't, there will be nothing left to say.
It is a sad resignation.
This will be hard, though, after years of confession, even when it wasn't absolutely true. If I can pull up something good from the past to write about now, that'll be alright. Back in more heroic times.
I will talk of pictures when I can. I like the blurry ones, the out of focus ones, the ones that seem like nothing but a mistake. A fellow at the cafe the other day asked me about my camera and talked about photography for a long while. Young guy with a lot of enthusiasm. He was both anxious and nervous to show me some of his photography on his phone. It was good--sharp, clean images well composed. Photography used to be much more difficult because you had to know so many things. I started before autoexposure cameras were around, and long before they could autofocus. And of course, there was nothing digital. You loaded your camera with film, and that was an important choice. Black and white or color. Prints or slides. Most of us shot black and white for the simple reason that we could go into the dark room and develop the film with whatever chemical we thought best, and we could print them to whatever perfection we desired. The rest of the world was taking snapshots with cheap cameras with heap color film and then would take them to the drugstore to be developed and printed in small 4x6 prints. But "we photographers" had the magic.
You needed to choose the right film speed for what you were shooting. That is completely unnecessary with a modern digital camera or a phone. If you chose a slow film because it gave you better grain and details but then got into a low light situation, you would have a hard time not getting photos with camera shake. If we shot color, it was usually slide film, but that was the most unforgiving film of all. You had to hit exposures dead on. People on vacations often shot slide film so they could project them for their unwilling friends in their own homes.
"Here we are at Rock City. That's little Andy's hand on the right side of the picture."
By and large, it took a lot of knowledge and effort to make a really good photograph. But the people I studied with went even further than that. Jerry Uelsmann famously made his fantasy prints in the darkroom combining images from multiple negatives. I watched him do it. There was a lot of trial and error before he got a satisfactory print. Todd Walker was using a printing press and silk screens that ran a black and white negative through three or four colors to make his unmistakable images. And Doug Prince was printing images on plexiglass that he layered in boxes to give a three dimensional sculpture.
They probably ruined me. But they liked my photographs well enough and I got to show pictures in photo exhibitions at the college when they were good enough.
I spent hours and hours in those photo labs. Back then we were sort of like alchemists or magicians, and people were happy for us to take their picture.
Now an iPhone can do all of that and more in mere moments. As I looked at the young fellows photos on his phone, I was struck with a number of different emotions, so I was surprised to find that he had set up his own darkroom.
"I black out my bathroom and set up everything in the shower. I love watching the prints develop."
Well, there you go. A whole new set of emotions.
One other thing he told me about the photos on his phone. He shot them all with a Fuji camera, and all the images were basically just as they came out of the camera. I still can't do that, and I spend a lot of time tweaking the images I take. Maybe it is a throwback to my early days in the lab. Working an image just seems necessary. And definitely, those old Polaroid concoctions were influenced by my college profs.
I still shoot film, and I still develop it, both black and white and now color, though I have gotten lazy of late and take some of my film to the lab to be processed. There are still all the choices to make--black and white or color? Fast or slow ISO? There are many more film stocks to choose from now. And then after I get the film back, there is the scanning which takes so long, and after awhile, I'm ready to switch back to digital. The thing about digital is you have a lot of options in the camera and later in the computer app or apps. And this is where it becomes a bit time consuming. Here are two versions of this blurry, out of focus image. In one, I worked the colors. In the other, I took them out and toned what was left. Now I must decide which one I prefer. And so far, I can't. They say completely different things. For most people, what they both will say is, "What fucked up photographer would do that?" They just won't dig the image the way I do. And it is not a great image, not one for the ages, but it is fun for the moment I would say.
The kid asked me if I had any pictures on the internet.
"Oh, no. . . I don't do social media. I can't stand rejection. It doesn't matter what you put up, there are always going to be people who have shitty things to say about the work." I never tell anyone about the blog.
One has to greatly admire Vivian Maier and her ilk. They were content to make photos for themselves. Who knows why. Maybe they felt they would be contaminated by people's opinions about their work, that it would change the way the saw things for the worse. Many people like to "workshop" their stuff, but I am with Hemingway on this one when he said in his Nobel acceptance speech, "Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing."
I think that is true for all creative acts. By and large.
O.K. There it is, the first post not written as a daily confessional. That was alright. We'll see.
I went to the new coffee shop yesterday. Hipsters, but older. It is in the part of town where I was run over, but in the years since then, it has changed completely. Now there are giant apartment complexes towering over everything, each with its own set of shops. I don't know what rent is like in this part of town, but it has to be pretty high. Who are the people who take up residence there? You know they must have jobs. They are not the kids who inhabit the Cafe Strange. There were costumed people in the new place, but not as costumed. The baristas were what they always are with lots of tats covering their bodies and metal decorating their faces. The interior is a mishmash of old furniture and objects of interest.
And at night, they have DJs (link). I sent this to Q since he himself once upon a time was a disc jockey, but he didn't respond. I'm sure he was unimpressed. I found it odd that a coffee shop would have a DJ, but when I tried to order from their extensive menu of drinks, I saw that it was a Kava bar . I went to one once with Ily at her request, but we ended up getting a Kratom drink instead. When we left to go to the grocers, I was walking a foot above the ground. We were warned. I'm pretty sure that Kava doesn't do that, but as I say, I haven't tried it yet. Like most things that fuck you up, Kava is not so good for your liver. Since I was there in the middle of the day, I decided to get a Golden Milk instead.
First sip, I burned the fuck out of my tongue. Drinking hot coffee now, I can still feel it.
I hadn't brought my courier's bag, so I didn't have a notebook and pen. I had my camera, though, so I was looking around instead of writing. Most of the people there were on laptop computers. Maybe I am underestimating that. Thinking back, it could have been all. Maybe they were working. That would kind of make sense. If they were online employees, they don't have to walk very far to get out of the apartment, and a coffee place makes more sense than does a bar in the middle of the afternoon. I never have asked Q about that. He works online, and now I wonder if he has a coffee shop where he goes to work. It has never occured to me to ask him before.
My mother and I are both scheduled for MRIs in a bit. Aren't we a pair. Maybe soon we can have adjoining rooms at the assisted living facility. She'd like that. We can spend our last days eating shitty food and watching commercial t.v.
The Greeks had it down so very long ago. Life is full of choices, but you aren't given the flexibility to choose anything at all. Life is more like a multiple choice test. Choosing "none of the above" is sometimes an option, but only sometimes. I used to think we were the product of our choices, so if I am standing next to a manhole cover that explodes and cuts me in two, it was my choices, all of them, that led me to my ultimate fate.
I wasn't reading the Greek tragedians closely enough. The fall of the hero is about the choices they make but also random twists of fate. For the Greeks, these weren't random acts but were the will of the interfering Gods. We must throw in a character's flaw, however. You know, something like hubris. And so, like Oedipus, we must suffer our fates.
Choices. Some things can seem so inconsequential at the moment but come back to haunt you down the timeline.
I chose to post today's photo as a gif. Bad choice. It is driving me crazy blinking at the top of the page as I try to write. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess. It took me a long while to make it because I had forgotten how and had to look it up then struggle through all the steps. After that, I can't just trash it, can I?
It was terrible, so I just did. I trashed it. I had a choice to make. We'll see where it leads. You know, the whole Butterfly Effect theory.
I've thought much about the choices I have made in my life lately. I've been bitching and moaning and complaining here for a long while, I know, but by and large in life, given the choices I didn't make, I've been lucky. Maybe lucky in some things and not in others, of course, but my life could have gone a much worse way. I think I walked through life wearing a blindfold and was just fortunate not to fall into any of the many open pits that dotted the highway.
But in retrospect, I could have done things much differently. Hindsight and all that.
I've not been lucky with cards or dice or roulette wheels. I am still not sure about love. I'm trying to think about the women I've loved as a conglomerate right now. I've never really done that before. Most of them got married. Most stayed married and had children. One got divorced. One never married. One was married before me but never married again. All were well educated and successful. I sure can pick 'em.
I just can't keep 'em. And since I am the common denominator. . . .
It is funny that I think of them but cannot imagine them ever thinking of me, or if they do, their thinking is pretty much, "Oh, man. . . that was a close call." They've all done better, even the one who never got married.
Ho!
O.K. That was random. I was going to write about yesterday's disappointments, but that is just another bore.
I've not been able to focus lately, and I'm wondering if it isn't due to all the stupefiers I am taking at night. Surely. But I can't go cold turkey. The shock to my system would be too great. However I do it, there are sure to be sleepless nights.
The Wreck of the Vespa--should I take responsibility or was it just a random act? I was told not to buy a motorcycle. I chose to be on that road at just that time. Did everything in my life lead me to that one particular place and time? Did someone appeal to the gods to effect my fate? Was it simply punishment for having a certain character flaw?
It is more fun to think about such things in the abstract rather than to apply it to your own existence.
As reported in yesterday's post, I didn't get out of my mother's house until nearly noon. She wasn't feeling well and had gone back to bed. As a result, breakfast was served very late. But the sun was shining and there were markets in various parts of town, and I was out of photos to post with my daily ramblings, so I felt there might be a chance of getting out among the horde. When I got to my own home, though, I fell into what has become "the usual trap." It felt good to be among my things, and I dallied a bit. Just as I was thinking about going out, the phone rang. It was my mother.
"I don't see muy two o'clock pills."
Shit, piss, fuck, goddamn. Sonofabitch.
"O.K."
"I'm sorry. I understand."
"No. No you don't."
So I got back into the car and drove to mother's. Now you might be asking yourself, if I have put all the pills for the week in their respective places in the weekly pill box, why she can't just get them herself. Ha! You jest.
When I got back to my house, I had a couple of hours of "me" time left. I started fooling around with cameras and lenses. I thought to put the plastic Holga lens on the Fuji medium format camera just to see. I walked around the homestead grounds snapping photos. It seemed good. Now came the hard part. I put the camera in the car and headed south.
When I got to the place where I thought the "vintage" market would be, it was really a half-assed effort, but not to be rebuffed or deterred, I set about walking around and snapping away. It was a small market, and in a few minutes I had made several passes through. O.K. I might have something, I thought, so I limped and stumbled my way back to the car where I sat and looked at the pictures on the camera screen. Maybe one, maybe two useful images. When I backed the car out of the lot and into the street, I decided to take the long way home.
And that is how I found the "real" market. Even better, I found a huge parking lot nearby. This time, I grabbed the Leica and set out with my stumbly gait toward the gathering. It was late now, but there was still a crowd of hipster fashionistas. The sun had dropped to a good angle and there were patches of brilliant light with sharp shadows. I tried standing in a spot adjacent to it, but I became too obvious and had to move along. I walked around the market once, twice, and then left to scroll through the images I had taken. I went back. . . three, four times, then out onto the main drag. Just down the sidewalk was a hipster drip coffee joint I'd never seen. I walked over, looked in, and oh, my. . . what a wonderful place it was. It was dark inside, but I didn't want to fool with my camera settings so I just began snapping away from the waist. I walked to the far back of the place, past tables and booths and all gorgeous old vintage paraphernalia. The shop was full of people, of course, patrons of the market, so I wasn't comfortable using the camera. I walked back onto the sidewalk promising myself to come here on a weekday to make more photographs. I'd found a great alternative place to the Cafe Strange. It was the happy accident of this day.
Back to the market, fifth, sixth go 'rounds. By now, though, I was being "seen," the only guy with a camera. It's not like being on the streets of NYC, of course, where you walk and walk and aren't with the same people over and over again, so I decided to bolt. And funny thing--as I pulled out of the giant parking lot, it suddenly and without warning, began to rain. First a little, then, quickly, a lot. I'd had some luck there.
I drove to the grocers to get the things I needed to make dinner.
When I got back to my house, I dumped the images from the Leica in the computer. Oh. . . there were a few good images there. Not classic forever pictures, but something. I was excited to work on them, but the clock was ticking. I had to leave them for another day. It was time to fix my mother's dinner.
I've become adept at using the Leica in a crowd. My M10 R is a wonderful camera. The shutter is nearly silent, and it is able to rapid fire in bursts. The camera is best for this kind of use. It is small, light, and nearly perfect for snatching pictures on the run. For pictures looking through the viewfinder, though, that Canon is a pip. It just is. And for anything needing more resolution and finer, deeper colors, the Fuji GFX is great, a real portrait camera. This is what I have come to after so long. Three cameras. I know what each of them is for. I should just sell the rest and put the money toward a big printer.
"Should," though, has never been my guiding light. What is my mantra?
I'll have to work on that. I'll get back to you.
My neck still hurts and my hand's still numb and I haven't heard from the MRI place, so this could go on for awhile. . . if not forever. Living too long is definitely not its own reward.
When I got up this morning, my mother cried out from her bed in a pitiful, plaintive voice, "I'm cold!"
I sleep naked under a ceiling fan. It is not cold in the house. I looked at the thermostat. Nope. Same temperature as always. So I said.
"You have a heater in your bedroom. Turn it on. Heat the room up to ninety if you want. Everything is the same as it has always been."
That confused her.
"Is the thermostat broken?"
She doesn't hear a word I say. I live with her misery every moment, and now I can throw my own on top. It makes her happy, I think. Misery loves company. As long as everyone is suffering. . . .
I am a child in many ways. I want to show you everything I have right now, all the pictures at once. But then tomorrow, I'd be back to square one, so I am practicing restraint. Prudent resolve. Studied discipline.
O.K. Here's something that surprised me. Carol King?!?! Holy smokes. Petty does as good a job as Eric Burdon on this one.
Have I used this photo here before? I can't remember. I ran across it yesterday when I was looking for something else. It has the look of film, but I think it was taken with the Canon DSLR and a plastic Holga lens. I love that combo, but I don't use it much so that I don't become too repetitive. I do, however, enjoy the look. It must be an old photo because the woman has a sweater. Last winter, perhaps. Maybe I've shown it before, but I can't remember doing so. I try to shy away from showing too many butts, but I really don't know why. I get a little paranoid, I guess, but I like the anonymity of butts not heads. And I love the motion blur. There is a lot to like about this image, I think. It is soft and dreamlike. Or dangerously not. Let's call it somnambulistic. I like that. Maybe I can put together a series with that title.
Somnambulism.
See? With a title like that, it is transformed. Fixed. Legit.
I took a beautiful Saturday to clean up the study in my home. Staying home on the most beautiful Saturdays has become something of a psychological malady. Those are days when I know I should get out among the weekenders. I should be out making pictures. I can't make myself do it, though, for whatever reason. I know the reason, but I can't even confess it. I am hideous and afraid to come down from the belfry.
But I put the day to good use. I should put more days to use, too. My study is a mess of photo paraphernalia. It is small and gets cluttered up quickly. I decided to take it apart and organize it. Much of the mess was paper. Lots of it. Many different kinds. Some of that is inkjet papers--bamboo, rice, matte, glossy, thick art stock. I've tried printing on anything and everything. I cut newspaper and magazine pages. Yesterday I printed on some blank 4x5 film. I have many expensive sheets of art papers for doing dye transfers and hand coloring and slathering in paints and gels. There were many unopened packs of vellum and transparencies. So, of course, I had to do a little printing on my small Canon printer. Experiments. I have many experimental pieces. I need to move beyond the experimental stage, I realized, and turn some things into projects. To do that, though, I would have to go back through a billion uncategorized files and organize them. And therein lies the rub. I am terribly disorganized, always in a hurry.
"There is nothing that can't be done tomorrow."
I was more efficient at cleaning up yesterday than I usually am. I tried keeping distraction at bay. I spent three or four busy hours discovering things that had been buried under stacks and piles and put them someplace. I'm sure I won't remember where, but now they are somewhere out of the way.
My work ways spilled over into other rooms. I did laundry. I threw away a many of old images I had been holding onto. Big boxes went to trash. I stored some items in other rooms. Digging into the storage under a bookshelf in my bedroom, I found many brand new Gap t-shirts I bought years ago but hadn't worn because they were too long. I grabbed a beautiful pair of large shears made in India for cloth cutting that I bought decades ago at a Restoration Hardware in Berkeley when it was still a yuppie hardware store and cut the shirts to an appropriate length. They are now gym shirts.
When I finally felt done with organizing for the day, I went through drawers looking at what was there. Oh, man, I have hundreds of old Polaroids in boxes. I used to make Polaroids of everything. Going through those boxes was overwhelming me, so I stopped and put them away thinking about posterity. Yea. What will happen to all this beautiful intriguing stuff? There is so very much of it.
Irrationally, I started thinking about buying another big printer to make more. Why not? I want to make large portrait pictures printed on diaphanous papers. I decided to try making them on the small printer first, so I ordered some expensive paper that will just fit. Now I need some interesting faces and the chutzpah to approach them.
Planning is the easier part.
Experimenting is fun.
Making the final product is portentous.
The weather prediction for today is windy. There are markets going on about town, and I think about going among the crowds with camera, but I get anxious about it. I will try to force myself to go. If I were ready to do it, I would find those good faces and give them a business card.
"You have a great face. I'd love to photograph it. Here's my card. Call me if you get interested."
Of course, they'd want to see samples first. I need to make a website. Have I ever said that before? I need an assistant, a young, aspiring female photographer preferred. Why? I think I listen better to women than to men. With men, it is always a competition, and I find women much more creative. I need their Yin to my Yang.
Mother is not feeling well and has gone back to bed. She complains constantly about pain, though I can't believe she feels anything with the large amount of narcotics she takes with her own supplementaery supply of pain meds. She has bottles of stuff hidden everywhere. I believe last night she mixed up a cocktail of oxy, whiskey, Tylenol, Advil, and a prescription muscle relaxer. She was up before I was today, so there is no telling what else she took. She looked on the nod when I made coffee. There will be no getting out of this house early today. I'll need to wait until she gets up again so I can make her a meal. If I do get out among the throng, it won't be until the afternoon.
By then, I might just decide it is a better idea to cull some photographs for printing. I think today's photo might look good printed large on a Kozo thin white paper.
Let me look at the price of 24" printers once again. Fuck it--it's only money, right?
I took my mother to the pain doc yesterday. When he was through with her, I said, "Before we go, may I ask you a question? I know you don't think acupuncture does anything, but what do you think about dry needling?"
"Yes, that can give temporary relief. Why do you ask?"
I told him about the problem in my neck, back, etc.
Long story short, I am scheduled for an MRI. After I agreed to it, I wished I hadn't. He was explaining to me what was the probable cause, which I already knew.
"But what can you do?" I asked with much doubt.
"I can give an injection. I can do an epidural."
Yea. Relief, not a cure. I'd prefer to try dry needling first.
"When you see the images of my neck, you are going to wonder how I function. There is a whole lot of arthritis in there. 'Longhorns' one doctor called the calcium protrusions from my vertebrae."
I told him about my crash injuries, and he got a little bug-eyed when I told him I had flail chest.
"They plated two of my ribs."
My chances of surviving that wreck were minimal. He began explaining to me why that was a good choice. By all measures, I should have suffered a stroke.
"How old are you?" he asked. I told him. He blew some smoke up my ass and told me he'd have guessed me for some impossible age.
"Yea. . . I'm doing pretty well for an old cripple." I'm not. It is just a thing to say.
"Do you need anything for pain?"
"My family doctor gave me hydrocodone."
"Do you want any muscle relaxers."
"No."
"OK. Just don't drink alcohol when you are taking the hydrocodone."
I laughed. "I thought that alcohol just enhanced it."
He chuckled, too. "Yes, it does, but we want you to wake up in the morning."
"I think waking up is way overrated," I said. I'm pretty sure I just screwed the pooch on getting good drugs from him.
It was later than usual when I left my mother's house. She was still dismayed at my leaving. I had on my gym clothes.
"Are you going to the gym?"
"Yes. It is a question of whether it is better to look good or to feel good."
Surprisingly, that made her laugh.
I did a very light workout skipping anything that would impact my neck. When I was finished and ready to go, I was talking to Alain when my new gym friend's husband came over. He's a tall, fit man, an ex-college baseball player. Like his wife, not a dram of fat on him. He is handsome enough, but he has a face that doesn't light up when you talk to him.
"I wanted to introduce myself," he said, sharing his name and holding out his hand. "My wife comes home and talks about her new best friends at the gym, and I wonder how she got into the boy's club."
I shook his hand and said, "She's great. She's one of the guys. Funny. She doesn't have a cliche in her head. She's way outside the box, as they say."
His smile then was more a grimace. "Can you imagine living with that? My son and I get beaten up every day."
I'll bet. We now know where the money comes from. They own a medical company of some sort. Cha-ching.
At least he didn't punch me.
It was afternoon when I got home and showered. Then I had to sit down at the computer and try to figure out how to move the money in an account with one company to another. They don't make that easy, and I have been rebuffed a number of times now, but it has to be done and Izzie ain't the guy to do it, I think. Still, I needed some info, so I called him. As always, right to voicemail. I decided to send him an email, and within minutes, he had replied. I dove into the online transfer form nervously, but eventually, I had something done. I was hoping that it was what I had intended. I feared that my retirement savings might have just been sent to a Nigerian Prince. It will take five to seven days for me to know.
But what the hell--it's only money, right?
It was time to head back to mother's. I called her and asked her if Greek salads and roasted chicken from the Greek place would be alright. "Sure," she said. I saw I had missed a call from T, so I called him back while I drove. I told him he was missed at happy hour, that the judge had wished he was there. He was pleased, but I could hear something in his voice when he said he wished he could have been there. He liked going out here on the town. He is in a rural land now, many miles from anything. Moonshine around a campfire, maybe, but no happy hours on the Boulevard with the homies.
It was my first in many, many, many months.
Back at my mother's with dinner. My mother looked miserable.
"My legs are all swelled up."
"Have you been wearing your compression socks?"
"Yes."
I saw that she had them on.
"I'm going to make a drink before we eat." I took my Negroni to the garage/porch. She usually follows, but she didn't come out this time. I sat and enjoyed the beautiful end of the day. The weather has been gorgeous. When I had finished my drink, I went inside to dine. My mother wasn't there. She had gone to lie down in her bed.
Friday night!!!
I've been dreaming of the pictures I want to make. I know what I want to photograph, but I need a big printer and some dedicated space for chemicals to do what I want to do. It will be better than the old Polaroids, I think. Maybe I can make space in my mother's garage and work on pictures while she watches television. But it will only work if the images are really big.
I tried not taking the narcotic when I went to bed. That was a mistake. I ended up taking it in the middle of the painful night.
Now it's time to make my mother's breakfast. And then. . . .
Here's a song that I was not sure I'd post because it is too reminiscent of the old "smooth jazz" radio stations. Do you remember the whole Smooth Jazz scare? Yea. But I think this has just enough funk in it to save it. If not. . . selavy. I was digging it when it came on the college station.
I just noticed that it is on Blue Note records, so it must be O.K.
"When I was growing up. . . ." Yea, I don't want to be that kind of guy. But this is what a weather map looked like when I was. . . . Isobars. The closer they are together, the more forceful the weather. Wind. Rain. Sleet.
Maps like this seem to have gone the way of the television test pattern that used to come on after midnight when stations quit broadcasting for the day.
Stores were closed on Sunday.
I don't want to be that guy.
I went to my "intervention" yesterday. There were four of us seated in the deep chair, open air seating overlooking the Boulevard and the passing parade. It was quite something. We ate lobster flatbread and mushrooms fried in batter and doused in some spicy Szechuan sesame coating. Two drinks in, however, it was time for me to go. It felt like the party was just starting. I left a little before six, but I had to go back to my house to get the Whole Foods meals I'd bought for dinner with my mother. It was six-fifteen when my phone rang. It was my mother.
"Where are you?"
I was half a mile from her house.
"Why? Do you need something?"
"Are you coming back?"
"What's wrong?"
"You said you'd be here by six."
Holy smokes. I'd stolen fifteen minutes of "me time." I wanted to put a gun to my head. There is to be no sustained joy in my life. Servitude is my fate, or so my mother implies. To wit, I got up at five this morning. I have to take my mother to the pain doc at eight. My mother was up and banging around all night. She must have heard me get up because she was right behind me. What does she do? She sits in her chair at the dining room table and doom scrolls on her phone.
A photo book I ordered some weeks ago came yesterday just before I left the house. "Verso Reverso" by Patricio Reig (link). Wow! A treat. I could not be sure of the quality of the book, but it is quite wonderful, large at approximately 9"x12", with full sized images printed well on fine paper. I was a bit overwhelmed with envy, though. I've done this kind of work before but not nearly this well. From looking at his earlier photos, I found that Reig worked at this for years before the culmination of this book, and as I always say, you do best what you do most. I looked to see how much his images were selling for. $6-8,000. Reig has a nice studio and some people working there with him. He's doing alright.
It has given me some ideas. All I need is money, space, and time.
O.K. I need to hustle now to get mom out the door, into the car, and down the road. It is Friday, but there will be no sushi dinner for me tonight. I had my hour of fun yesterday. If you need anything, I'll be right here on my mother's couch trying not to think about what I could be doing instead.
I have a folder on my laptop with photos I might use on the blog, so every morning, I see what's left. After I use one, it goes into another folder, one I don't need to look through. I'm dumping this photo here today so I can get it to the "used" folder. The essential blankness of it just freaks me out. This carefully coiffed lawn is lakefront on one of my walks. Swank. But in sepia black and white, without context. . . I don't know.
Which was the whole point of the picture. I just can't look at it anymore.
You know why people are happier in Nordic countries? Because they don't have to play the games Americans have to play with EVERYTHING. We call that Capitalism. Start with health insurance. You get into a plan and then it changes, so you have to start looking for another. Take banking. Maybe you have fun chasing after the endlessly changing interest rates and the "deals" banks offer if you open up a new account with X amount of dollars for Y amount of months. Or mortgage rates. Or cable t.v. offers. Or specials at the grocers. Which days are best for BOGO?
I'm at my wits end with all this stuff. I don't want to think about any of it. It makes no sense to me. I want a bit more steady state.
Those Nords are living on Rock Candy Mountain.
When I came back to my mother's yesterday, the maid had left but the dryer was running. I was worried that something had gone wrong and I went in to see if new sheets were on the beds. They were. O.K. I made a drink and went out to sit with my mother.
In a bit, she got up to take laundry out of the washer. She started putting them into the dryer. It was empty. Then she said, "It doesn't feel like these clothes got washed." My mother had put the clothes in the washing machine and turned on the dryer.
"Shit," she said and began putting the clothes back into the washing machine. And then. . . .
"I don't know how to start the washing machine. Can you help me?"
Yup.
I didn't feel so well and asked her if it was alright if we had soup and sandwiches for dinner. As I say, this is more than a full time job. There are no days off. There is a schedule and things like meal prep must be done. There are no shifts. It's a one man show.
I watch my mother eat. It is not so much fun. She struggles now, closing her eyes when she chews, shuddering a bit as she swallows. It is slow with much pausing between bites. These are my mornings, my evenings. Every one of them. In between, I deal with the other mess that is the remains of my life.
And so tonight, the boys are doing "an intervention." Happy Hour. They start early for me because I MUST be home before six. I will have an hour of "intervention." The thing is, I don't know how to hang out anymore. My social skills have withered from disuse. Some days when I've done everything I need to do and there are still a couple hours of my afternoon remaining, I have no idea what to do. What does one do with two hours in the afternoon? I need new running shoes. I could go buy some. Or I could run the car through the car wash. I'd like to go get something to eat at one of my old haunts, but I'd need to be making dinner in a couple hours.
And then it is time to hurry back to mother's.
But yea. . . happy hour. It makes me nervous. It is going to jam up my day. What will I say to them? What will I make for dinner?
And so you see why I have to get rid of that photograph. I can't look at it any longer. It is the blankness that is killing me. The nothingness. The void. I've become obsessed with death and dying and the soundlessness of eternity.
I went to my beautician yesterday. She took a look at me and said she wasn't going to do anything. I was glad. My hair is just getting to be an acceptable length. She said we'd wait another month. Now the old saying is, "If you go to the barber, you get a haircut." That is meant to be a comment on going to see a doctor, but it holds for many other things, too. She had driven across town to come to the shop just to beautify me. She had no other appointments, and she was leaving a good chunk of change on the table.
We talked for the next two hours. We are each, it seems, living lives of quiet desperation. I always have to remind people that taking care of children is not the same as taking care of a parent. The two are going in opposite directions. You have hope for a child's future. There is only despair for the other.
My hairdresser is Jewish. That term has always made me laugh, of course, because of the "-ish." Yesterday, however, I understood. People who were born and live in Israel are Israelis. They don't call themselves "Jews," but refer to themselves as Israelis. My girl is Ashkenazi, hence Jew"ish."
At least that is how I understood it.
When I compared Arab Muslims to Orthodox Jews, however, she couldn't quite go there. The basic difference, she said, is that Islam teaches murder and the Torah does not, that Jews focus on life and Muslims focus on the afterlife. I said that neither one looked appealing, that the people always looked unhappy.
I was over my head here having a very bare bones knowledge of either. And once again, I learned not to have opinions about things you don't really know. As my conservative friend says when he gets caught out like that, "I don't have to know the science. I just have to know how I feel about it."
That pretty much sums it up as we head into the midterm elections.
The woman who owns the salon where my girl works is also Russian. Somehow the salon is a business deal between my beautician's step-father and her. Katya has become an aesthetician, I think. She is Russian, so I am not sure about all the licenses. They are, as far as I can tell by what my beautician tells me, a criminal lot. I told her that all the bullshit about life in America in the '50s and '60s was true, that there were no locks on bicycles, that you never locked your front door, and that you left the car keys in the ignition. She said that she was amazed when she came to America how naive people were, that they were easy pickings. She has learned more empathy over time, she says, but not at her own expense. Her rough Russian upbringing has marked her.
"Fucking immigrants," I said.
Katya has been doing facials for my beautician lately, and her face looks great. I told her that some of my buddy's go for facials at the plastic surgeon's office.
"That's why they pay so much. The machines are terrible expensive, but Katya got hers for much less in Europe."
Yea. I'm not sure if I want a Russian facial. It all seems shady to me. Still, if the price is right. . . .
Then my beautician told me that everyone is putting a prescription vaginal cream on their faces right now. "Even the plastic surgeons."
Estradiol Cream: A potent, prescription-strength vaginal estrogen (like Estrace) typically prescribed to treat menopausal symptoms such as vaginal dryness and thinning tissue. Some users repurpose small amounts of this prescription cream for their faces. Proponents claim topical estrogen helps boost collagen production, improve skin thickness, and increase elasticity.
I had to look it up. I have to think this is something started by Gwyneth Paltrow and sold through Goop.
"My face could smell like your vagina."
No worries. I'll try it.
On my way out, I asked the receptionist how much a facial would cost. She asked me which kind I wanted. "The first one," I said.
$186
Maybe I'll try the vaginal cream first.
The second part of this post, the part about going to get beautified and beyond, was just added on. The real ending was the blank void of the photograph and how it made me feel. And so, to bring it all home and tie it with a fancy bow. . . .
I went to see my "financial advisor" yesterday. That breaks me up. "Wealth management." Etc. I am a complete financial disaster. My broker friends want me to tell them when I am going to invest in anything. They say I'm an "indicator." I am someone who can make the markets crash just by putting money into it. I should have twice as much money as I do now. It is embarrassing. The thing is, though, I've never paid any attention. So yesterday sitting with Izzie, I used all the wrong terms, confusing "money market" with "mutual funds," etc. I just don't know the lingo. Or anything else. I got Izzie because he is new, I think, and needed clients. His office is the least desirable. He is young. But what I am doing doesn't require great insight. And now, for the first time in years, I am making interest on my money again.
That's all I'll tell you, so don't ask. I either have just enough or just too little money. That is the line I straddle. Thinking about buying new things is scary. Computers. A car. What about a big printer? When I was working, I guess I didn't care. I had an art studio for Christ's sake. Just because.
That's how I handled my money, "a small but adequate income."
But the economy is freaking me out. The price of gas is one thing, but I don't drive very far given my life's situation. But my property tax bill came a few days ago, and it has doubled. The electric and water bills at my home where I do not live have skyrocketed. And, of course, food. So now I have the Old Person's Syndrome. For instance, I made a very good beef stew on Sunday. There was a lot left over, so we ate it again on Monday night. Before the syndrome, I would have thrown the rest of it away, but nope. We had it once more last night.
Frugal me.
Organic eggs at my grocery store are $5.50. I've only eaten organic for a very long time. Now, however, I'm buying the $2.29 eggs. I'm going to start buying necessities at the Dollar Store. Of course, I wait for BOGO items now, and I may start looking at coupons. If I weren't stuck at my mother's, I'd probably be going to all those old people dinners where you are offered a golden opportunity to buy something. My mother and her friends used to go to all of them. At one point, however, one company said they couldn't come anymore. They'd had all the free meals they were going to get.
I'm not turning down the free coffee now. Maybe I'll start going to Costco and eating the samples.
Just let me pass on to you what I learned yesterday. The market on average has been earning about 3.8% so far this year. CDs are now paying 4.6%. There is no really good place to put your money if you are on a budget right now.
"So Izzie, when's the market going to come back?"
"Who knows?"
"Sure you do. As soon as he's out of office."
Izzie probably is a republican.
He did say that CD interest rates were probably going up again. Isn't that something? You can get 4.6% on your money from the same bank that will lend you money at 7%.
I was better off when I just had a paycheck every month. I can't believe how much fun I had on so very little money. But as I've reported, I used to stay in $8/night hotel rooms and ride Greyhound buses around the country. Even when I travelled, it was in countries where the dollar went very, very far. Even a poor American could live large in Mexico, Central, and South America.
But I can't sleep with bed bugs anymore. I need a good bed and a room with a view. No matter, though. Here I am, never to leave my mother's side. Think of the money she's saving me.
Still and all, though, I am fearful that the liberal press is setting "us" up for disappointment on Nov 2. There will be no reckoning, I fear. When it comes time to pull the lever and Mr and Ms America have to choose between a Nazi and a kid whose pronoun is "they" and who has suffered gluten trauma and has a peanut allergy. . . . People fear change.
I am amazed, though, at all the warnings by republicans that the U.S. could end up like France if the dems win.
"Uh, dude. . . like Jan. 6 never happened?"
What's not on the ballot, however, is climate, and I despair. That people worry more about A.I. than about climate change astounds me. I read this morning that a U.N. report shows the U.S. to be worst at meeting it's climate goals out of all developed countries. My republican friends will simply bash the U.N. as fake news. They hate the U.N.
But let's end on a happy note. One thing that tickles me is young people's love of analog, of anything pre-21st century.
I have a lot of cameras. I have a lot of Leica M cameras, and I love them. They are beautiful and elegant. But the best pictures I take are very often with that clunker Canon 5D DSLR with the 24-105mm lens. That "kit" is as big as anything you'll ever want to carry, and yet. . . almost all of my good street photos in NYC were made with it. How? Really. How? There is no way to hide the thing which is why in just about every photo, somebody is staring straight into the lens. No, not so many as that, but many.
I took this photo of the boxer/murderer with it. He is standing behind the apartment building where he lived with his mother in the same spot he and "the boys" once built their cardboard fort. I took several photos using the zoom lens at different focal lengths. It is a very wonderful tool which offers many options. This one shot at or near 24mm reminds me of those lonesome empty photos I made for my college photography classes using an old Mamiya film camera and a 24mm lens. It was then my favorite way of seeing.
I love those Leicas, but damn, that Canon 5D never lets me down.
While slower and more laborious to use, I am enamored with the Fuji GFX Sii medium format camera, too.
If you look closely, you can see little specks of the rain that had just begun to fall. The richness of the images this camera produces is not to be denied.
But enough camera talk. That is just for the shutterbugs in the crowd. A "professional" photographer, a real cocky, smarmy guy, once called me that. He was being snide, but I loved it. I'll never claim to be more than a real shutterbug. It is outstanding. My most favorite photographers were all just that. It was their personal work, not their professional stuff, that is collected by museums and galleries.
Just to let you know, I'm concerned about my health. The left side of my body from my cervical vertebrae to my fingertips is functioning poorly, and I am taking too many drugs to deal with the pain. It doesn't seem to want to get better. Not sure of my next move. I have no one to talk it over with. It is impossible to talk to my mother about any of it.
"We're a pair, aren't we?"
She truly has no concern for my plight. Her own consumes her. I'm just part of God's plan to take care of her. So she has said. I tried to tell her last night that I wasn't feeling so well, but she interrupted me to tell me about one of her CDs that comes due next month. I feel a bit like an astronaut taking a space walk who realizes he has become untethered from the ship. As they say, in space, no one can hear you scream. You can scream, of course, but it will not do you any good.
I went to the compounding pharmacy where my doc had sent a 'script. It was in a crummy building in a crummy part of town, but inside it looked like the George Lucas film THX 1138. I stood at a counter before a plate glass window that ran the entire length of the building looking into a huge white room with white counters where four people in white lab coats were, I assumed, "compounding." A man came to the window and asked me my name and birth date. Then he went to talk to another, older man who came back and said the drug required prior approval by the insurance company before they could make it. I asked how much it would be if I just paid for it . He smiled.
"Over a thousand dollars."
I'm supposed to call my doctor and blah blah blah blah blah.
In the afternoon, I went to meet with my financial guy, the new one, the kid. He wasn't there. He was out sick, I was told.
"Didn't he contact you?"
Then I began to think--maybe my appointment was for Thursday. The reception lady checked.
"Your appointment is tomorrow at 2:30."
I walked slowly and unsteadily across the parking lot back to my car. Something is going wrong with my legs. Or maybe it is in my brain.
I drove across town to pick up negatives from the hipster film lab. Then, unsure of what to do, I went to the cafe for a coffee. Since the old fashioned photo booth went down, the place has been boring. All the cool kids coming in "costumes" to make photo booth pictures are gone. All that is left are a few sad sacks on computers taking up the most desirable tables hour after hour.
I've been trying to write the next paragraph for too long now. I can find no good way of telling it. Back at my mother's, I was feeling desperate. That's as far as I can get. The rest is just too whiny and too grim. I'm being sucked downward in a vortex from which there is no escape. Life as I have known it is over. Done for. All there is now, I think, is the waiting.
I didn't want to go. I surely didn't, so when the tenant called and said that we wouldn't be going to the shady neighborhood in Gotham to shoot, I readily said, "O.K."
"He wants us to meet him with his two uncles," she said.
"Where?"
Same part of town as the day before. I said that there was no sense in my going. I'd just be taking the same pictures as I had the day before.
"They want you to come," she said. "They liked you."
I knew this was some Tom Sawyer bullshit, and I said I'd take a pass. The tenant told me where they'd be if I changed my mind.
Just then, I was having trouble with my computer. I couldn't open Photoshop, nor could I update or download it again. This was bad news. I kept asking Adobe for answers, but their help line is just a bad algorithm of boilerplate solutions. I checked to see that my OS was up to date, and there I was in for a surprise. My big 27" Mac is old now, I guess, and the OS updates on it are far behind what newer computers are getting. At some point, I won't be able to run some programs. The fuckers no how fuck you, that's for sure.
I restarted my computer. That takes a long time because I've stored too much on the internal hard drive. But, when it finally opened, the downloads from Adobe began. It would take awhile. Now that the stress of that was relieved, I was beginning to feel guilty. "A man and his word," I wrote yesterday.
I grabbed two cameras and headed "across the tracks." I spied them right away on the gentrified street full of Sunday people milling about, looking into shop windows, filling the sidewalk tables at one of the many bars and restaurants. I found a parking spot, grabbed my cameras, and joined the tenant and her subject.
"This is the other uncle, Tony," she said introducing me to a small man with a white beard.
I said hello, and we shook hands. I asked the nephew to sit on the bench next to his uncle, and I popped off a few photos. As I took the pictures, I was informed that Saturday night had not gone so well. The brothers did not get along so much, and there were arguments, so the nephew fled in the middle of the night. He ended up sleeping on the other uncle's couch. He'd cried all night, he said, at the memories of his childhood brought back by his visit.
I could smell the tears on him. They smelled like beer.
Looking around, he said, "These all used to be Black businesses. There were two pool halls, one there, and one there," he said pointing. "This was a dirt street." Then he shook his head and laughed. "There were a lot of fist fights out here."
We walked up to an apartment building he had lived in for a time with his mother. The two story cement block building had a new brick front facing the renovated shopping and eating street, but that was all. Nothing else had changed. There were three apartment facing three more across a breezeway up and down, twelve in all. I opened a big iron gate to get onto the ground floor patio. I looked back and said, "A hippie and a Negro--we're sure to get thrown out." I looked back to see the tenant's eyes popping. The informant just laughed.
I took a couple photos of him outside his old apartment, then we all walked out the back where he said he and his buddies had built a big fort out of cardboard. There were separate rooms.
"You had to crouch down to get in, then crawl from room to room," he laughed. Then he just stood there looking around.
I asked him if we could walk over to his old church. Mount Moriah is 140 years old. Pre-Covid, I would walk or drive by on Sundays and see women dressed to the nines in big, colorful hats and bright dresses, the men wearing double breasted suits. I wanted to photograph them, but as always, I waited too long. All of that is done now.
As we approached the church, I saw two women sitting in chairs on the stoop before the door. I walked over and said hello. I told them my buddy had grown up here and had gone to church here and that I wanted to take a photo of him in front of the church.
"Would you two be alright being in the picture?"
"Who is this," one of them asked, and the informant introduced himself.
"Take off your glasses," she said in that firm matriarchal tone. "Who was your mother?"
They went through the lineage, she remembering some of the family. After all the propers, I got him to sit in front of the door between the two women.
Not a great photo, but I had mere inches in which to move. When we were done, I told the women that I would get them a copy of the photo. I knew we weren't exchanging cell phone numbers. This was going to be old school, an analog print.
"You can bring it next Sunday," the lady said. "You can come on into the church if you want."
We walked back to where we'd left Uncle Tony. He was laughing because his brother had ridden by on his bike.
"He couldn't stand not to know what was going on," Tony giggled.
"Alright," I said, "I'll be going. It was nice to meet you, Tony," I said, and I shook hands with our fellow and told the tenant I'd talk to her later.
And that was it. The thing was done. I'd kept my word.
But I won't commit to doing something like this again. Here's a man standing. Here's a man sitting. Here's a man sitting with his uncle. Here's a man sitting with his other uncle.
Etc
I had to drive across town to a drugstore to pick up a 'script, then back to the grocery store to get the fixings for Sunday night beef stew. I had just enough time to get back to my house and download all the files into Lightroom. That took awhile, and then it was getting near time for me to go back to my mother's and begin the stew. I had just enough time to cook up the two photos you see here.
And then, it was off to the inevitable. Meal prep. Cocktail. The end of the Bills and Raiders game as I served the stew. I'd made far too much and my mother ate far too little. The stew was supposed to be beef, but I had overwhelmed the pot with vegetables. It was good. It was healthy. I ate a second bowl.
After the meal, there was still about a gallon of stew left.
"Guess what's for dinner tomorrow night?" I queried mom.
"That's O.K."
After I cleaned up, I poured a whiskey and sat down to another night of television. You might think you can imagine what it is like, but you can't. I am on a schedule seven days a week. I have no days off. I can't simply decide to have lunch at two-thirty or an early dinner at four if I'm hungry. If I start editing pictures or cataloging them to make a website or a book, I don't have long. In the old days, I could work all night.
"I wish you could get out of town for a few days," my midwest friend wrote.
For what seems the longest while, I've been sitting here trying to figure out what to say. Can't come up with nothin' other than the weather predictor on my phone said it would rain all day. Never did more than a sprinkle. No matter. I stayed in on my "time off" and cooked up the pictures I had taken the day before. I'll never do a shoot for somebody else again unless they are paying me. This is the only photo I took for myself. The rest can go on a book jacket or a Hallmark card. Having said that, I agreed to go to a hard place in Gotham where the boxer/murderer's father lives and take a few more. Today, I will shoot for me. . . I think. I have no real idea what I am walking into.
Tonight, I will make another beef stew. That is what I am really looking forward to.
Oh, thanks for asking. I think my neck et. al. is just a bit better today, but I can't be sure until I start moving about. If it doesn't get better, I'm in real trouble. I'm still on the Willie's and narcotics to sleep at night. That is going to present me with its own problem, too. Soon I'll just be reciting "Dreams of an Opium Eater." That is not De Quincy's title, it is my own. I've already confessed. All that is left to do is repent.
Like most bad things, though, it all began innocently enough. And then, a twist of fate and a bad decision, and then. . . we have the making of a good story. It is a matter of how we write the conclusion. What do you want, peeps, a redemptive ending or the devolution of a pathetic character?
"Rolling down the street smokin' indo, sippin' on gin and juice."
We live in times when drug users, murderers, and rapists top the charts. Maybe our story doesn't need a redemptive ending at all. Rather, it might be a tale of decadent success, just like old Snoop. Like Kobe. Like The Don.
If Bonnie and Clyde lived in these times, they'd have their own brand of something and would be advertising's darlings. They could have their own t.v. show. Things would have been a lot different if there was cable tv back then.
Once again, I don't want to go this afternoon, but I've said yes, so I must. A man and his word. But I'd rather just eat and drink the day away.
Now for the sounds of 1959. For real. The jazz of this period thrills me. This is a really gentle and sweet way to start a Sunday. I can imagine French toast, bacon, and mimosas. I have to. I have none of the ingredients for that here. Nor a love to share it with. I'll just have to look forward to a hot beef stew tonight.
I shot the boxer/reformed murderer yesterday. I was dreading it. My neck, et. al., was killing me. The pain had drained me. I sat in a chair waiting for the tenant to come pick me up. I fell asleep. I'd forgotten what a time bandit she is, and as usual, she was over an hour late. I loaded my cameras into my mother's car. She said she would ride with me.
It turned out that she only had an idea of where we were going.
"You haven't been here?"
"No."
We pulled up to the only apartment complex left in this gentrified part of town. It used to be "across the tracks," but with oak lined bricked streets, those lots became too precious for the little wooden shotgun shacks that filled them. The apartment building we pulled up to was a shambles. It was a simple two story block building without porches or cupolas or any sort of extravagance. The lot was dirt littered with bbq grills, broken chairs, and old bicycles. On either side and across the street were new buildings, shops, and restaurants.
Our fellow came out to greet us. He seemed either aloof or shy, but it didn't take much conversation for me to tell he was high as a kite. "Paragon of the community" is how the tenant had described him. Straight arrow. Didn't drink or do drugs.
He walked us around the side of the building where a group of people were sitting with apartment doors opening to dark interiors. Our fellow introduced us to his uncle, his uncle's friend, and a woman who did not want to be in pictures. The uncle's skin was spotted with some sort of skin condition. He was lame and walked unsteadily with a cane. His friend sat with his shirt unbuttoned in an old, low, lawn chair.
"Bobby's ninety-three," they said.
"Ninety-three?! You're almost as old as my mother."
Bobby had spent his working life as a school teacher and had retired at fifty-nine. His mother lived here, and when she died, she left him her house. He moved here from Miami and had, I assume, sold the house. He now lived in a condo down the street. He was living off Social Security and his state pension.
"I worked for 36 years," he said. "I've been collecting retirement for 33 now. I'm going to live as long as I can."
Beer cans sat on the ground. You could smell the remnants of marijuana.
"Bobby's turning ninety-four in November. We're having a party for him. You should come."
"When is it?"
"Saturday, November 4th."
"Sure, I'll come. What time?"
"Any time after three."
The Paragon was kind of wandering around and mumbling. I spied a chair sitting in the lot in front of an old oak tree. I said we could shoot there. The tenant took him over and I went to the car to get a camera. I brought three. I took photos, but they were no more than a man sitting in a chair in a lot beneath an old oak tree. I took the same picture over and over.
"This is actually the most difficult thing to shoot--a Black man in a white shirt."
I wasn't sure if the images were going to turn out well at all.
In a bit, we walked back to the group and I shot a couple pictures of our subject with his uncle. Our man kept talking about his mother. Her boyfriend had beaten her in the parking lot across the street from the neighborhood bar. That place isn't there any longer, but it was the same place that the characters in Zora Neal Hurston's "Sweat" went to go to "the stomps." Now it is an upscale chophouse and bar, one of many that now line the street. I'd lived in town long enough to know the history.
"That place used to sell Colt .45 Malt Liquor tall boys for ninety-nine cents. There was a man in there called "The Dollar Man" because he'd keep asking people, 'Give me a dollar, give me a dollar."
The uncle lit up. He knew the fellow. In truth, I only knew this story from a friend who had gone to the bar, a biker who wanted to buy some crack. I'd never been to the bar myself.
They began to reminisce. The building next door used to be a store.
"That was the place? It was owned by a Korean man."
The place was gone now, torn down to make way for a big new building that was built to house a women's clothing store. I took a chance.
"Ya'll are probably going to hate on me, but that place? My ex-wife owned it. Her husband is a builder."
The uncle lit up again and started shouting the husband's name.
"Shane! Shane!" he shouted with a stupid grin, waving his hand like a debutante. He was doing an imitation of Shane, the builder. He always smiled and waived when he was around, the uncle said. "He keeps trying to buy this building."
"I don't want nothing to do with no Shane," our subject said.
"When he was a kid, he'd take off running to that store all the time."
"Let's take a picture in front of the new store," I said.
"Where?"
"Just sit on the wall here in front of it."
I saw two women inside looking out at us.
"If they come out, I'll tell them to fuck off," I laughed.
Apparently, the interview the tenant had done with him the day before had upset him. He kept talking about his mother's beating. They moved out of town to get away from the boyfriend. It's a long story that I don't feel like telling, but the boyfriend was chasing them on an interstate highway when their car broke down. When they tried to run across the highway, his mother was hit by a car and then again and again by others, her body mangled. Maybe he was straight. Maybe last night, he just got high to kill the pain. Beats me. I'm just guessing.
He wanted to make some photographs at the lake where he learned to swim. It is a park with two docks and a boat ramp. Once it all belonged to the city, but Country Club College has bought the properties all around it and built some dorms. When I first moved to the village, I used to come here to swim for exercise. That was a long time ago.
I was driving, and so was our informant, but, he said, he didn't remember how to get to the docks. He would follow us. I said to the tenant that she should just ride with him. Uh-uh. She'd been a little freaked by the whole scene. So she said when she got into the car with me.
"It is just like the places I hung out when I was a kid," I said. "It's fine. Your man, though, he's higher than a kite."
"It seems like it."
"Was he like this when you interviewed him?"
"No."
Out on the docks, our subject wandered around mumbling.
"This is where my uncle taught me to swim. He just brought me out on the dock and threw me in. I dog paddled to shore. When I got out on the beach, I ran right back and jumped in again."
He said this several times.
It started to sprinkle rain. I had a bunch of nothing pictures, but they might please him fine. They were all dust cover style portraits. We got into the cars and I drove slowly so he could follow us back to the apartments. He called the tenant once we got onto his street. We were done and so I drove on as he turned into the lot.
"Do you want to get a drink?"
"Sure."
A beer and a Caprese salad. We sat at the bar next to the village elite just three blocks away from where we had just been. The contrast was, of course, startling.
"The old neighborhood is disappearing," the tenant said.
"Yea. It all depends on how you feel about having a ghetto in your town."
"I guess so."
She would never have walked through the old neighborhood on a bet. It was dangerous even for the people who lived there, but the police didn't bother them unless they crossed the tracks. It was a typical southern situation for the time. Insert Foghorn Leghorn's voice here.
It was time to go back to my mother's, so I ordered dinner to go. I was back to her house by 5:30. Friday night. Sitting among the villagers having a drink reminded me of my old life. At the bar, I'd sat next to a big blonde, youngish for the fellow she was with, salon skin and great legs showing below her white skirt that, with her legs crossed, just covered her panties. She was wearing a diamond as big as the Ritz, as they say, a very expensive watch and a diamond tennis bracelet. Once when I looked over, she was showing her man an expensive car on her phone. I turned to the tenant, and in a low voice said, "Buy me this one, daddy. Buy me this."
The barmaid brought her a meal. It was huge. I asked her what it was. It was something special she had them make, she said.
"We eat here all the time."
If I hadn't needed to get back to mother's, I would have ordered drinks and chatted her up for a good while just for the story I'd have about her and her fellow.
Before we left, I saw she had already eaten half of her giant meal. As I say, she was a big girl, still attractive, but she sure had an appetite.
Everything that day had taken place within a few blocks. It was a very real Tale of Two Cities. Developers must be offering many millions of dollars for that old, beat to shit apartment complex, and when the roof starts leaking or the plumbing or electricity needs upgrading. . . somebody's going to get rich. It won't be long. The reformation is rolling in exceptionally fast. Big money always wins.
Saturday. I'm still in pain but hope against hope just a little bit better. The day will tell. Rain is predicted for most of the day, but since Trump cut their funding, you can never trust their forecasting. As the song from a couple days ago said, don't let a little rain change your plans.
I have no plans. But it is No Kings Day, and there is a protest rally scheduled in front of Gotham City Hall. If it isn't raining. . . .
