Cast in Stone (12 page)

"It's
a Saturday," he'd said, as if I'd insulted him.

"I'll
pay extra," I stammered.

"Goddamn
right you will," he agreed, motoring over, snatching the film
from my hand, humming toward the darkroom in the rear, leaving me to
stand alone in the small deserted shop.

My
bored gaze was stopped cold by a picture high over the counter. A
Vietnamese grandmother in full stride, ancient arms and legs made
limber, fear-infused with sudden strength, pumping desperate for
escape, a full yard from the building, connected only by the single
greedy tongue of fire that now consumed both the thatched roof of the
hut and the last remains of her long white hair. In that moment, as I
stood in the store, the old woman's deeply furrowed face took its
place among the gallery of deathbed, funeral-parlor images the I
unwillingly drag behind me like the rusted remains of wrecked cars. I
looked away.

Carl
Cradduck in Korea and Vietnam for the New York Times—in Beirut for
Newsday. Hundreds of other war shots of such graphic anguish as to at
once capture and repel the eye. Carl with Robert Kennedy, with Martin
Luther King, Jr., for the Atlanta Constitution. Carl with about
everybody I'd ever heard of. A ton of awards. A couple of plaques.
Carl nominated for two Pulitzers for photography.

As
his sister Annie was his only living relative, he'd stayed on after
he got out of the hospital. I'd asked him once, years ago, whey he
hadn't gone back to New York after the accident. His answer had been
short but less than sweet.

"The
city's too tough on gimps," he'd said. "I go back there, I
end up on a creeper sellin' pencils. Here, amongst the yodels, at
least I got a chance."

Carl
Cradduck had made the most of his chance. In the last fifteen years
he'd used his technical wizardry and twenty-four-hour,
seven-day-a-week service to pull himself from-the-small photo shop in
South Seattle to a preeminent position as the area's most
sophisticated electronic surveillance specialist. C&C Technical
was on the cutting edge of the assault on privacy. If you wanted to
surreptitiously watch anybody do anything and then record it for
posterity, Carl Cradduck was your man.

He
still lived in the tiny four-room apartment behind the store in
beautiful downtown Lake City. I'd asked him about that once too, a
few years back, right after the grand opening of the new offices.

"You
ought to find some new digs, Carl," I'd said. "Something
befitting your elevated station in life."

He'd
set me straight in a hurry."

"This
fucking chair is my digs, Peeper. I can roll around in it here. I can
roll around in it in some fancy-ass house down on the lake. Don't
make me no friggin' difference. Either way it's me and the chair.
This"—he patted the chair—"is my universe. Might as
well be right here." End of discussion.

I'd
shown up unannounced at his back door first thing on Saturday
morning. With Carl Cradduck, the hour was never a problem. As nearly
as I'd ever been able to tell, he didn't sleep. No matter what
ungodly hour I showed up, he was always up, seemingly waiting for me.
Perfect for a guy in my line of work.

I
heard the hum of his electric wheelchair before the door opened. Carl
wasn't surprised to see me. Carl was never surprised by anything. He
was a wizened little guy, all vein and tendon. Whole, he wouldn't
have topped five foot six or so; in the chair, he gave the impression
that perhaps he too might be part of the chair's electronics. His
left hand rested on the control panel for the chair. His right hand,
beneath the black-and-red checked blanket covering his lap, would be
holding the .765mm auto I'd given him after he'd been burglarized in
1989.

Without
a greeting, he U-turned the chair in the hall, leaving the door to
me. I followed him down the wide hall to the kitchen, where I tossed
the four packs of photographs onto the yellow Formica table.

"What
makes you think she was trying not be be photographed?" I asked,
squatting by the table's edge, trying to duck under the smoke.

"It's
obvious to anybody with a triple-digit IQ, Leo. You just gotta open
your fucking eyes."

I
looked again. Nothing jumped out at me. The table full of photos
looked to my unseeing eyes to be a typical collection of all-American
family photos. Some bad, some better, some a total waste of film.
Nothing special.

"There
was this philosopher, some Frenchman, I don't remember his name, who
said that after a certain age people become responsible for their own
faces."

"Camus,"
I said. "Albert Camus." Carl was rolling now.

"The
guy was right, you know, which by the way is pretty fucking amazing
for a Frenchman, since they're the biggest assholes in the universe,
bar none. Back about sixty-seven—"

He
stopped himself, not wanting to seem bitter, as if even that
admission was more than he cared to share. His photos were great
because they were hon

est.
Knowing Carl Cradduck had taught me that honesty was at best a
double-edged sword. Honesty neither makes excuses nor feels pity.
Carl liked to say that self-delusion, not baseball, was the national
pastime. The fact that Carl Cradduck tolerated me was in some
odd way far more affirming than the often-forced affection of my
extended family.

"Anyway,"
he continued, "if you know what to look for, you can sometimes
put the people back into the pictures. That's the secret, Leo It's
like them old-time Muslims were right. You remember? From those old
Ripley's Believe It or Not books. How the people there in North
Africa used to be shit-scared of having their pictures taken. They
thought it would rob them of their souls. What's interesting is that
in a way they were right. Photography does have this way of taking
the people out of the pictures. You know what I mean? What you got to
do, if you want to make sense out of pictures, is put the people back
into the pictures."

"What
do these pictures tell you?"

"Everything,"
he said.

My
face earned me another sneer, followed by a resigned sigh.

"For
starters"—he tapped the collage of photographs laid out
before him—"most of these images are your typical stagey
tourist shit, right?"

He
didn't wait for an answer.

"But
look at the number of misfires. It's unbelievable. I could maybe
understand this many blottos if the photographer was one of those rat
bastards who likes to sneak up on people in the bathroom, but these
things are staged. Theoretically, everybody's supposed to be
looking right at the camera, showing off their crowns, right?"

I
had to agree. Nicky, Marge, and Allison most certainly were posing.

"Look
at the spacing in most of these shots. Look at the fuckin' body
language. The body language alone ought to tell you everything you
need to know. These three look like they got a broom up their
collective ass."

At
second viewing, a certain amount of discomfort was indeed obvious. I
checked for bristles.

"Also,
look how you can tell that they're way the hell inside each other's
personal space. Look how close together they're standing. Only Japs
and politicians get that close to their fellow citizens. Look at
the facial expressions in this series."

He
pointed to a group of four shots of Nicky, Marge, and Allison in
front of the teahouse in the Japanese Garden at the Arboretum.

"The
older broad here"—he pointed to Marge— "who, I'd like
to mention, is sporting an absolutely bodacious set of warheads,
looks to me like she'd rather be having a high colonic."

He
held the first picture close to his thick lenses and smiled at me.

"Correct
me if I'm wrong, Leo, but old Warheads here, she don't like Little
Tasty Trim at all, does she? Lemme know if I'm gettin' warm here."

I
didn't give him the satisfaction of an answer.

"Fuckin'
A," he said.

"How
can you tell all that from just looking at a picture?"

"Notice
how the kid is always in between the two muff. Which, I'd like to
mention, would not be a half-assed bad place to be. Not a single shot
of the two snappers side by side, and notice how Hooters here"—he
tapped Marge's chest—"is always slightly inclined away from
Little Miss Tasty." He tapped Allison this time.

"Tight
unit," he murmured.

He
was right about the body language. If you looked

closely,
Marge seemed to keep her body slightly angled away from Allison, as
if being blown off center by a persistent wind.

"So,
that probably makes Warheads and the boy mother and son. Am I right?"

I
admitted that they were.

"Fuckin'
A."

"And
Little Tight 'n' Tasty here is the fiancee or maybe the
daughter-in-law, then. Right again, huh?"

My
face must have spoken for me. He picked up and then replaced several
photos,, bringing each up to within an inch or so of his glasses.

"Look
at the color tones. Good lens. Real warm skin tone. Little Tasty's
got quite the tan. Probably got great little tan lines.
Late-afternoon sun behind the camera just like it says in the manual.
Everything nice-a-nice. Gives a nice rosy glow to the skin. Almost
looks like there was a red filter on, which there wasn't. Buuuut—"

He
drew it out.

"Look
at the kid."

I
studied the picture for whatever Carl saw, but came up blank.

"Look
how sallow he looks compared to the wool. A definite yellow-green
cast to him. I'd say the kid's probably not well. Jaundice maybe, or
some kind of liver disease."

"Cancer,"
I said.

"How
old?"

"Twenty-two."

"A
bitch," he said with feeling. We studied the pictures in silence
for a long moment.

"It's
all there, Leo," he said finally. "I'll tell you somethin'
else about this particular series. Helen Keller was really struggling
to get a picture of her. He or she was working like a dog at it."

"How
can you tell?"

"See
those strained looks? Those are the expressions of people who
have been posing for quite a while—doing the amateur shuffle. You
know, a little to the left, a little to the right."

He
threw his short arms left and right as if doing the Charleston.

"You
do that for a while and everybody comes out looking like they're
takin' a shit."

He
tapped Allison's half-hidden face.

"The
tight unit had plenty of time to get ready. We got this one with her
hair over her face. Number two where she's got one side of her face
behind his arm, and a third where she's looking the other way, for
Christ's sake."

He
lined the three stills up on the table top. He picked up the
negatives from the bottom of the envelope, holding the thin brown
strips carefully by the edges.

"Watch,"
he said. "I got fifty says they were taken in this order."

He
tapped the three photos again. "One, two, three. Wanna bet?"
"No way."

I'd
played in card games with Carl. He had a nasty habit of going home
with everybody's folding money.

One
after another, he held the strips up to the light.

"That's
why there's three of four in every series. The photographer can tell
he's not quite getting her and keeps pushing the button."

I
must have looked dubious. He continued.

"Bingo,"
he said. "Here they are. Right in a row, one, two, three."

I
took the negative and held it to the light. Carl was right. The three
photos were indeed sequential.

"Where's
my fifty?"

"I
didn't bet."

"You
don't have to take the bet. That's life's little joke, Leo. You're
playin' whether you know it or not."

He
pointed down at the table. "Look at the one with her hair in the
way," he said. "Look at her hand." "What about
it?"

"It's
on the outside by her ear, like she's moving the hair in rather than
out of her face. If she were moving her hair out of her face, her
thumb would be on the outside and up. You try moving hair out of your
face that way. You'll poke out your fucking eye, is what you'll do.
And speaking of poking, I'd sure like to wet a finger in that one."