Carmi at writteninc.blogspot.com (link in sidebar) issues a photographic challenge each week, with a theme. This week it is “Glow,” and I happened to have this recent photo I shot downtown while wandering around with my son (click to enlarge the pic).
Regular Life
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. – Robert FrostAbout Mark
Cubicle geek by day, proud husband and father by choice. Living in Texas by some weird twists of fate.
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Random Again
The morning after I put it together, I had my wife walk down the hall to take a look at it before I left for work. She didn’t say much as her jaw hung open. Later, she texted me and said, “That desk is large and in charge. Holy frijoles!” That’s my lady. (click to enlarge)
Sometimes people just tell me things. Personal things. (Names have been changed.)
I was lost and cursing to myself in the pickup truck’s cab. In the dark on a nearly deserted road, unsure whether I could trust the GPS unit’s attempts to re-route me, I pulled into a Storage Works driveway and called my wife. She had been known to call me when she needed help finding her way, so this seemed like a natural step.
“I think it’s trying to get me back to 35W south, which is where I just left because of the standstill traffic,” I said. Approximately.
She pulled up the directions on Google Maps and passed them on to me. I found first gear and headed back out to continue my quest, hopeful that the computer desk would be worth it.
About 15 minutes later I arrived at a nice neighborhood and carefully backed the truck up the driveway, nestling it rather snugly beside the resident’s Ford Sport Trac. A car crash, even at low velocity, is rarely a good way to start a business transaction.
I walked up to the door and rang the bell. The door opened and a man with a friendly smile nearly filled the threshold. I guess he assumed I was the guy who had just called saying he was almost there.
I filled him in, anyway. “Hi, I’m Mark,” I said.
“Hey there. Nice to meet you. I’m Larry,” he said over his extended hand. His handshake was firm, but not overbearing.
His other hand was on the door jamb, not otherwise occupied with an axe. This was a Craigslist deal, after all, so details like that were important. I liked Larry, the guy who as far as I knew was not luring me in for the kill.
He escorted me immediately to a home office space off the right of the entryway. There was no door, and the opposite wall looked onto a living room with country blue walls. On a dark blue couch sat a portly woman. A lamp on the end table cast a soft glow on her and the book she was reading.
She looked up. “Hello,” she said, with a voice welcoming me to their home, not to my doom.
I waved. “Hi, I’m Mark.”
“I’m Donna. Nice to meet you.”
“Okay, so the desk is in five pieces,” Larry said. He pulled open a drawer, revealing several bolts rolling noisily around inside. “Here’s the hardware,” he said, and then shoved the drawer shut.
I leaned down and surveyed the rest of the pieces. “This looks great,” I said. “It’s in good shape.”
“Yeah, we didn’t really use it. Well, my son was here for a while, and we put it together for him. My mother-in-law bought it for $700.” he turned to Donna. “Isn’t that right?”
She looked up from her book. “What?”
I looked it over again while Larry’s attention was on her. The piece with the keyboard tray mounted on it was made of particle board and a laminate surface. I was sure nobody could have paid that much for it.
“The desk. She paid 700?” he said.
“No, it was $900, because it’s solid oak.”
I shifted my gaze from the particle board back to Larry. They were either lying or just didn’t know better. I didn’t want to argue, becuase for the price they were asking, I was getting a good deal regardless of the materials used. Plus, I still didn’t truly know these people, so insulting them seemed like a bad idea. I could make up some other reason for backing out of the deal if needed.
With that innate understanding that has permeated every furniture move I have assisted, without words Larry and I each lifted one end of the first piece and walked it out the door.
“Yeah, she knew she was dying when she bought the desk. She was so proud of it she called me to come over and look at it. You should have heard her kids complaining, like she was spending all their inheritance.”
I would have expected them to wonder who tricked their mom into believing this was solid oak.
“Wow. Really?” I said. Because, what would have been better?
“She was out in California when she died, and really wanted us to have this desk.”
Larry and I loaded up and secured the remaining pieces, idly chatting about the “Don’t Tread on Me” sticker on his truck. He was not in the military, as I for some reason assumed that sticker meant. He and his wife moved here from California about four years ago, not unlike thousands of others making their respective ways from there to Texas.
“No, I was never in the military. I’m just a conservative at heart,” he said.
“Well, you moved to the right place.”
Back in their home office, I noticed a set of horns from a longhorn steer. They hung above the opening onto the living room, bold reminders that you are in Texas now.
“I see you have your Texas longhorns up there,” I said. “You didn’t take too long to start fitting in.”
“Oh, yeah,” Larry said, and I could tell he was glad I asked. “You see, this was my western room. I had the whole thing — boots, spurs, cowboy hats. Those horns are about all that’s left.”
Donna shouted from her place on the couch, “It was all brown, and I’m more of a blue gal.”
A cat rubbed my leg. “Oh, hey, there,” I said.
“Sorry about that. You want a cat?” Larry said. “I’ll give your $150 back if you take that cat.”
We both laughed, then I declined and thanked them for the desk. I needed to get back on the road — this time without any convolutions.
When I got home, my wife and I unloaded the desk’s pieces and shoved them into a corner of our garage. She pointed out that it seemed like solid oak to her. On closer inspection, I saw that she was right. Only one section — the part holding up the keyboard tray, was made of anything less.
It turns out I probably can believe Larry and his wife. The rest of it? I don’t really need to know.
The distinct smell of the photo chemistry filled my head. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I had no idea that shots had been fired across town.
The pro photogs had just dropped off several rolls of film for me to process and then rushed off to their next assignments. I went about the usual process of feeling my way in the dark, cracking open refillable film canisters and winding the film, roll-by-roll, onto the stainless steel reels. I stacked them onto a reel rod and dropped them into the developing bath and clamped shut the lid. With everything safely locked away, I turned on the lights and the developing machine.
In the next eight minutes the chemicals dissolved just enough to leave behind the area’s Miss Kansas preliminary pageant, varsity basketball game, the Mayor’s latest speech — anything the photographers captured, I had just given it life. By that point they had become comfortable enough with my skills to leave all their rolls with me. No need to hold back a few in case the “kid” botched something and wiped the entire event from existence.
Oddly, some of my best darkroom learning experiences were watching the pros coax an image out of the under- or over-developed rolls of film I cranked out in my early days.
Sure, I got to actually take pictures, too. Most of my frames were exposed at local used car lots or residential streets, for that section in the back of the paper filled with tiny thumbnail photos of vehicles and houses for sale. Occasionally the pros sent me to a play rehearsal or a bodybuilding competition, and sometimes I took a company-owned Plymouth Horizon to “cruise for features.” The latter involved burning gas in hopes of catching a local doing something eye-catching, and considering the importance of events entrusted to me and my trusty Pentax K-1000, brought with it my best hope of getting on the front page.
I worked the film through its next step, the fixer, and then into the rinse tank.
We had no police scanner radio like we had in other rooms. With no chatter to occupy my mind, I hummed a tune, most likely something from the Steve Vai album I had been blaring from my car’s speakers, or from a more recent discovery, Patrick O’Hearn. It was a peaceful moment, just sitting there listening to the woosh of the developer bath’s timed agitation. I picked up a copy of Shutterbug to start picking out my next camera.
Scrapes of plastic against metal made me look at the revolving door. It was a black tube set vertically, one side cut out large enough to let a person walk in or out. It spun to three stopping points — the photojournalist’s room, the film developing room, and the printing room. This time the open side faced me, and out stepped Larry, one of the paper’s most seasoned reporters.
“Did you hear about the shooting?” he said.
“What shooting?” my heart sped up a few beats.
“Somebody’s been shot over in South Hutch. Where are the photogs?”
I closed my catalog. “Out on assignments.”
“You ready to go?” Larry said. His body language showed he wasn’t going to wait much longer.
“But I… I’m just an intern,” I said. And, frankly, I’ve never been around strangers with loaded weapons, and today seems like a bad time to start..
“No better time to learn.”
Just like that, I watched Larry turn and go back through the door. The film was rinsing, so it would be fine. I spun the door and climbed in, and came out the other side a photojournalist.
I grabbed my bag and my camera and followed Larry to the shiny hatchback fleet. He whipped the car out of the parking lot and onto Second Street. Bouncing as anyone in a mighty Horizon can expect to do, I fought to rewind the roll in my camera and pop in a fresh one.
Larry looked over at me. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the shooting has stopped.”
I was worried. “Um, thanks.”
He guided the tiny car through Hutchinson’s sleepy streets, then slowed as we approached a large corner lot on our right. A uniformed policeman stood on the front porch of the small ranch style home, and another stood next to the curb in the front yard. A very large man dressed business casual paced slowly back and forth across the lawn.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll go start questioning the police, and you take pictures. Try to get the victim if you can. Be careful.” Top-bound spiral steno notebook in hand, Larry leaped from the driver’s seat and slammed the door.
That was it? That was the extent of advice he gave to a 19-year-old with 30 days of experience taking forgotten pictures printed one step above the Classified ads? Sure, I had got the gig by flashing some good shots of my high school’s track stars running hurdles and high-jumping, but this was in a considerably different league.
I got out and immediately saw a policeman holding a rifle out in front of him, barrel up. Judging it as more dangerous than anything I had ever seen in person, I thought taking a picture of him would be worth my time. I aimed, focused, and snapped. While I cranked my film lever to get ready for the next shot, the cop walked quickly to a parked police cruiser and sat in the driver’s seat, out of my view.
Next I saw two EMT’s jogging around to the side of the house that faced the adjacent street. I made my way around on the sidewalk to get a look, and they walked up a few steps, then flanked a door and looked into the house as if expecting something.
This might be a good time to aim my camera again, I figured.
Within seconds of my aiming at the door, the large man on the lawn stopped pacing to make a b-line for me. I looked away from my viewfinder.
“Stop taking pictures,” the man demanded and continued toward me. He was overweight, but tall and stocky, not blubbery, as if maybe he had been an intimidating football player earlier in life.
He certainly was an intimidating lawn crosser.
The EMT’s in the doorway reached in and helped pull a gurney across the threshhold. On it lay a teenaged boy with blond hair, prostrate, his face grimacing in pain. There we have a perfectly presented victim, and here I am waiting for a stranger to pound me into the lush grass. Good thing a trauma team already was on site.
“Hey, Mark,” called a familiar voice.
I turned, but I had to peer around a large cottonwood tree. There was Monty, one of our pros, his camera aimed at the same spot. I smiled and then turned to face my problem.
“Put the camera down,” the approaching man said.
Maybe if I identified myself. “I’m just here from the Hutch–”
“Stop taking pictures, now!” he said, looming over me.
What was I going to do? I couldn’t just tell Larry and my editor that I had stopped taking pictures. But Monty was there, and I was sure he would get something.
I lowered my camera and let it hang by the strap, but I didn’t say anything. The man turned stoic, which almost made it worse. I took a few steps back and watched helplessly as the emergency workers wheeled the boy to the street and their waiting ambulance. They carefully collapsed the gurney’s legs and hoisted the patient into the back.
All the while, my camera rested against my belly and Monty fired away, the motor drive on his tank-tough Nikon whining and clicking. I guess the man wasn’t up to facing more than one of us at a time.
Back at the newspaper, we developed our film and then printed our best shots. I only had the one, of the cop holding a rifle, but it caught Monty’s eye.
“Hey, I didn’t see that. Is that the gun used in the shooting?” he said.
“I don’t know. It was before you got there. I just saw the cop carrying it, and this is the only picture I got.”
“Take this over to the station and ask them if it was the gun,” Monty said.
“Me?”
“Sure. Your picture, your cutline.” Wait. Cutline? That was news speak for caption, which meant he was considering submitting my picture for the story.
I hurried to the station, just a few blocks away, and barely stopped myself from running to the front desk. A few policemen stood behind the desk, talking to the dispatcher.
“Excuse me. I’m Mark Williams. Hutchinson News.” I set the print on the counter. “Could you tell me who this officer is?”
They did.
“Thanks. Could you also tell me if this is the gun used in today’s shooting?” In that town, that was enough detail for them to know exactly which shooting I meant.
“Hang on. Hey, Lieutenant!” one of them called to the back of the office. “Can you come here a minute?”
The man from my photo walked into the room. “Hi. Mark Williams. Hutch News.” I was abbreviating it now. Who did I think I was?
“Could you tell me if you’re holding the gun used in the shooting? In this picture?” I held it up.
“Yes, that’s it,” he said.
They filled me in on the details while I scribbled barely legible notes.
In the end, Monty’s photo of the victim being rolled out on the gurney was the lead photo on the front page. Right below his, however, was my picture, the only one I took after Larry rushed in and interrupted my quiet time. I considered it my graduation from the ads pages, an unplanned initiation of sorts. Sure, it turned out the kid had accidentally shot himself in the butt, but I didn’t know that while I was at the scene.
Monty asked me why I stopped taking pictures. “You know, you really shouldn’t just stop like that. He doesn’t have the right to stop you.”
“Well, that guy was big, and he was coming right for me. What do you do in a situation like that?”
“I guess I just figure my FM-2 wouldn’t feel real good upside his head.”
(Note: See Part 1)
The town boasts of being the first named after President George Washington. While I can understand their having pride in that, it’s the barbecue sauce that first made it stand out for me. We’re not here to discuss the possible uses of cider vinegar, so I saved that for TripAdvisor.com and Yelp.
After my second day’s work, I made my way back to the waterfront to continue my quest for good sunset colors on the water. I grabbed a few quick shots of buildings and then focused my attention on more natural scenes.
A public riverside park just south of town failed to provide me an inspiring view, so I continued south, determined to reach the shore in time. I turned right onto the first road that seemed to head that direction, and tall, narrow trees formed a dense forest in swampy land on both sides. I slowed as the road ended at a “T” intersection.
The only thing that stood between the river and me was… a large, multi-level colonial-style home. On either side of it, stretching as far as the road went, were more large homes of varying architectural styles equally adept at blocking my inner photographer from getting the view I needed.
(click any pic to enlarge)
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