Elizabeth Hand - Generation Loss

Same deal with her mouth—the chemicals had been moved around so that her lips were distorted and discolored. It looked as though something were protruding from them, a snake’s head, or maybe a finger.

This will make the pictures sound grotesque, and they were. But they weren’t just grotesque. Small as they were, they seemed outsized and even kind of funny, the way R. Crumb drawings are, their creepiness outpaced by audacity. Why would someone do that to a Polaroid picture?

Someone wanted to do it a lot. There were dozens of photos, most of the same girl, her face altered so that she resembled a broken statue, mottled green and black. But a few pictures seemed to be clumsy self-portraits. One showed a mirror and the flashlit reflection of a figure holding the SX-70. The others showed portions of a face, badly out of focus. A scalp, a nose or ear, a toothy grin. Someone had gone to the trouble of taking these photos. And someone else had taken the trouble to save them.

None of these photos were signed. They didn’t need to be. I knew it was him.

Denny Ahearn.

Those Polaroids pumped out damage the way that little space heater cranked out BTUs. I could taste it, a tang like biting into an old penny, like the taste you get from speed that hasn’t been cooked enough. I wanted to recoil, but the images drew me on. I looked at one after another, impelled by the eye behind that camera, a presence so strong it was like it was in the room with me.

And then, there really was an eye, staring out at me from the last page. It was the only photo that hadn’t been manipulated. A single amber eye, gleaming as though it had been coated with glycerin. The cornea wasn’t white, but a custardy yellow, threaded with red filaments. I could see the pale reflected outline of a camera in the iris.

That was creepy enough. What made it worse was a blotch of green pigment like the one in Gryffin’s eye. Only this was a bigger flaw, and it was in a different place, just below the pupil.

I couldn’t look away from it. It was like staring at a painting where the canvas has been torn: if you could only rip away the ruined canvas, another painting would be revealed: the real painting. I felt the same vertiginous horror I’d experienced as a girl, looking into the sky to see a great eye gazing down at me.

Now I felt that jagged bit of pigment was the real eye, the realest eye I’d ever seen. I brought the photo to my face to get a better look, and grimaced.

It stank. Not the musty, doggy smell of Aphrodite’s room, but the smell I’d detected on the photo back at Ray Provenzano’s house, a reek like someone had dumped rotting fish on top of a dead skunk.

It was faint, but unmistakable. And it was coming from the Polaroid. I held it under my nose and sniffed.

I replaced the photo, sat on the floor and stared at the unmade bed, soiled sheets, dog fur, all those expensive photo books, Roberto Schezen, Rudy Burckhardt…

“Shit,” I whispered.

I stood and grabbed a book, the familiar RUNWAY colophon on its spine beneath the title and photographer’s name.

DEAD GIRLS CASSANDRA NEARY

On the title page was an inscription.

’ONE BECOMES HUMAN BY IMITATING THE GODS’

FOR A WITH LOVE

D

“What are you doing?” For a second I thought I’d imagined the voice. “ What are you doing ?”

I looked up.

It was Aphrodite, the deerhounds at her sides. A twig was stuck to her leggings; her lipstick was faded and her silvery hair flattened as though she’d just woken up.

But by the way she swayed back and forth, red eyed, I figured that she’d been up—though maybe not upright—for a while, and keeping the same kind of company I had; no speed, maybe, but plenty of cognac or whatever it was that made her look like a skeletal marionette.

“Aphrodite.” I blinked. “Wow. I—”

Before I could move she was on top of me. I fell back as she yanked the book from my hands and smashed it against my head. I cried out and fell backward, struggling.

“Hey!” I gasped. “Stop, I was just—”

A dog whined as she smashed the book against my face again. I kicked out violently and struck her shoulder. She staggered backward and the dogs growled, as though this was a game they’d played before.

“Get— out —” The book dropped to the floor. Aphrodite beat at the air as though there were another, invisible assailant between us. “Get— out —get— out —”

I crouched on the bed as the dogs pawed at each other and Aphrodite swiped madly at nothing, like someone practicing a deranged form of Tai Chi.

“ Get out, get out…”

Whoever, whatever, she was fighting seemed to have nothing to do with me. She didn’t even seem to remember I was there. I edged off the bed.

“Get— out !” Aphrodite’s voice rose to a strangled cry. Abruptly she grew silent. She lowered her hands, panting, and looked around.

Now she did see me.

No, not me: my camera. She gazed at it then lifted her head and stared right at me. When she spoke, her voice was calm.

“Amateur. Thief.” She smiled a horrible broken doll’s smile. “You’re nothing but a little amateur. Both of you— nothing . You think I didn’t know? You thought I wouldn’t know who you were? You—”

She lunged and grabbed at my camera. “You’re nothing …”

I covered the Konica with one arm and pushed her away. She reeled back, the dogs dancing around her as though this, too, were part of the game. One of them leaped up, its paws grazing her shoulders. Aphrodite gasped, still staring at me, then fell.

I had no time to stop her, only watched as her head struck the corner of the woodstove. I heard a snap . Not like a dry stick breaking, more the sound of something green that doesn’t want to give way.

Her body hit the floor. The deerhound backed away and slunk toward the bed. The other two dogs surged forward, tails wagging, and nosed at her crotch.

I clutched my camera and held my breath, listened for the sound of footsteps and Gryffin’s voice: sirens, shouting, God knows what.

But there was nothing. The room was still, except for the snuffling dogs and the hum of the space heater. I drew a breath and ran my hand protectively across my camera.

“Go,” I whispered. I swatted at the dogs. “Go, go on—”

They backed off, mouths split in white grins.

“Lie down.” I gestured toward the bed. “Go on, lie down .”

They leaped onto the bed, padded across the covers, and settled down, long gray muzzles on their paws. I made sure there was still no sound from the hall then went to the body.

Her head lolled to one side. A skein of spit ran from the corner of her mouth to the floor, mingled with blood from a deep cut in her temple. The cut formed a shape like a tiny inverted pyramid, glistening pink at the sides, deep indigo at the deepest point. I glanced at the woodstove. A small chunk of flesh was impaled on one corner, a few hairs protruding from it, like a daddy longlegs snagged in a bit of bloody Kleenex.

I looked down again. One of Aphrodite’s eyes was fixed on me. A pinkish glaze sheathed the cornea, like a welling tear. As I stared, the eyelid dropped in a wink then slowly rose, the tear darkening to scarlet as it spilled onto her cheek. A red bubble appeared in one nostril and popped. Tiny red specks appeared across her cheeks, a flush.

She was still alive. I took a step toward the door.

And stopped. I turned back, got onto one knee, popped the lens cap from my Konica, and began to shoot.

I had shit for light, but I didn’t care. There was enough for an exposure. That’s all I needed. Tri-X doesn’t pick up as many details in the gray area as something like T-Max. It doesn’t have as fine a grain, it’s a colder film, it can be raw. It’s perfect for what I do. It was perfect now.