The Photographer

Nailing his forehead against the wall, Rocco stumbled forward. Ham-fisting the door, his body weight pushed the cumbersome black door open. The hefty haze of his breath sunk from his head even as his skin emitted its own lighter fog as he stumbled out at the back of the white building with no windows or lights. The clear moonlight shone just enough to make him regret being sober enough to recognize his own hot air escaping his body. Before he felt the cold sting of the asphalt, he heard her voice as if she stood right there. She would be the last one to catch him; he thanked any higher being listening as the small pebbles cut into his skin. Heavy sleep covered him. Sully locked the door behind him and nearly tripped over the body on the ground. Another drunk thinking he's too cool for a cab and slipping out the back to drive home. Using a practiced trick, he lifted the man's wallet and called a cab to bring him home. He used the guy's own money to pay the driver and felt a little bit better about the generous tip when the guy started to mumble and half open his eyes. The bartender's best friends, a cab and a drunk, Sully sighed. Though, this one, he knew. A Saturday night regular, the man drank until he stumbled, though where the guy got his refreshments every other day remained a mystery. He played a few rounds with the leather clad men at the back table and folded, lumbering up to the bar to nurse top shelf bottles before the others handed all their money over to winner of the night. He led a lonely life as a professional drinker that never got paid. In the back of the cab, Rocco felt his stomach churn but willed the bile and alcohol back down his throat, forcing a burn in his throat as the car flung him against the door going around a turn. "Slow down." He mumbled. "Save your breathe." She yelled, her voice cracking. She had been crying. He hated hurting her. He straightened himself up and took note of the small space. No one there. The combinations were messing with him again. It must have been the radio, he reasoned. Her voice never echoed in his head. He couldn't even imagine her voice or what she might sound like if she still existed in his world. He could have driven himself home, had he woken up on his own rather than in the arms of the bartender being pushed into the back of the yellow car. He would have one of the brothers go out with him to recover his truck and make up a story about meeting a woman. She could have light brown hair, with silver streaks framing her face and gorgeous green eyes that had deep laugh lines because her voice and laughter danced through the air, someone close enough to resemble his wife, dead before the gray could grow. Still, he felt that twinge of guilt thinking of anyone else. The brakes squealed as the driver unlocked the doors and stopped the car. He almost believed he met a beautiful woman. But he wouldn't have taken her back here; they'd have to go to her place. Rocco had barely closed the door when the driver sped off. He fumbled his keys, cursing his lack of coordination, as he sloppily banged against his door and fell through the threshold. She could have been the one to open the doors and welcome him into a pristine house with its doors that don't stick. This house, with its creaky floorboards and cigarette stained walls, had become his constant sanctuary, even with its ghosts threatening the shadows. The yellowed lights woke up the windows and curtains, bringing life back as he shut himself in. His sanctuary that no one entered unless they were part of it. His parties were always outside, another reason he welcomed the blooming spring as time to emerge from winter's cave. Finally locked inside, the late fall, early winter air receded and he felt his body regulate and the heat relax his muscles. Tomorrow, he'd stay home to drink so the cool air wouldn't sober him before he fell asleep. There would be some sports game on tv that would make the Sunday worthwhile or he could have everyone over for the afternoon and set the tv up in the window so they could listen to the game and huddle around the girll and bonfie. The dishes were still stacked from the afternoon cookout. Good friends, good food and even better spirits. Once the temperature creeped below fifty, it became harder to enjoy the fire pit and his beloved grill, offering his backyard for weekly, sometimes daily get togethers after work, but he stuck with it, unless ice threatened to ruin everyone's day. He drank less at those because he wanted to drink in every moment of laughter with his friends and their families. But after they went home, he did his best to shut out the voices that were absent, the ones that he couldn't hear anymore except in hushed shadows or haunting the cigarette smoke. They reeked of missed moments or painful memories. This house that he hadn't parted with in thirty years kept him attached to all that he lost. He hadn't planned on staying so long but once family started growing, there hadn't been any place else to go. He became a man with roots even if he had to plant them himself and spite his own childhood. Thirty years grows deeps roots, from the roughnecks in the crew that he road and hammered with to the deceptively delicate females that lived in and around the alcohol fueled haze. Before noon, after he had sobered and showered the gin from his skin, he'd call one of them, offer to let one of them drive his bike for the afternoon if she gave him a ride to pick up his truck. Lola would be the most obvious one to say yes; her kids were with their dad this weekend. Maggie would be next but she would decline the bike for the afternoon, she'd rather get him and try to convince him to move in with her and her growing brood of birthed and adopted kids. Happiness followed them everywhere and he loved being with the kids for meals and for hours but he felt just as glad when he went home and left their energy with them. His body had aged too much, became too tired to invest in yet another life partner. That hadn't worked out so well in the past. He kept a few for good times, for lonely times. The panic that he felt in the next few moments didn't make him reconsider a lifetime of mistakes. But the absence of peace, in his bed, a full bottle of gin in his stomach and he couldn't sleep and darkness, though all around him, refused to take him. He thought about the day Ellie died and the unceremonious way Bethany scratched at his face, yelling at him, blaming him. But it hadn't been his fault. He made the right choice that time. He didn't drive; he had been too drunk. Ellie died in front of an errant driver who jumped the sidewalk, so the official story goes. Unofficially, Abram had ordered her death, to keep Rocco in line. He started drinking at breakfast and didn't stop until the police came to sober him up. Had it really been seventeen years already? He pulled the phone close to his ear, dialing from memory the number he had gotten from Kelly to call his daughter. He called her but he never got her on the line. He'd leave messages asking for her to call him. It had been long enough. The soft bed, warm with the cotton comforter and crisp, clean sheets became hard and cold, the pain starting in his back, bones cracking with each movement until he gave up and refused to move, despite his body aching to flee. Panic set it. Memories bit at the back of his mind. He tried to drown this feeling every night. As his skin began to numb, he closed his eyes, the thump of his heart threatening to break free of his chest as each breathe jumped from his lungs. He thought of the laughter, of his girls running through the halls outside his door. He tried to remember the smell of the charring steaks outside his window and the mingling smell of burning rubber and exhaust from his bike, from the bikes that drove up his street and echoed off the trees. He realized it death came for him as he fought against the blankets and reached through the water he knew shouldn't be there. He tread water in his own bedroom as his lungs filled with the salty, sweet sea until he could swallow no more and the darkness finally came. Taking the old man from the bar would have caused too many questions but The Photographer needed to know, to understand, the effects of the drug. Clearly, too much had overwhelmed the alcohol drenched system. Still, he had a few hours before rigor set in and he needed the body to be posable. The stench from the man's emptied bowels spread through the house. Another lesson learned. Diapers would keep the mess contained, he thought. Quickly, he unpacked his light kits and set them up in the sparce guest room across the hall. The high backed chair he had refurbished and adorned with red pelt and deep cherry mahogany stain came in last. The arm rests were pure doe bone, carved from haunches. The pelt had come from her hide as well. Nothing to waste. He struggled with the dead weight of the body, trying to keep the feces from spreading across the floor. Once he had the man's body sitting upright, he placed a Halloween crown on his head, the gold sparkling under the hot lights. Another lesson learned, kill after posing. The costume he had procured from a vintage clothing dealer in California a few years ago- heavy red material lined with a black satin. It looked perfect for a king and the dealer had mentioned it had been a prop in some movie. He pulled it over his subject, covering the soiled clothes he already wore. Any other models would probably be in a whole costume. He'd have to procure and plan out his costumes based on his subjects. This one, though, had been picked to test his theory, his patience, and his talent. Stepping back, he admired his work. It would do for a location shoot but next time, he would have his subject in his studio. Locations had too many variables- uncontrollable light and space being at the top of his list. The deceased man sat in the stately chair, his body covered in the aristocratic covering. He added a dark wood cane that matched the chair. The royal scepter. Behind the chair, a stone backdrop covered the man's walls. But the stench invaded the air, heavy and dripping on the heat of this lights. He held his breath and held up his camera. Click. Flash. He admired his first shot. Adjusting the lights, he found his rhythm. He worked with the camera on the tripod by remote and the one with the macro lens attached worked best as a handheld. Click. Flash. He got in close to catch the spittle that had formed on his subject's lips, thick and caked, drying under the unfamiliar lights. Click. Flash. He watched as the man drank his mistakes away, year after year, drowning his body. He chased demons away as the ghosts chased him. Echoes of his mistakes lingered in this house. Click. Flash. While the subject manufactured his own liquor, he drank the cheap stuff. Rocco as an artist abused his subject. Click. Flash. As the photographer, his job brought out the best in his subjects but he felt limited with this one. There didn't seem to be a best in life for this poor man; in death, though, he became a king. Click. Flash. A wasted king, like his life. The king scene would have been better suited for a more stately man. Still, he had learned from his subject. Click. Flash. He finished, unfulfilled. Begrudgingly, he cleaned up the material evacuated from his subject and moved the body back to its final resting place.