Read Online The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chris Bohjalian
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
those photos.”
“But how do you know he was the photographer?”
“He just knew so much. He could talk about Muddy Waters—”
“Muddy Waters?”
“Blues singer from the 1940s and ’50s—when rock and roll really began. I gather there’s a photo of him and his band in that box. Bobbie told me stories about taking his picture at one of the old Chess Records recording sessions. And another time he told me this incredible tale where he was dangled by some crane over a football field to take a shot of, like, two hundred cheerleaders wiggling around inside Hula-Hoops. It was for
Time
magazine, or something. No, that’s not right: It was for
Life.
He did a ton of stuff for
Life.”
“Did you ever see the pictures?”
“He wouldn’t show them to me. It wasn’t safe,” he said, looking left and right histrionically, pretending to check to make sure that no one was listening.
“Katherine alluded to the same thing. What was he worried about?”
“Laurel, the man was schizophrenic! For all I know, it was aliens!”
“He never said—”
“One time, he said something that led me to believe his paranoia went back to his dad. He wasn’t scared of him—that wasn’t it. But it sounded like Bobbie feared that some people who knew his old man were after the pictures.”
When they reached the van, Laurel pulled his arm back so she could ask him one more question before they were surrounded by Bobbie’s friends inside the vehicle. “Tell me: How does a person who’s taking photos for
Life
magazine wind up homeless? I know he was mentally ill. But how did the wheels come off so completely on the poor guy? Didn’t he have any family? Any friends? He was so likable, how could he not?”
Sam Russo motioned to the men who were piling into the van in their ratty sneakers and thrift-store Oxford shirts, their pants that smelled always of the street: Howard Mason. Paco Hidalgo. Pete Stambolinos. “How do the wheels come off for any of them? Bobbie may have been a pretty good photographer once—you’d know better than me if he had actual talent—but, as you said, he was mentally ill. And, it was clear, he had serious attention deficit problems. Thirty, forty years ago, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do. We had Thorazine. We were just starting to experiment with haloperidol. But that was about it. And let’s face it, Laurel, you only saw him after he was back on his meds. You didn’t see him—or, forgive me, smell him—after he’d spent a night in a parking garage. Or when he was being kicked out of a diner because he’d been there for hours, ordering and eating like there was no tomorrow, but didn’t have a penny in his pocket. Or when he was trying to tell me that he had once hung with Coretta Scott King. I mean, I could see him with some of those musicians. But Coretta Scott King? That’s a stretch. And God only knows what chemicals he ingested in his life—you know, recreationally—or what sort of substance-abuse problems he’d had. Or what kind of demons he brought with him into adulthood. I sure don’t. Emily might. Emily Young. But trust me: The things I don’t know about these people—any one of them—could fill a book.”
W HILE L AUREL HAD been at the funeral, Katherine’s assistant had dropped off the small envelope with Bobbie’s other pictures in her office. There were a dozen snapshots, some browned and yellowed with age. Laurel had just begun to thumb through them when she paused with a flutter in her chest and sat perfectly still. There, in a black and white so old the edges were scalloped, was the house across the cove from the country club where she had spent so much of her childhood. Pamela Buchanan Marshfield’s mansion. She recognized instantly the terrace and the adjacent portico with its eight wide columns. The balconies that overlooked the water. The dock. Behind it was a second, different image of the house.
It had never crossed her mind that Bobbie Crocker could
“But how do you know he was the photographer?”
“He just knew so much. He could talk about Muddy Waters—”
“Muddy Waters?”
“Blues singer from the 1940s and ’50s—when rock and roll really began. I gather there’s a photo of him and his band in that box. Bobbie told me stories about taking his picture at one of the old Chess Records recording sessions. And another time he told me this incredible tale where he was dangled by some crane over a football field to take a shot of, like, two hundred cheerleaders wiggling around inside Hula-Hoops. It was for
Time
magazine, or something. No, that’s not right: It was for
Life.
He did a ton of stuff for
Life.”
“Did you ever see the pictures?”
“He wouldn’t show them to me. It wasn’t safe,” he said, looking left and right histrionically, pretending to check to make sure that no one was listening.
“Katherine alluded to the same thing. What was he worried about?”
“Laurel, the man was schizophrenic! For all I know, it was aliens!”
“He never said—”
“One time, he said something that led me to believe his paranoia went back to his dad. He wasn’t scared of him—that wasn’t it. But it sounded like Bobbie feared that some people who knew his old man were after the pictures.”
When they reached the van, Laurel pulled his arm back so she could ask him one more question before they were surrounded by Bobbie’s friends inside the vehicle. “Tell me: How does a person who’s taking photos for
Life
magazine wind up homeless? I know he was mentally ill. But how did the wheels come off so completely on the poor guy? Didn’t he have any family? Any friends? He was so likable, how could he not?”
Sam Russo motioned to the men who were piling into the van in their ratty sneakers and thrift-store Oxford shirts, their pants that smelled always of the street: Howard Mason. Paco Hidalgo. Pete Stambolinos. “How do the wheels come off for any of them? Bobbie may have been a pretty good photographer once—you’d know better than me if he had actual talent—but, as you said, he was mentally ill. And, it was clear, he had serious attention deficit problems. Thirty, forty years ago, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do. We had Thorazine. We were just starting to experiment with haloperidol. But that was about it. And let’s face it, Laurel, you only saw him after he was back on his meds. You didn’t see him—or, forgive me, smell him—after he’d spent a night in a parking garage. Or when he was being kicked out of a diner because he’d been there for hours, ordering and eating like there was no tomorrow, but didn’t have a penny in his pocket. Or when he was trying to tell me that he had once hung with Coretta Scott King. I mean, I could see him with some of those musicians. But Coretta Scott King? That’s a stretch. And God only knows what chemicals he ingested in his life—you know, recreationally—or what sort of substance-abuse problems he’d had. Or what kind of demons he brought with him into adulthood. I sure don’t. Emily might. Emily Young. But trust me: The things I don’t know about these people—any one of them—could fill a book.”
W HILE L AUREL HAD been at the funeral, Katherine’s assistant had dropped off the small envelope with Bobbie’s other pictures in her office. There were a dozen snapshots, some browned and yellowed with age. Laurel had just begun to thumb through them when she paused with a flutter in her chest and sat perfectly still. There, in a black and white so old the edges were scalloped, was the house across the cove from the country club where she had spent so much of her childhood. Pamela Buchanan Marshfield’s mansion. She recognized instantly the terrace and the adjacent portico with its eight wide columns. The balconies that overlooked the water. The dock. Behind it was a second, different image of the house.
It had never crossed her mind that Bobbie Crocker could
Similar Books
