How to photograph the details of a dark horse in low light

/

There was an old man who lived in her apartment building who she would see wearing the uniform and badge of a private security service. One morning he surprises her in the basement room where the trash bins are kept. He is standing out of the light staring at a pornographic magazine. He doesn’t look up as she empties her waste basket. A couple days later he is in her dreams, wearing a big costume horse head along with the security guard uniform. He takes off the head and stares into her eyes. ‘I love you’ he says and moves closer, slowly, as if beginning a complicated dance step.

This is why he is like that

/

A boy went to a party with a girl. He left her alone to join a group of friends smoking and drinking in the basement. Upstairs the girl cried but in a way that no one could see. A young man came into the party. No one knew him. He made friends. He saw the girl who was there crying. The boy came up from the basement. The girl was gone. He went home. When his mother woke him it was past noon the next day. The girl’s father was on the phone. He wanted to know where his daughter was.

After the treatment center went broke and became a tavern

/

After the treatment center went broke and became a tavern

He lived out back (sometimes) in a shelter handmade of string, a tarp and some plastic safety fencing. He showed me a photograph of himself from the early days of the tavern. So he never left. He transitioned in a smooth overlap from someone in recovery to a drunk and an addict who lived full-time behind a tavern. That’s how it went after the treatment center went broke, and the next occupant of the building was a tavern. As if that should ever be allowed. In the picture he showed me he was shirtless, very fit and good looking (if a bit thin). In the picture his hair was long and dirty (real Jesus hair) and he was dancing alone like one does late at night near closing time in an almost empty bar. The picture was taken with a flash, the camera close to him. He glowed against a background of amber-lighted gloom. Even though his eyes were closed and he smiled his face was a smock of hopelessness. One wondered where his young wife and child were that night, like where were they the moment that photograph was taken. 

A horse on ice

/

A:  You are looking like a horse on ice my friend.

B:  What are you talking about?

A: Picture it.
C: Yeah, picture it my friend.

B:  Picture a horse on ice?

C:  Yeah. The horse is on ice. He is iced. In the cooler.

A: (to C) No.
C: What?
A: The horse is walking on ice. It can’t catch its balance, its legs are shooting out.

C: Yeah

A:  Our friend here (points to B) is a horse on ice.

B:  I told Les what my situation was.

C:  Your situation? You are the situation.

B:  (to A) Did you talk to Les?

C:  (to B) You better believe you have a situation.

A:  (to B) When did you talk to Les?

B:  I cleared this up with Les.

C:  You are a horse on ice.

A: We just came from Les and he is teed off. At us. You know why?

C: (to B) Because of you.
B: Because of me?
A: Because of you. Because of the car.

C: (to B) Where’s the car?

A:  (to B) Les wants the car.

B:  I have a lease.

A:  On the car? It’s Les’s car. Les doesn’t lease his own car.

B:  Let me call him.

C:  He doesn’t want to talk to you.

B:  (to C) Says who?

C:  Les told me that.

A: We just came from Les.

C: And he told us: “Go get my car”.

B:  I’m leasing that car from Les.

C:  Not anymore.

A:  (to B) Where is it?

B:  Let me call Lester.

C:  You don’t listen. Lester doesn’t want to talk to you.

B:  Okay. Wait.

C:  Wait?

A: (to C) Now you get what I mean, he’s looking like a horse on ice?

C: I see it now. At first I was picturing, like, a horse on ice, like in a meat case, like steaks and loin cuts of horse meat.

A: Horse meat?
C: Yeah, like in a meat case at the grocery store.

A: Do people eat horse meat?
C: They used to. My grandmother did.

A: What?

C: Yeah. During the dustbowl. They made hamburger once out of a horse. Hey (gestures to B). Horse on ice.

A:  Yeah. (to B) Where’s the car? Where’s Les’ car?

B:  I don’t have it.