my entrance. The dad who watched me growing up was a tinkerer, a maker of laborsaving devices. He never
touched a camera, never discussed his memories. And my mother said he’d destroyed the photographs that once had made him famous.
I was a freshman in college before I saw any of those pictures. One of my teachers, eager to find out if I knew why Dad had
withdrawn into obscurity, showed me some clippings she’d collected during the thirties and forties. Strange, anomalous shots.
War pictures, only instead of showing the military side, they showed ordinary people in places that didn’t make sense. Children
running, screaming down streets strewn with shards of glass, bomb craters, and outrageous feathered and flowered hats. A white
man in spats and tails cradling a bloodied black infant. A woman with a gold stud in her nose clutching a pig in the front
of an army jeep. A tall blond man intently lighting a cigarette as a group of ragged Chinese rush past with a headless body
in a wheelbarrow.
As I stared at the images my father had captured all those years ago I had the feeling my skin was lifting from my body, my
mind was being rearranged. I recognized these pictures. I knew them. They were my dreams. My nightmares. Not exactly, of course.
But so close.
My teacher fired her theories at me. Because the scenes my father had witnessed were too horrifying? Or had he gotten too
close to his subjects? Maybe he felt his work was misinterpreted when it appeared in print? Or he somehow felt he’d failed
to capture what he was striving for?
Her words blurred together. I must have seen these pictures before. I’d felt the exact helplessness and outrage, the same
grief and love that seemed to engrave each frame. These were the terrors that, night after night, roused me screaming and
weeping from sleep.
The next day I called my mother at the gallery and described the shots to her. She was very excited to hear that my teacher
knew of Joe, that she had these pictures, even if they were just tear sheets. But, no, she insisted. I couldn’t possibly have
seen them before. Not without extensive research on my part.
“Probably just déjà vu, Maibelle. You are your father’s daughter, after all. In a way, those pictures are in your blood. If
you can tap into them, even intuitively, it will be to your advantage. God only knows why he quit, but in his time Joe was
a master. You must never forget that. His talent—those images—are your legacy.”
3
T ommy Wah was Henry’s best friend and his partner in crime. The high point, which I believe may also have launched the slow
death of their friendship, came when they were in sixth grade.
They’d worked it out with Jimmy Yang, whose father was an herbalist. He supplied a powdered aphrodisiac used in chicken breeding.
Tommy and Henry sneaked into the teachers’ lounge and dumped the drug into the coffee urn, and when Mrs. Dixie returned from
lunch, a large rooster stood on her desk to receive the effects of the powder.
The experiment was a dud. Mrs. Dixie promptly sent for the janitor, Mr. Liberty, and told him to return the bird to Mr. Wah.
Then, rather than look for the individual pranksters, Mrs. Dixie punished the whole class. The reward for mischief of this
sort, she told them, was a very special medicine. And with that, she escorted Henry and Tommy down to the teachers’ lounge,
instructed them to carry the coffee urn back to the classroom.
“It usually tastes like the sludge of death.” She motioned the boys to lift the urn straight, not to spill. “But today it’s
got a special flavor— tastes just like the syrup of reason.”
The class grudgingly drank the brew without naming the bad boys (Henry and Tommys popularity saved their skins) and, incredibly,
not one person developed a sudden, uncontrollable urge to mate with a chicken. No one told on Mrs. Dixie, either, because
to tell that this teacher made her students
touched a camera, never discussed his memories. And my mother said he’d destroyed the photographs that once had made him famous.
I was a freshman in college before I saw any of those pictures. One of my teachers, eager to find out if I knew why Dad had
withdrawn into obscurity, showed me some clippings she’d collected during the thirties and forties. Strange, anomalous shots.
War pictures, only instead of showing the military side, they showed ordinary people in places that didn’t make sense. Children
running, screaming down streets strewn with shards of glass, bomb craters, and outrageous feathered and flowered hats. A white
man in spats and tails cradling a bloodied black infant. A woman with a gold stud in her nose clutching a pig in the front
of an army jeep. A tall blond man intently lighting a cigarette as a group of ragged Chinese rush past with a headless body
in a wheelbarrow.
As I stared at the images my father had captured all those years ago I had the feeling my skin was lifting from my body, my
mind was being rearranged. I recognized these pictures. I knew them. They were my dreams. My nightmares. Not exactly, of course.
But so close.
My teacher fired her theories at me. Because the scenes my father had witnessed were too horrifying? Or had he gotten too
close to his subjects? Maybe he felt his work was misinterpreted when it appeared in print? Or he somehow felt he’d failed
to capture what he was striving for?
Her words blurred together. I must have seen these pictures before. I’d felt the exact helplessness and outrage, the same
grief and love that seemed to engrave each frame. These were the terrors that, night after night, roused me screaming and
weeping from sleep.
The next day I called my mother at the gallery and described the shots to her. She was very excited to hear that my teacher
knew of Joe, that she had these pictures, even if they were just tear sheets. But, no, she insisted. I couldn’t possibly have
seen them before. Not without extensive research on my part.
“Probably just déjà vu, Maibelle. You are your father’s daughter, after all. In a way, those pictures are in your blood. If
you can tap into them, even intuitively, it will be to your advantage. God only knows why he quit, but in his time Joe was
a master. You must never forget that. His talent—those images—are your legacy.”
3
T ommy Wah was Henry’s best friend and his partner in crime. The high point, which I believe may also have launched the slow
death of their friendship, came when they were in sixth grade.
They’d worked it out with Jimmy Yang, whose father was an herbalist. He supplied a powdered aphrodisiac used in chicken breeding.
Tommy and Henry sneaked into the teachers’ lounge and dumped the drug into the coffee urn, and when Mrs. Dixie returned from
lunch, a large rooster stood on her desk to receive the effects of the powder.
The experiment was a dud. Mrs. Dixie promptly sent for the janitor, Mr. Liberty, and told him to return the bird to Mr. Wah.
Then, rather than look for the individual pranksters, Mrs. Dixie punished the whole class. The reward for mischief of this
sort, she told them, was a very special medicine. And with that, she escorted Henry and Tommy down to the teachers’ lounge,
instructed them to carry the coffee urn back to the classroom.
“It usually tastes like the sludge of death.” She motioned the boys to lift the urn straight, not to spill. “But today it’s
got a special flavor— tastes just like the syrup of reason.”
The class grudgingly drank the brew without naming the bad boys (Henry and Tommys popularity saved their skins) and, incredibly,
not one person developed a sudden, uncontrollable urge to mate with a chicken. No one told on Mrs. Dixie, either, because
to tell that this teacher made her students
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