True Love, The Life of a Photograph

Buchanan County, Virginia

Autumn...1981.

          In my former life happiness was an old shoe box. I don't recall what brand of shoe. I led a sheltered life, tucked safely forgotten among all the accumulated clutter one can usually find in an old shoe box. Betty Sue, the broken and half way discarded clothes pin was my closest friend. Betty Sue's most fervent wish was that one day she would become whole again. A misplaced package of multi-colored rubber bands surrounded us, spilled unknowingly by the hand who had known they were there. To my left I could see an old, Lincoln penny from 1921. Mr. Lincoln was, in 1922, still brilliantly copper colored. Now he sits there in his private corner, aged a light, chocolate brown and streaked with a pretty green and turquoise color from being exposed to the elements at some point in his life. Although, he had lost most of his luster, I believed he was happy there in the box. As for myself, I dreamed a lot of being let out. Mostly though, I was seldom taken out of the box. My memories of the outside are few, and sometimes, I felt a close kinship to Mr. Lincoln. Like the patina he had acquired, I sat there broken hearted, collecting dust and feeling my colors slowly fade. I can not cry as humans can, but, I am alive.

          There is not much for a girl to do here in the box. Mostly, it is dark and lonely here. Betty Sue and I do the best we can to cheer each other up. Our lives are mostly spent waiting for The Light of Days. Days, to us, are those moments when the box has been jostled leaving the lid partially askew. Then the precious Light of Days comes spilling through the crack. In those moments our hearts come alive. We sing and dance as we reminisce of other days. Too soon, we hear a familiar, hated, grating sound as the lid of the box is nestled back into place. Are we resigned to our existence as our hearts crumple and we slowly sink back to our former places in the box? Betty Sue may be, but as this today dies, I am aware of a coming to birth in my heart. Whether or not Betty Sue will come with me, I have decided. I will escape!

          I was born in Virginia and have spent most of my life here, and if a girl can love a piece of this earth, then I love Virginia. Loving Virginia and living in the box are not two pieces of the same cake, though. All that has kept me in the box these past few months have been my memories of Her.

          Seldom does a day go by that I do not speak of Her to Betty Sue. Betty Sue can not answer my questions, though. Betty Sue knows nothing more about Her than I do. Sometimes, in the dark, Betty Sue will tell me what she thinks. I can hear Betty Sue's whisper reaching for me across the darkness, "Ain't it a shame," Betty Sue says, "You are so much like Her you could be twins." Vaguely, I recognize Betty Sue's whisper, and I have heard it so many times I can comfortably predict her next words. "You know what," she will say, "I think you must be a photograph."

         "For goodness' sakes," I will say, "Betty Sue, you and I both know I am not a photograph, why don't you just hush up about it and get some sleep? I have got a feeling tomorrow is going to be another day." Then I will hear the echo I hear every time Betty Sue and I have this conversation, the echo I myself utter. "Dear God," I pray, "Tell me, please, that I am not just a photograph. I realize, from the pitter of Betty Sue, that Her and I have the same appearance, my voice is a copy of Her's and Betty Sue seems so certain, but tell me this, please God, if I am a photograph, why do I feel like crying, and why, with all my heart, do I want to be let out of the box?"

         I remember the first time I saw Her. It was due to be a Thursday and the box was frightfully dark. I could feel little goose bumps crawling across the pale, white skin of my arms as I listened for The Light of Days. On the other side of the box I could hear Mr. Lincoln encouraging Betty Sue. That's the way Mr. Lincoln was, he didn't like it a bit if someone was depressed. "Elizabeth Susan," he was saying, "Keep your head up, honey. One day, you will be a clothes pin again." I could almost see Betty Sue's smile through the darkness. I remember, the little goose bumps had crawled to the backs of my arms and were inching ticklishly upward. The tiny, onyx, pearl-eyed cat dangling from the silver chained necklace I wore spat out little sparks of static across the darkness as my gaze followed their seeming to be cat's spit across the arc of my sky. A thick slice of tension overlaid the now stuffy air of the box as I waited anxiously for the dawning of Thursday.

          Last night, I dreamed. As I await the dawn, I relive the most lurid moment of the dream. Wednesdays are not my best nights, last night I dreamed I was a photograph. Although, the thought is unwelcome, and I would flee from it if I could, I am not ashamed to admit I am beginning to believe. The feeling is strong in my heart.


          As the dream begins, a young girl is sitting at a kitchen table, the incandescent light bulb in the fixture over head is casting tiny bits of light across her face, revealing for my eyes, piece by piece, the intricate puzzle of her face. Her face is the color of a well aged river pearl. Her lips are four pale, red rose petals. Her hair is sweet jasmine, flowing silky, brown ribbons toward the small of her back. Her forehead is immaculate, as smooth as red obsidian. Her eyes are of the sweetest blue sky color, high lighted near the pupil by fragments of pure, golden, honey. Those eyes seem to stare at me from a haunted, steel, blue glow as if seeing me for the first time. Her rigid, sharply defined cheek bones bear the imprint of an importation from the land of Thor five centuries earlier, augmented in more recent times by a mere hint of the blood of the Cherokee people. She wears a cotton, slip over, long sleeved shirt, decorated by alternating bands of red and white dyes. In the hollow of her throat, seeming to be about to meow my name at any moment, rests the sister of the pearl-eyed cat I wear around my neck. Beside her, leaving no doubts as to the girl's origin, sits the mold she was fashioned from. These two can not be other than mother and daughter. The features of the young girl are sharpened by their intensity and made more beautiful to the eye by maturity when transferred to the face of her mother.

          The woman sits modestly beside her daughter, hands clasped across her knees, perhaps not knowing the depth of the beauty she radiates across the room. The dress she is wearing complements the ivory-pink paleness of her skin. The dress is blue, sky-turquoise blue with splotches of Sweet William blue interspersed at irregular intervals. The neck line is a graceful rounded arc baring her slim, white collar bones. The sleeves extend to just past her elbows, guiding the path to her left wrist where rests an unnecessary ornament, a thin, silver bracelet displaying a delicately inlaid butterfly.

          "Mom," the girl's lips move distinctly in the dim light, "could we look at the pictures now?" The exquisitely beautiful woman glances up, a look as of deep thought locked momentarily on her face. A smile begins to tug softly at the corners of her eyes, a thin line makes its way across the depression separating the hollows of her eyes from the high ridges of her cheek bones. Her lips part, completing her smile. "Yes, honey, let's look at the pictures now. Would you bring me that old shoe box we got down at Ratliff's?"

Mingo County, West Virginia

January 14, 1952

          Born: One male child, to Nancy Louvene Justice, she has called him James.

Turkey Creek, Pike County, Kentucky

The Life of James

         Where did it all begin? Was it the first day of kindergarten, the day Missus Deskins brought me up to her desk to sit in her lap to read to her privately? Was it the first time someone tried to call me Red? Was it the day my older brother slapped my face because my father had slapped another brother? I do not have a true answer for these questions, I only know that I am, what outsiders call, different.

         My Mama told me she had heard a wolf howl on the day I was born. She attached a great significance to this fact. A lone wolf, she said, a lone wolf in a strange land, looking for others of his kind. I remember, she held me close as she whispered, My boy carries the mark of the wolf, he will spend all his lonely days searching for others of his kind. My Mama spoke the truth.

          Fear. Love. The day I became aware of myself as a being was the same day I began to realize there were two forces inside my heart, two trying to become one. The first moment my eyes were opened, fear presented itself to me. I remember, I didn't recognize this fear as the word is defined in an ordinary dictionary, rather, I felt the caress of this thing called fear as a coldness touching me, at first tentatively, then as a rage winding its way toward my heart.

          The shadow of a shadow seen crossing the dust flecked stream of sunshine flowing through the window blinds, a light footstep, harsh voices, anger and the slam of a door. Stillness. Love spoke to me then, a murmur, a song. In one moment, I knew the two. Fear. Love.

          Eventually, the fear of my life led me to seek sanctuary. I will not reveal the details on these pages. It is enough to say, as the rabbit flees from the hound, I too, sought shelter.

Sweetness

          The old apple tree stood below the house, knock-kneed and wobble-legged. She was what I came to know as, the sweet apple tree. She grew on the side of a hill, surrounded by weeds, sycamore trees, and a buckeye sapling. Below her, lived the sulphur tainted creek where, on the occasion, I would collect my treasures: old pop bottles, Upper 10, R.C. Cola, Double Cola, Coke, and the old time Dr. Pepper bottles. This sweet apple tree, I called her, Sweetness, became the place of my heart, my sanctuary. It was there, beneath her pink apple blossoms, while I stood in the dear soil of Pike County, Kentucky, that I was first introduced to the girl of my life. Her name was Trey, and oh, she was as sweet as a cup full of heaven.

          My Trey was seventeen years old on the day we met, and I ask myself sometimes, how can a seven year old boy fall in love with a girl twice his age? It was a natural love we shared, I looked at her, she looked at me, and we both knew we were people of the spirit in the moment our eyes locked.

          The day I met Trey? It was, as I recall, a Tuesday morning in blossom time June of 1959. An early morning rain still glistened as it wobbled along the veins on the sassafras leaves, pearling itself into tiny, sassafras scented droplets. The long shadow of a red-tailed hawk swooped across the mountain path I walked on, bathing me momentarily in its coolness. The voices still rang in my ears from a few moments before and the welts across my back still burned. I could hear the call of Sweetness above the lingering voices as, from the corner of my left eye, I saw her branches beckoning to me.

          A frantic run, a hop, a skip and a jump, and there I stood, beneath the apple tree. Skyward, where the bluing had spread itself a little thin earlier that morning to make way for the rain, the sun sat on the branch tips of the mountain top ash and hickory trees, and high over head, a crow cawed plaintively out of that blue. As I stood there swallowing all of this, the creaky board on the old, wooden foot bridge spoke to me. "Creak..k..k..k! Hey! James, you've got company!" I looked up, and there she stood, her right foot poised to take that next step toward me. Oh, she was a figure as much an angel as anyone I had ever stared at, and at that moment, I was dumb struck, my eyes had no other reason for living, other than to be seeing this beauty before them.

          In the next moment only my shyness prevented me from doing what my heart was telling me to do, it held me in a grasp so tight I could not run into the arms of the angel who stood on the bridge staring at me. I wanted to run, I wanted to cry, I wanted to hide, and I wanted to shout, I love you, all at the same time. I could do none of these things. I could only stand there trying to think. Does she see me? Should I hide? What can I give her to make her stay? Sweetness stood silently by, no wind stirred her pink apple blossoms, no cricket fiddled from the loose bark at her base, none of her birds sang for me.

          As I stood there I realized I had nothing to offer to my angel, only the tear drops falling across my face, the cry of my heart, or maybe, I could whistle Wildwood Flower for her. I had been practicing that whistle for a long time. Behind me, Sweetness moaned impatiently, and I knew what I had to do. In a hurry now, I began the long climb to the top of Sweetness. Once hidden there, I would throw down my whistle to the girl below.

Buchanan County, Virginia

2002

          One and twenty years, this is what they have amounted to, the days of my life since the autumn of 1981. I have counted off each day on my fingertips. The box, and my life, are much the same as they were in 1981 with the exception of a few changes. I have become resigned to the fact that I am, as Betty Sue so long ago claimed, a photograph. My prayer has been answered. God, in his tender mercy, has chosen to make me aware that I am not just a photograph.

          Am I asleep? Do I dream, or is it truly a voice I hear? The vague sounds stir my awareness gently, a midnight violin making conversation with a piano, a cave cricket's lonely duet with the slow, rhythmic ping of dropping water. Yes, my heart! The soft, steady murmur of voices fiddle through the cardboard barrier pressed against my left ear. I realize the night still sleeps, curled like a soft, black, fluffy kitten around my body, and here, in the middle of midnight, after all these years of sameness, is something new! I hear a voice in the night! A voice from the outside!

          As I cast my seine across blackness, little pieces of sound cling to the net. Snatches of conversation, incoherent words, flash in and out of my ears, like the flash of silver minnow's bellies fleeing from the splash of boots. Oh, I am trying so hard to hear! Tears squeeze themselves from the corners of my eyes and roll down across my cheeks, leaving a wet trail of static dancing erratically across my eardrums. As I strain to hear, a violin speaks hesitantly from somewhere quite near, "Mom, should we give this one to James?" I hear the sweet tinkle of a piano as it replies, "Honey, I think there is a better one in the box over there. We'll give that one to James." Stuck in the center of the middle of midnight, I cry as I have never cried before, tears of happiness. It is them! I know it is! Words, a violin, a piano, two women. . . As I think, the voice of the piano begins to play, On a hill, far away. . . The violin sings sweetly across my mind. . .

Turkey Creek, Pike County, Kentucky

          Wildwood Flower must have agreed with Trey, after I had whistled the first verse, she was sitting in the last fork of Sweetness looking toward me. I remember just how it was, I told Trey everything. The words rained on the apple blossoms as I spoke all the words I had been saving for seven years.

Apple Blossom Memories

          A quiet moment had squeezed itself into that small space between them, him and Trey. He had looked away from her as he had thought, between thoughts, because of the storm of thoughts raging in his head. Sometimes, he never knew exactly what it was he was thinking of, because he had so many thoughts in his head. The storm was almost always there, the storm he wanted to run away and hide from. The storm that incessantly rained its hell on his mind. It reminded him of the thunder and the lightning quarreling for his attention in that worst storm of every spring, the one where the lightning struck and he could see the streaks in the dark sky, talking to each other and mingling amongst themselves until it was hard for him to distinguish where each one ended and another began. Sometimes, it seemed to him, the thunder would play the same melody in sounds. His thoughts behaved in this manner.

          It had been when he had looked back toward Trey that he had discovered it. Trey was no longer sitting beside him. In the spot where she had sat, two figures were looking out at him from the blue in their eyes. He had not know exactly what to make of that, it had been a moment in his life he could not account for. He had quickly pulled his eyes away to try to seem to not be looking at them. Oh, but he had been! He had never in his life seen an angel, except for Trey, and the ones in his Mama's bible. He had thought, Were these angels? His Mama had always told him there were angels watching over him. He remembered how she had laughed when he had asked her, Mama, why would any angels want to be watching me? I ain't never done a thing for an angel to be watching me.

          "Oh, yes you have, honey." his Mama had said. " There are a lot of things you have done, son, and there have been your own special angels sent to watch over you. They have seen what is in your heart, honey, and they are going to see to you, when there ain't nobody else there to do it." But, Mama, he had said, I don't recall what I might have done. It wasn't that time I almost ruptured Pedro, was it? You know I didn't go to do that. 'Sides, you already about washed the sin out of me over that. Oh, yeah, and there was the day I rode Trisha over that hill over there in the little red wagon brother Bill bought for us, and the time you said I made her step on that old garden rake that was laying somewheres in the yard just waiting for someone to step on it. Mama, you know how sorry I am that I did all those things. Angels wouldn't be holding none of that against me, would they?

          " Honey," his Mama had said, " Your angels are not watching you like that. They have been sent to watch over you and protect you those times when your Mama just can't be there."

          He remembered how the words had come to him of a sudden, as he had sat in the heart of Sweetness watching and wondering. " Don't be afraid, Crow, don't be afraid." He had almost thought he had been talking to himself when he had heard them. It had been then when it had came to him, those were his angels sitting there looking at him and talking to each other. A right peculiar thing had struck him about those angels, though, it seemed to him that he ought to know them angels, the way they were sitting there looking at him and talking about him as if they didn't think he knew they were there, as if they knew him personal-like.

          "Do you reckon he knows we are here, Mama?" he had heard the little one say to the other, and as he had looked at her, he saw that she looked enough like him he couldn't take his eyes off her. " No, honey, I don't reckon that boy knows we are here, yet. Some folks just can't see people like us, and then, there's them as can. Might be, he ain't never going to know you are here, honey."

          "What for, then, Mama, do you reckon, he's a looking at me like he wants to reach out and touch me? Mama! He sees me, Mama! He winked at me, Mama, and then he smiled. He sees me, Mama. He's a reaching out his hand for me!"

          "Go ahead, honey, and let him see you, ain't rightful supposed to do it on the first visit like this, but, that boy has a right powerful need for you, 'sides he has done seen you anyway. The two of you had ought to know each other, being as how you are of some relation like you are. Your Mama can bide here aside of you till the shadow of dark, introduce you to the way and set you aright before I go, then this Crow boy is going to be yours to see to the doings of."

          "I have my work back there waiting for me, where you and I were first joined together again. There ain't no denying, sweet girl of mine, that the road I have set in front of you is going to be a long one. It will be a hard struggle for you, fraught with peril and the devil a fighting against you every step of the way, but, you have got the right in you girl. There ain't no getting away from the right."

          "Mama, what if I make a mistake along the way?" "Don't fret yourself over it, honey. Though, he is your first, you will know just what to do, and when to do it. The charge you are being given is only this: that you protect him from the evil that is trying to swallow him, and show him the way to the path of life. Time comes, and that boy wants to go to the water, see to it the water is pure, and that he takes in enough to slake his thirst. One day, and it will come to you when the day has arrived, that boy will be ready to make the trip to the promised land. When he is ready, it is up to you to guide him there."

          "The promised land, Mama?"

          "Yes, honey, the promised land. Everyone has in them a promise, given to them at their birth, and if ever anyone was in the need of a getting theirs fulfilled, it is that boy you are going to be watching over. That boy ain't hardly had no father to speak of, and he don't know it, yet, but, time comes, and he will be needing to be led to his people. He has led his life in isolation, he hasn't had the knowledge of who his people are like most folks do. He hasn't worried himself on it overmuch, what with him a playing and all, like youngens will. The day is a coming, though, and that boy's heart is a going to speak to him, and tell him that a part of it is missing. He will ponder over it and fuss himself with it, till he knows exactly what he is in the need of. That day won't be long in a coming, it has already come to a birthing in his head."

          "First, when the shadow of dawning comes on him, and he has taken himself the knowing, you must find it in your heart to deny him, for then will not be the day of his happiness. Till that day comes, and it may be a lifetime till it does, yours' is the honor of a making the choice. He has a whole heap of his people scattered around in these hills of Kentucky and Virginia, and it will not be to just any of them he will be needing to be led to. You will be stood in the way of going to the hearts of every one of his people, and a studying on what you find there. You will need to pore over every page in the books written in their hearts before coming to a decision."

          "Ok, Mama. I suppose as how I reckon I can please your trust in me, and Mama, I'll take real good care of that boy and make you proud. Is there anything else I need to be a knowing about him?"

          "Ain't nothing you won't be a finding out for yourself as the years go by, honey. Remember this, your choice, once made, is the one that boy is a going to have in front of him, whether or not he is truly loved. So, be certain you are making the right choice, and never hesitate once you have made it."

          His head ached and he swore he could smell his Mama's roses, though, he knew they were too far away, and he had never smelled them any other time he had been sitting in Sweetness. Might be, it's these apple blossoms I am smelling, he thought, but he knew it wasn't. He had him some studying to do on this situation, though. The last thing he remembered was reaching out for an angel, and of a sudden, there hadn't been an angel sitting there. Trey had still been sitting there. He had spoken to her once more.


a work in progress...