Documenting Light

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Grayson kicked off his boots as soon as he got home and put his satchel next to the desk before going to turn on lights and start water for tea.

Living in such a small space meant it heated up quickly and stayed warm in the winter. His little furnace chugged, and Grayson’s water boiled. He fixed himself tea, then carried the mug, laptop, and his work bag over to the couch and settled himself down.

The Binghamton Historical Society had come through for him. They’d been able to pull up a name for the black man in the picture: James Miller.

Grayson took a sip of tea and read the email more closely. Unsurprisingly, James had worked for George F. Johnson, who’d singlehandedly employed most of the population of Binghamton at one time. Johnson City was named after him. Grayson had grown up in the Binghamton area and just took it for granted that everything had Johnson’s name on it. Parks were named after him, and the church had been built using his money, as had many of the libraries and schools. Binghamton and its surrounding townships had been solid factory towns in the nineteenth century. In a factory town, everything belonged to the factory boss, and Johnson was the biggest factory boss of them all.

James Miller had been listed as an accountant for George F. Johnson, or more particularly his company. He had been slightly above a bookkeeper, but not by much. The Binghamton Historical Society had no records on where James was born, where he’d died, if he’d married, or what kind of education he had—though he must have had some education, judging by his job.

That was it. Almost nothing. There was so little, Grayson rather suspected that James had at some point moved away from the Binghamton area. Which was the problem with doing local history—it pretty much only worked as long as the people you were researching stayed local. If James had moved, he would have totally disappeared from the records Grayson had access to. Without knowing where exactly James had gone, finding him would be almost impossible. Or he could have died young or become estranged from his family at some point, which could also explain the silence. Generally, white middle-class people wove in and out of the historical record; everyone else skimmed below recorded history.

That was why Grayson had always preferred doing research on ideas and social concepts. They were easy to follow, leaving marks on everything from advertisements to media to literature.

Power in general cut deep swaths through history, marking, scarring, and claiming everything it touched. It disfigured people, turning them into characters who had never really existed at all. It crushed places into dust and built castles of dreams, lies, and fantasies. It warped events until trying to see through the lies was like trying to see using only a broken mirror. And the worst part was, power, in its own ways, always told the truth. The history of power in both its glory and its corruption was an easy kind of history to do.

Looking beneath it into the quagmire of lives, possibilities, and stories was so much harder. So often, there was nothing left to find. In this case, maybe just a photograph of two mildly attractive but ultimately nameless people.

Though one now had a name.

Grayson set his computer aside. He wandered into the kitchen and started to take things out of the refrigerator for the curry he was going to make for dinner.

He wondered if he could locate James by going through army records. Was there some kind of connection to do with military service between him and the other man? The other man could be a relative. James wasn’t known to have had any brothers, but the man could be a cousin. Or they could have been business partners. The photograph didn’t even need to be local in origin. It could have been taken anywhere and then sent back to Binghamton.

There were just too many questions and variables.

He was going to have to explain that to Wyatt, he thought, as he chopped an onion and spinach. Sometimes when you did historical research, you hit a dead end and that was that—nothing more to find. Still, it was going to hurt to tell Wyatt. He’d been so excited to identify the people in this photograph.

Well, Grayson had found one of them. That at least would be something to give Wyatt.

He transferred onions, garlic, and spinach from the cutting board into the pan on the stove. The mixture hissed and steamed as he reached for a spatula.

How many people would have thrown that photograph away when they’d found it? Tucked it somewhere and forgotten about it, or even sold it on the Internet? There were thousands upon thousands of these kinds of pictures floating around, cheaply made, depicting people who had long since been forgotten. Grayson could go to any antique store and find a photograph of this age and quality for only a few dollars. This one wasn’t a family heirloom, and it certainly wasn’t worth any money. Yet it was important to Wyatt, and interesting enough for him to take it all the way to Grayson’s little historical society.

It made a knot form in Grayson’s stomach to think about the conversation they were going to have. He added spices to the pan and stirred it again. He had to be realistic with both of them about this project and this sort of research. At the same time, it felt like he was letting Wyatt down.

He needed to just get it over with—the sooner the better. After dinner, he’d email Wyatt.

The sun was low in the sky, burning orange and gold across the water of the river when Wyatt finally pulled into his own driveway. Once inside, he stripped off his work clothes and put on jeans and an oversized sweater before getting himself a glass of wine and settling on the couch.

There was an email from Grayson when he opened his computer.

Dear Mr. Kelly,

I have a small amount of information about the picture you gave me. I would suggest we meet at Starbucks to talk about it. Please let me know when you will be free to meet.

Sincerely,

Grayson Alexander

Wyatt got that fluttery feeling in his chest. Grayson wanted to meet. For coffee, not just to email back and forth.

It’s not a date, Wyatt told himself. He needed to keep that in mind. Also, did he want to date Grayson anyway? Was it because Grayson was trans? Because Wyatt was pretty sure Grayson was trans. The shape of the body didn’t tell everyone everything—Wyatt knew that all too well. But there was something about Grayson, the way Wyatt had felt when he’d seen him. He’d just known.

When it came to trans people, he usually knew, no matter how stealth, real or passing. Like he’d been reaching out for something for so long, he didn’t realize he still had his hand extended until someone reached back.

But connecting was not the same as romantic attraction. And having the feeling that someone was trans wasn’t the same as knowing.

Unease settled on him when he thought about the way some binary trans people were toward nonbinary trans people like him. Would Grayson see him ? Geeky, awkward, unsure, but also with a nice smile, pretty hands—and Wyatt liked to think he was funny and could make a mean lasagna.

Or would Grayson just see a man in a dress?

Anxiety twisted around his heart like a bramble, making him feel nauseated.

He needed to think about something else, like the photograph. What had Grayson found? Did he know who the men were?

Wyatt hoped he’d found them and that the story behind the picture was as interesting as he imagined it was.

He dug the photograph out, still in its sandwich bag, and looked at it. There was the way they sat, the placement of their hands, but Wyatt got caught all over again by the eyes. The darker one’s eyes were so intense, his gaze steady yet a little unsure. His companion held himself with more self-assurance, although there was a vulnerability, too. He looked like someone made helpless by things not said, and it made Wyatt’s heart hurt, his whole body longing for things he couldn’t have.

It felt good to see part of himself like this. Even this part, or maybe particularly this part, laid here in the gaze of a stranger who had surely been dead for decades. Time made it feel at once both distant and intimate.

It was possible, here in his living room, for Wyatt to look at this photograph and think about the things that usually were too big and too much to handle.

“Were you like me?” He asked the one with the closed-off gaze especially. “Did you know this? Would you have understood?” He took a sip of wine and then set the glass next to the photograph on the coffee table.

“Every time I go to tell my mom,” he told them both, “I always talk myself out of it. I tell myself it’s for the best, that she doesn’t need to know, no one does, but deep down, I think it’s because I’m scared of losing her. Which ... is so stupid. I’m going to lose her anyway.” It wasn’t something he admitted often, and almost never out loud, but keeping the words inside of you didn’t make them any less real.

He curled in on himself, arms around legs pulled up tight against his chest.