Behind Every Picture

When Walter Scott ventures to the valley searching for beauty through his camera lens, he faces an unexpected draught of inspiration, which leads him to a bit of madness.

Behind Every Picture

Behind every picture existed worlds, places he once visited with shimmering figures staring like luscious irises in full bloom back at him. Pasts of enriched veins protruding stalactites of heartache, pain, betrayal. All the girls in the world seen as idols by men, but seen differently by this lens. Every image a glossed over flower staring back at him, but the truth remained hidden deep within the veins, the skin, and the Aphrodite hair. Every still taken from angles capturing essence of people living fragments of time that meant something to Walter Scott.

He just didn’t know what exactly.

Walter wasn’t much for dedication but what he did committed to existence by exposure of light and capturing beautiful people kept him from starving. He’d sit at his desk at the corner of 35^th and Dunlap gazing out to the street corner watching green discount cabs zip in and out of flocking trucks. He loved how the desert wind shook the trees against the southern window, how they clapped in applause as he watched the Phoenician stunt drivers in training.

You might have seen his photos on postcards or even canvassed on billboards, advertising products that enhances ugliness or lifts up the landscape to a higher calling. North Face.

His work didn’t stop there. Walter often traveled with newly weds or engaged couples, shooting wedding albums around the mountains and sometimes on the foggy sunrises glistening on the coast.

All the stock photos made money.

All the wedding shots helped couples see their beauty sparking into relationship.

Maybe that was their purpose.

But what’s in it for him?

Walter wondered all of this as he stepped through his new door, a rusted bolted down, four-inch plank of wood when he heard a small woman’s voice.

In shocked politeness he stepped a foot back from her and put a hand out to meet hers.

“I’m Mrs. Dunberry. Are you my new neighbor?” she asked with slight hesitation, probably fearing his height.

“It’s good to meet you, Mrs. Dunberry, I’m Walter Scott.”

“May I come in? My air conditioner broke down and I’m waiting for the repairman to come.”

“Of course. Let me bring you a chair from the van.”

Mrs. Dunberry creaked and cracked across vinyl flooring while Walter dashed outside for a few director’s chairs.

When he returned, he saw Mrs. Dunberry admiring a few of the photographs he’d taken of the late Miss Jess Grange, now married to his old art school buddy, Gregory Sweetwater. A contradictory surname by all accounts, but Walter ignored the egotistical jackal until he started beating Jessie senseless when she mouthed off.

Walt tried talking Greg down when Jess showed up at his apartment damp from running in the rain and frazzled by the jets. Greg didn’t like Walt’s yammering so he came at him with a broken beer bottle to which Walt replied with a meat hook to Greg’s right temple.

Another good reason for leaving Seattle. 

“Is that your wife?” asked Mrs. Dunberry.

“Oh no, she’s my friend’s wife. They live back in Washington.”

“She’s strikingly beautiful. Such a shame she’s not with you.”

“Yes, well, I like to keep things professional,” he said. Although not entirely true. Walter helped most of his clients with their individual crises. A bad habit he formed from his first major, counseling. The photos helped him keep a safe distance for a while, except when the subject needs some wise words for life as well as posing.

“Are you okay?”

Walter came back down to Phoenix. The heat sweltered around his body.

“Glad to find a friend who’ll ignore half the stupid stuff I say, which is why I couldn’t get any of those girls in the first place.”

She smiled an ancient understanding grin at him.

“Please, don’t think of me as a perverted man. Beauty for me, was pocketed inside the essence of women. I’ve moved onto landscapes now.”

“I like you. When you get your things moved in, we should have lunch sometime.”

“That would be great, I need friends around here. All mine are back in Seattle.”

“Just knock whenever. I don’t get around much, but sometimes my daughter visits.”

“Who’s your daughter?” Walter asked, almost shocked at his interest.

“Miranda Miller. She’s married though, and you’re not to bother her,” she said.

“That’s all right. I’ll be very busy with a new project. I’m shooting for Majestic Magazine. The one with all the nature articles about hiking and sorts on the west coast.”

“I’d love to have an issue. See you’re newer works.”

“Of course.”

His phone rang. Movers called, apologizing about their lateness and how they’d compensate him.

“Movers are going to be here soon. Want me to fetch your repairman?”

“Yes, if you would.”

“Stay cool until I get back.”

+++++

In two month’s time, summer’s harsh temperatures rolled out of the valley, letting the bowl’s heat disseminate like devils fearing better days for the Phoenicians.

As Walter reached for the comforting metal of the door, he heard shouting in Mrs. Dunberry’s apartment. At first, he thought it could be above him, but after a closer listen he made out the sound of a younger voice, Miranda Miller’s.

You can’t just stay in this bungalow forever, Mom. You have to let me take care of you.

I’ve been living here ever since you went away to college and your father tore my heart out. I’m not leaving this place. Never. It’s all I have left of our family. Don’t you see that?

Mom, it’s a dump of bad memories. Why can’t you just come with me?

Walter wanted to listen closer, but the guilt started to set in. He shouldn’t be listening to a private family conversation. He knew that he’d be furious with anyone spying on his talks with his Dad. If he was still alive.

Besides, he didn’t need any more woman troubles in his life.

Yet, he couldn’t help but listen.

He cracked the door leaving the latch between it. The wind kept blowing the door back open. That’s when Miranda Miller stormed outside with veracious hair matching the wind’s intensity. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

She paced back and forth behind Walter, but he didn’t notice, too focused on keeping the door cracked.

“Sorry, you didn’t have to hear that.”

“Oh, geez, I, uh…” Walter struggled with his keys still in the door and the latch resisting his grasp. “No, it’s fine. I’m just fixing my door. That’s all.” He smiled hoping she’d believe him.

“My Mom is being stubborn again. She just won’t…I want the best for her you know?” Tears began to trickle out of her eyes again, while the wind brush her satin hair over her face.

Her sorrowful beauty enraptured his masculine thirsts, yet Walter didn’t want any part of her. She’d be another bitter Sweetwater in the back closet.

She started down the stairs toward her car, but Walter felt sorry for her. He didn’t want to pry, but the woman in distress impulse took over.

“Wait, you want to talk about it? I know your Mom won’t want you to leave. Just come into my place and cool off.”

He searched for something more to ease the situation out of the awkward stall.

“I’ll make you tea, it’s not anything serious. I’m just giving you a place to wait out the storm. Besides, it looks like it may rain anyway.”

“But it’s September.”

“That’s not what I meant. Come on.”

She smiled.

Miranda Miller went into his apartment and sat down on the sofa, while Walter rummaged through the kitchen for his tin of herbal tea.

“So what’s going on?” asked Walter setting down the tea pot.

“I can’t always take care of her you know. My husband and I run a coffee shop in Central Valley. We can’t be driving up here every weekend, because that’s when things get hectic and we can’t go on the week day, because we’d have no time for ourselves.”

“She seems like a pretty capable woman. I hope you don’t mind that I overheard the bit about why she wants to stay. What happened?”

“You can ask her. I don’t want to get into it. I don’t know why she loves that apartment so much. It’s a dump!”

“Hey now, I live here too.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend,” eyes searching around the room, “I like your interest in art, it really makes this place come alive.”

He chuckled trying to choke back his own ego. “You really think this stuff is art?”

“It’s fantastic taste! Women and nature, the two most beautiful things in this world, besides new borns…why wouldn’t I think this is art?”

“Some are old from Seattle and others new from here.”

“Really? I thought you might be a womanizer.”

“Very funny. I used to shoot for Cosmo and Max…” that last part might have made Miranda uncomfortable, as if Walter would be hoping for her brighten the room up. Tasting her with his eyes, then later his lenses. “Max models. That was the name. Such a long time ago.”

“Funny, I thought you were going to say�"“

“Nope, I’d never work for them. No way.”

They laughed while pouring the tea and joked about each girl. There’s a little fat showing there, a little creepy smile here. Every joke seemed to inflict a tinge of pain on Walter. Shocked at the pain, why would he need to be hurt if some girl was fat or ugly? Maybe he felt somehow connected to the people in the photos, as if he gave his heart away through the light in the lens. Maybe they too, gave him theirs.

Seeing this slow tinge of pain, Miranda backed off.

“I like the landscapes better, those are really captivating shots. You should take more of them.”

“I’ve been out on the road, just haven’t been able to print them into that size yet. Much to work on these days. Photography pays, but if I don’t work on another market to sell the photos I might be evicted.”

“That’s too bad,” Miranda said shooing a strand of hair from her eyes, “They are lovely photos.”

“Thanks.”

They sipped more of the tea and after two cups Miranda’s storm rested within the windows on the walls.

“I think you should just listen to your mom and maybe she needs to listen to you. You’ll figure it out I’m sure of it. That’s what people do when they are family, they figure it out.”

“What if they’re not family?”

“She isn’t your mother?”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about her. It’s just…my husband.”

Again his masculine thirsts gripped his appetite, but he realized how disgusting they’d make him. Don’t let your appetites define you.

“What’s up with him?”

Miranda gathered herself then took a deep breath over the tea cup.

“We were business partners from DeVry. At first we were friends, but then we shared a common interest in coffee and then soon shared a common interest in each other.”

Walter set his cup down and stared back at the shot of a disc golfer in Mesa winding up for a drive. It really wasn’t the driver he stared at but the photo of Jess Grange, buried in his closet. Any photograph could become her, if he tried hard enough.

“Time passed, things got confusing when we both set up Camelback Coffee and when we started living together. My mother liked him well enough so I asked him to marry me.”

“That’s a little backwards, don’t you think?”

“Well, he was going to ask me. I just knew it. I guess, looking back, I wanted it more than him. Now I’m starting to wonder if he just said, “yes” to keep his business alive.”

As Walter’s eyes caught the slit of her blouse, he heard an entombed echo from somewhere in the room.

You’re not to bother her. She’s married.

Sour tastes filled his mind of a time when he did seek beauty in women. He’d had enough of that. Besides this woman was the only friend he really had beside his co-workers. It would be a travesty if he messed this up.

“Maybe you should just tell him that. I mean it’s marriage right? Lying can only help so far, but when you’re hurting, that’s not something to hide from him.”

Miranda’s eyes steeled against his ring finger and the absence of metal embracing it.

“You don’t know a thing about love do you?”

He thought about that. What had he learned about love? Except how many times he’d given his heart away. How many times he’d bought into someone for the night and then woke up feeling hollow like an empty film reel? He only knew how hollow love could be, or maybe love lined the many rims of every relationship, like poison brushed onto reality.

Left for you to drink.

Yet he knew that couldn’t be true. Not completely.

“I’m really novice at it. I can only advise you from the many hurts I’ve seen before yours.”

Her eyes blank to Walter, but thoughts bubbling, nodded at him.

“I’m sorry, that was an unfair question to ask you. Thanks for saying what you said anyway.”

They sat, meandering across the walls, looking at all the beauty surrounding the sofa. So far from their reach, as if it never existed in their world at all, but took residence in a hollow reality created by their vivid imaginations and musings.

“Are you going to talk to your mom?”

“I suppose. I’ve kept her waiting too long anyway.”

“Thanks, for visiting me.”

“Thank you, for listening.”

“Anytime,” said Walter closing the door, locking him inside that poisonous musing of a beauty out of reach. He thought about taking down the photos, but not just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

+++++

A few days later, Walter heard a knock on the door.

Mrs. Dunberry gave him a swift hug for her age it amazed Walter and that day he needed it. Late last night, Walter took Jess Grange out to one of the dried up riverbeds. He tied the photo to the back of his mountain bike and sped off down the trails to a spot not far from the path. Grabbing a few rocks from a nearby garden he piled them to half the Jess’s height in her bug eyed sunglasses smiling in the Cancun breeze.

Drowning her in a bath of liter fluid, he tossed a few matches to the corners. In the heated night they lit up quick in a fire so healing, Walter needed to shoot it. With the beauty set to flames, he thought of names to call the album while he hurried around the pit, snapping photos here and there.

“What have you been up to?”

“Oh, work as usual. Come in, come in. Can we have that lunch today?”

“Yes, that would be lovely.”

Walter pulled out a tuna fish salad from Safeway and four slices of bread. He served both with a sun tea he left out before his big shoot.

“Have you got any of your latest work around?”

“Grab my camera from the desk and let’s have a look shall we?”

Mrs. Dunberry hobbled over to his desk and took the camera with frail grasps. She took a seat on his sofa, but before plopping herself down, something on the walls distracted her. They stared at her with a naked reality.

“What’s happened to your photographs, Walter? They’re all�"“

“Gone? Yeah, I’m putting up a new album soon. Just got tired of the same old pictures you know.”

“I see,” she said with hesitation quivering in her lines. “I should like to see it soon.”

Walter set down the plastic lunch tray of food.

“Can I see that?”

She handed him the camera. Walter flicked through the menus to his recent works. He turned the preview screen over to Mrs. Dunberry, her eyes widening with amazing horror at each picture.

“Is that Jess?”

“You like them? I couldn’t stand that photo, Mrs. Dunberry. She had to go.”

“Why the heavens did you do that? She was your best work!”

“No, I could do better and I did,” he said.

“I still don’t understand why though…” questioned Mrs. Dunberry.

“I guess somethings just have to go. They’re not really there for you.”

“You loved her didn’t you? You loved all of them.”

Walter put the camera down and took a bite of his sandwich.

“I’m sorry, Walter. So very sorry. You deserved her.”

He took another bite.

“You can’t keep doing this…”

He put the mustard-dripping sandwich down.

“I always thought I’d run off with some girl, you know, like in the movies where the good guy flies off to some distant island with his girl and they make love and his passions live on. Away from everyone and everything able to take it away.”

Mrs. Dunberry sipped minty tea in the emptiness of something Walter missed.

“You don’t have to burn the others too. Those are good pictures, better pictures. I’ll buy them if you don’t burn them.”

“You’re not going to buy them,” he scratched the stubble under his jaw, “I don’t know what I’ll do with them,” said Walter.

Both of them waited inside the silent reality far off on another shore, another picture.

“They just seem so distant to me. Like they never existed, you know. Just hollow. Meaningless photos.”

Mrs. Dunberry smiled. “They don’t talk back do they? The pictures?”

“No…they’re just pictures. Nothing more.”

Every photo held everything he wanted and yet so far out of reach. They spoke more than any of his other albums. Now he wished for something that spoke kindness to him, a still that would capture mere friendship.

“Sit still Mrs. Dunberry. I want to take your photo.”

“Me? What do I do?”

“Just smile.”

And she did.  

 

Author's Note

what do you think of the premise?
was the writing executed well?
if you could slow down a portion of the story and linger there, where would that be?
does it make a promise to the reader? Does it keep the promise?

Reviews

[AlexValkyrie]

That was excellently written. I personally dream of becoming a published author some day and reading your piece was inspiring. As for the questions in your note I'm not sure how to answer them but you did great. I hope I'll have the oppurtunity to read more of your works.

[Thomas James]

thanks for the read. Keep writing! I find that I have to read a lot before I can write anything worth keeping. Book fuel my vocab and dictate the way I find voices of characters. I think I was reading Breakfast of Champions while I was writing Walter Scott.