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.
I feel myself trapped in a song by Warren Zevon.
But I'm dreaming something more like this.
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