Safelight Read online

  “You got a sick talent. You know that, Frank?”

  I slid the photograph into my pocket.

  “You oughtta take pictures of healthy people.”

  “I don’t like healthy people.”

  “Like I said,” he murmured. “A sick talent.” He cleared his throat, crooked his head to the side, spit. “Who was he?”

  “Some HIV kid.”

  “Full-blown?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just decided . . .”

  He put a finger to his head. I nodded.

  “Smart kid,” he said. Then, “You got anything else?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Well,” he said in a softer tone. “It’s enough. Has Classon seen these?”

  “I don’t know if he needs to,” I said, and he nodded. He’d been looking up and down the block the whole time, waiting for someone. “What’s today’s special?” I asked.

  Hock opened his palm, revealing five cylindrical glass vials with tapered ends, each filled with a yellowish liquid.

  “Meatloaf,” he said, and that was all he said. I could see it was liquid Valium.

  Across the street Burnett, my partner, came out of a run-down-looking four-story redbrick building. This was the old nurse’s residence, condemned now, but a corner of it supposedly had been cleaned up and was used by EMS. Burnett stood on the concrete stoop, hands on his hips. A big guy, with weightlifter’s arms, a goatee, and bushy brown eyebrows. He wasn’t the smartest person at the station, and so he made up for it by being abrasive, loud, a showoff. He yowled my name across the street, gesturing impatiently, then stepped out to meet me, glancing resentfully at the slight figure of Gil Hock.

  “Why you always gotta be talkin to him? What the fuck did he want?”

  6

  Four o’clock in the afternoon in Washington Square Park. I’d gotten Emily Pascal’s phone number from the hospital records, called her, and now, in the slanting afternoon light, Emily and a friend of hers, Myra, looked at my photographs, which I’d set out on the rounded edge of the dry fountain.

  “You can see where I fell. The cut jeans. Everything. There’s where the bullet came through. He’s just on the other side of the door.”

  “He should’ve been more careful,” Myra said. “He wants to hurt himself, big deal. But he should be careful about someone else.”

  Emily straightened the photographs on the edge of the fountain.

  “Can I see it?” I pointed at her leg.

  “It’s not pretty.”

  “Like he’s not used to it,” Myra said.

  Emily sat on the edge of the fountain and I raised her pants leg to reveal a loose five-by-ten dressing. I touched it.

  “Does that hurt?”

  “I feel it,” she said.

  The skin was reddish beneath the gauze, bulging at the black seams. Myra stepped to the side to watch. I did not have gloves on, and as I reached in to peel the bandage back further, Myra said, “I wouldn’t touch it.”

  “I’m not touching it.”

  “She—”

  “I’m not touching it.”

  I brought my camera out and took a medium shot of the wound. A close-up with the stitched flesh crossing the frame at an angle. A shot from the side, showing the extent of the bruises. A long shot with Emily looking directly, blankly, into the camera, her left leg out straight and the curved edge of the fountain in the background with dried leaves blown up against the wall. Myra smiled as the camera turned on her, and stopped smiling as soon as it left. Bandaging Emily’s leg with fresh gauze, I said, “You could make some money off this.”

  “A lawsuit?” Myra guessed.

  “Yes.”

  She looked knowingly at Emily. They must have spoken of it earlier.

  “He didn’t have any money,” Emily said.

  “The city does,” I said. “The city’s the landlord on that building. The door’s supposed to be sealed. And the cops arrived with their sirens. That’s against protocol for a suicidal patient. They could be held liable.”

  “And you must know a lawyer or something,” Myra said.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  Again, Myra looked at Emily.

  “If you use the lawyer I get a commission. If you want to use your own lawyer you can still have the pictures. If you win you can give me something.”

  “How much could she make?” Myra asked.

  “Two hundred thousand,” I said.

  “Oh come on,” Emily said.

  I shrugged.

  “You were shot. Two hundred thousand dollars isn’t a lot for being shot.” I finished bandaging her leg and rolled the pants leg down. “I’m not saying you have to do it. I’m just saying check it out. Talk to someone.”

  I could see Myra agreed. Emily studied the top photograph.

  “It’d take a long time,” Emily said.

  “If you settled out of court it’d be quick. Two, three months. You’d make less.”

  “How much less?” Myra asked.

  “A hundred thousand.”

  I was making the numbers up. Myra smiled at Emily, who dropped her head.

  “I’m gonna take a walk,” Emily said. “I’m gonna walk to the fountain and think about it. You can wait.”

  Emily straightened her jeans and started toward the drinking fountain. I knew that fountain barely worked, but I let her go. She needed time to think. The other girl, Myra, was left standing alone with me.

  “If it was me who got shot, I’d look into it,” Myra said. “I mean, why not? Free money. But she doesn’t care. She’ll just decide based on some whim, based on how she feels walking to the drinking fountain. I bet she says no.”

  A resentful tone in Myra’s voice. Far away, Emily tried the fountain, then, tilting her head, opened her mouth on the place where the water burbled weakly from the rusty nozzle. Myra and Emily both had large navy-blue canvas bags. Myra saw me looking at them.

  “Fencing,” she said. “We fence.”

  I thought she meant something else, but then she unzipped her bag and took out a silver foil. Held it out.

  “Fencing,” she said again. “We’re competitors.”

  She bounced forward on her toes, jabbing with the foil, then bounced back. An agile, athletic motion. Fencing. She lowered the foil slowly. Five-four, a lithe way of moving, short, straight blond hair—I thought she was pretty. She saw me looking at her and lowered her eyes. I figured I had nothing to lose.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” I asked. The end of her foil wavered over the pavement. “I’m not saying I . . . know you or anything. You seem nice. The sort of person I like. I thought I could call you.”

  She scrunched her face and looked away. She seemed surprised, though maybe not in a bad way.

  She said, “Come to the club.”

  I didn’t understand.

  “We’re going to the club. To work out. You can watch.”

  “All right.”

  “You want to?”

  “Uhm, yeah. That’d be great. To the club.”

  Emily was walking back slowly. Myra frowned at her.

  “You shouldn’t touch your mouth to the fountain. I wouldn’t want to drink after that.”

  “Yeah yeah. You’re right.”

  “I mean, that’s pretty rude.”

  Emily lowered her eyes.

  “Did you decide?” I asked her.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Aw.”

  “It’s not against you or anything. It’s probably a good idea. Myra thinks so. I just . . . I’m not wasting time in court, with lawyers.”

  “You could make a lot of money,” Myra said.

  “I’m not doing it,” Emily said in a firm tone that surprised me. Afterward, there was a moment of silence, all of us looking down.

  “He’s coming to the club,” Myra said. “I invited him.”

  The two friends exchanged looks.

  7

  Hock and Burnett were in the loading bay acro
ss the street from the station. All the supplies for the sixteen-floor hospital were brought in at these bays, and all the trash taken out from there, too. It was an ugly area of parked trucks, diesel fumes, oily black concrete, enormous Dumpsters, six-foot exhaust fans, and a dull green hose that leaked steaming gray water twenty-four hours a day. Hock liked to talk back there—with the idling of the trucks and the roar from the exhaust fans, he could not be overheard. I knew Burnett would ask about Emily. He was counting on the money. As I walked up, Hock said, “You don’t look happy.” Then to Burnett. “He look happy to you?”

  “Nah, he don’t,” Burnett said. Then, “So what happened, Frank?”

  I put my hands in my pockets.

  “She wasn’t interested. Thinks it’s a waste of time.”

  “She could’ve made a lot of fuckin money.”

  “She doesn’t care.”

  “How can she not care?”

  “She’s got HIV.”

  “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means she thinks she doesn’t have a lot of time to mess around in. And she figures it’s the city. You know how slow the city is. By the time that money comes through she’ll be dead.”

  “She’s got a point there,” Hock said, gesturing with a cigarette.

  “What else she gonna do?” Burnett asked.

  “She fences.”

  “What?”

  “She fences. With swords.”

  “It’s a kind of sport,” Hock said to Burnett. “Like you see on TV.”

  He was baiting Burnett.

  “And that’s why she didn’t wanna file?”

  “That’s why.”

  “Aw fuck.”

  Hock looked straight ahead. Burnett’s histrionics bored him.

  “I got a kid on the way,” Burnett said.

  Hock tapped Burnett with the back of his hand. “Would you quit it about your kid?”

  “I’m just sayin.”

  “I know you’re just sayin. You’ve been just sayin it about fifty times.” Then, to me, “He’s been sayin it all day.”

  Hock was five inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than Burnett, but Burnett deferred to him. Hock was a station leader, a guy people looked up to, went to for advice. Burnett was seen as a sort of clown.

  “You tried to convince her?” Burnett asked. “You showed her the pictures?”

  “She liked those.”

  “Glad to hear it. Glad she got something out of it. You tell her those pictures were worth money? A lotta fuckin money?”

  “She didn’t care.”

  “What I heard is she’s some college-looking girl. Doesn’t need money. Like Frank.”

  “Yeah. Like me.”

  “Ah fuck,” Burnett said again. “You at least get her number?”

  “I got it. But she doesn’t want to be bothered.”

  “Bothered by what?”

  “Someone calling, I guess.”

  “I don’t see how that’s a bother. How is that a fuckin bother?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Explain it to me, Frank.”

  “I don’t know,” I said again. “All I know is that she didn’t want anyone calling. She seemed pretty adamant about it.”

  Burnett looked confused.

  “It means she won’t do it,” Hock said to Burnett, and Burnett said, “I don’t need you to fuckin translate. I know what it means. I’m disappointed. I could use the money.”

  “Yeah yeah. We know. For the kid.”

  “That’s right. For the fuckin kid.”

  I crossed my arms. Leaned on my heels.

  “I called her friend, though.”

  “What?”

  “She came with a friend. I asked her friend out.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Frank’s supposed to be selling her on the idea of filing a suit, and what’s he doing? He’s askin her fuckin friend out. Her friend have HIV, too?”

  “I hope not.”

  Burnett turned to Hock.

  “Whatta you think, Gil?”

  “I think he should wear a condom,” Hock said.

  I just stood there, letting Burnett cool down bit by bit.

  8

  I snapped the film from its casing and set the spool in the developing tank and screwed the top so it was sealed. I did that all by feel, in the dark. I poured the developer in and swirled the canister, and then worked my way along the bench and turned on the safelight. There was a kind of comfort in its weightless, red glow. I looked at my watch. I had an hour.

  The darkroom was a converted storage space in my apartment with a wooden bench at one end and a narrow cot at the other. The enlarger rested on the bench, and, alongside that, several bins for the developing fluid, the stop, the fixer, the wash. There was a higher shelf where I kept extra chemicals, and a thin cord at eye level with wooden safety pins in a plastic bin nearby for clipping photographs. There was a drying rack in the far corner and a large corkboard with many photographs pinned to it, some notes written with a black marker directly on the prints. Beneath the bench there was a little shelf holding photography books and paperback novels. Alongside that, a box of quarter-molding from which I made frames. I’d stored bottled water beneath the bed and some nuts and raisins in a cylindrical jar up on the high shelf. I even had a urinal from the hospital in case I wanted to go and couldn’t open the door. Everything I needed to survive in there for hours, even days.

  I checked my watch, sat back, and waited. I should have used that time to get dressed but I didn’t. When the timer sounded I poured out the developer, poured in the stop, and after that the fixer. I unscrewed the top from the developing tank, held the negatives to the light, dried them with a blow-dryer, then made a contact sheet, which had a one-inch image from every negative. The first shot showed a man in his mid-forties wearing jeans with frayed cuffs and a collared shirt. He was sitting on the floor, leaning forward, a sandwich on a napkin to his left, and on the right, above, a potted plant and an ashtray on a windowsill. I didn’t like the composition of this picture at all. I thought I’d stood too close. That it was slightly underexposed. That the subject was self-conscious, stiff, unrevealing. I found the print I’d developed a few days before, the one of the dead kid against the painted door. I lay it alongside the contact sheet, comparing the two. Looking at that second print, I was jolted to attention. It was like seeing the kid for the first time. Tiny hole in his forehead. Large, grotesque splash behind him. Blank eyes. I saw all of this with a clarity and precision that I did not have when I was in the room. It struck me with more force than the actual event but without some of the horror. That first shot of the man with the sandwich was worthless. I felt nothing looking at it other than impatience and disappointment that I was the one who’d taken the photograph and embarrassment that someone else might see it. That was all.

  When the contact sheet was only half dry I cut out the first photograph, the one of the sitting man, folded it, and slid it into my pocket. I figured at some point, like it or not, Norman would want to see it. I hurried into the main room. Framed and unframed photographs covered the walls. There were prints stacked on all the exposed surfaces, and photography books at the head of a futon on the floor. Negatives were pinned to a corkboard on the north wall. An old enlarger rested beneath a winter jacket. I ought to have hurried, but I didn’t. I just stood there. Then I turned and went back inside the darkroom and shut the door and sat against the wall with the muffled city sounds filtering in and the safelight glowing. I glanced at the contact sheet again, looked away quickly, and then I was crying. It came on me all at once, catching me unexpectedly. I felt ashamed but I couldn’t help it. I was crying. After fifteen minutes or so, my breathing slowed. I wiped my eyes and looked at my watch and said something like, Oh fuck. I was very late. I thought of not going at all. But then I thought, What’s the use of not going? What worse thing can happen?

  I left without even looking in the mirror.

  9
r />   Through the doorway of Sidewalk, a restaurant in the East Village, I saw Myra, at the bar, reading a psychology textbook. She’d gone past the point of looking up when the door opened, and I could tell she was angry. Of course she was angry. I was more than an hour late. Any normal person would have been angry about that. I made an excuse about the subway, about the rain, but she wasn’t interested in my excuses. She’d decided I was a fuckup. There was an empty glass in front of her. I tried to order her another drink and she hesitated, almost said no, then said o.k., she’d have one more. I ordered a drink, too.

  “I have a picture of you.”

  In the photograph, taken at the club, she was leaning against the wall, exhausted after her workout, looking over her shoulder at the camera. I rarely took pictures of healthy people, and definitely not of people I knew, so I was interested to see how she’d react. She took the print, only glanced at it, and said, “I’m not smiling.”

  “No.”

  She made a little sniffing noise, then put the photograph in her purse.

  “It would look better if I was smiling,” she said.

  I asked about the fencing, and her graduate school in psychology, her home in Pennsylvania. She answered tersely, not making it easy for me. I had to talk the whole time. A half-hour passed, and, having nothing left to talk about, I said, “I have another picture,” and tossed it on the bar. The print was still wet when I’d put it in my pocket and the edges had stuck together. I had to rip it a little to get them apart.

  “My father,” I said.

  Myra looked closely. The lighting in the photograph made him look very young.

  “How old is he?” she said.

  “He would be forty-nine.”

  Her face changed, and I told her how he died, and how he did it.

  She didn’t say anything to that. I took the photograph from her, folded it carefully, and put it in my pocket. I could see she felt uncomfortable. It was a stupid thing to bring up. A minute later she stood. I called for the tab. The bar-tender brought it over, looked between us, then gave it to me. It was for twenty-five dollars. We’d had two drinks.