Norman Partridge - Slippin' into Darkness

Shutterbug sat on the floor. He’d changed from the black silk robe to jeans and a Perry Ellis shirt and his comfortable loafers, and he was busy digging through some boxes in the bottom of his closet. He reached for his beer, tipped it up, and allowed a quarter of the can’s contents to tickle over his throat like cold fingers of satisfaction. He had downed four brews in less than twenty minutes, and that was a personal best. Usually he required at least twenty minutes to drain a single beer, and his choice was certainly never a beer brewed in the United States of America, let alone a beer that came out of a can. But after having his home invaded by four drunks, after watching a volley of beer cans destroy his stereo, after downing Bat Bautista with two punches, and after realizing that he was actually going to live to tell the tale of this night, Shutterbug felt that he deserved a little something that would take the edge off.

One by one, Shutterbug uncoiled the headers of a dozen old 16mm loops. He held each spool to the light and examined the first few frames while the patter continued behind him. The voices of the four men were slow and easy and the subject matter was unrestrained, as if Shutterbug were a regular part of their conversations.

And Shutterbug found that he was actually enjoying the conversation. Some of that could be blamed on the beer, but not all of it. Even the rude jokes brought quiet laughter to his lips.

Amazing. The A-Squad was actually in his house. In his room, staring up at the wall of eighteen-year-old faces that Shutterbug had maintained since high school.

Griz Cody unbuttoned his pants, dropped them, and sank into a small chair that creaked as it accepted his bulk. He went to work on his hairy knees with the Sportscreme, but his movements were automatic-his attention was really focused on the young faces mounted on the wall. “Man,” he said, “those sure bring back some memories.”

Derwin gave a low chuckle. “Damn straight. It appears old Shutterbug had hisself a taste for the white girls.”

There it was, blunt and honest and right out in the open. And they all laughed about it. Horny, dark laughter followed by an awkward silence, which was finally broken by a question from Todd Gould. “How come you did it, Shutterbug? I mean, how come you kept those pictures up there, all these years?”

Shutterbug stared at a frame of film. The light muted behind it, the colors not what they should be. A class picnic in the Berkeley hills, girls wearing bikinis, the scene locked in murky twilight instead of summertime brightness. He twisted the film onto the spool and snapped the plastic lid over it, the sound as sharp as the crack of Bat Bautista’s vertebra. “I don’t know why I kept them,” Shutterbug said, answering honestly. “Maybe I left them up there because I couldn’t bring myself to take them down.”

Todd scratched his forehead, which had been much too low at eighteen. His receding hairline actually made him look more intelligent. But looks were deceiving. Shutterbug knew that. He tipped back his beer, let another generous swallow slide down his throat. He felt like an ass. Certainly, he had said the wrong thing.

Then Derwin spoke up. “Yeah, I know what you mean, man. It’s the shits gettin’ old. Lost my job at the shipyard last year. Now I’m living in a shack behind somebody’s house-probably used to be some kid’s playhouse. Me and a lawn mower that I make the rounds with every day. Shit, I even got me a kid’s job.” He laughed bitterly, killed his beer, and crumpled the can. “And you know what I got on the shelf above my bed?”

“What?” Shutterbug asked.

“Fuckin’ basketball trophies. They ain’t worth a damn. Every one of ’em peelin’ those thin gold coats. Either that or they’re gettin’ tarnished. But I keep ’em, all the same. Like they tell me I did something once.”

Bat laughed at that. “You got that one right. A couple of months ago, me and the wife got into a real pisser of a fight. Woman couldn’t even understand what made me mad. See, she took one of my baseballs and played catch with the kids. The only problem was that it was the ball I used to pitch that no-hitter when I went all-city in our senior year. It was autographed by everyone who was on the team. And my wife and the kids scuffed up the damn thing, throwing it around the street. Man, I went ballistic, and she just didn’t get it.”

“No doubt about it,” Griz Cody said. “Definite grounds for a D-I-V-O-R-C-E.” He spelled the last word out with a nasal twang in his voice, the way a country singer would, and everyone laughed.

“Yeah…well…”Shutterbug wondered how far he should go with this. “I guess these pictures were my trophies.”

“They’re one hell of a lot better lookin’ than a pot-metal football player,” Griz said, doing a stiff imitation of the running back straight-arm pose that most trophies portrayed.

Derwin struck a frozen basketball free-throw pose. Bat followed with a pitcher’s windup. Todd puffed out his chest, straining toward an imaginary finish line. Everyone laughed, including Shutterbug, who suddenly felt that he was in the company of a bunch of gone-to-seed mimes.

Todd asked, “Who wants another beer?” and the jocks nodded as one.

Shutterbug unspooled another roll of film.

“Marvis, how about you?”

The man with the reel of film in his hands came up short. Marvis. That’s what Todd had said. Marvis. Not Shutterbug.

“Yeah,” Marvis said, smiling. “That would great.”

They were having a real big, macho, male-bonding time of it. Marvis was wondering if he should invite them into the back yard, where they could strip naked and pound drums and howl at the moon like a bunch of crazy yupsters.

He resisted the temptation. Instead, he continued sorting through the 16mm loops, but finding the right one didn’t seem to matter much anymore.

“Y’know,” Bat said, still staring at Marvis’s gallery, “those were some good times, back then. Shit, I wish you wouldn’t have broken that CD player, Griz. It would have been good to listen to some of those old tunes.”

“Not that white boy music, though,” Derwin said. “I couldn’t take hearin’ that nonsense again.”

“Man,” Griz said, “you’re about the biggest racist I know.”

“Oh yeah? I s’pose you liked listenin’ to all the songs about white girls and dead horses named Wildfire and shit.”

“Well, it was better than ‘Jungle Boogie.’ ”

“Shit if it was. That wasn’t nothin’ compared to ‘You Light Up My Life.’ ”

Griz sang, “I’m gonna boogie-oogie-oogie’ til I jes can’t boogie no more…”

“You’re havin’ mah baybeeeee -”

Griz laughed, spitting beer. “Okay…okay…Igive up…”

Derwin wasn’t done yet. “-what a lovely way of say in’ how much you luuuvvv meeeeeeeee…”

“Okay! Okay!”

It was quiet for a few seconds.

“Damn,” Todd said. “I wish the CD player wasn’t broken.”

“Yeah,” Derwin agreed.

Griz Cody nodded.

One by one, they rated the girls on the wall. Both Bat and Marvis had attended the fifteen year reunion, and they took turns detailing what had happened to each girl as she grew older. Plenty of positive and negative adjectives were thrown around. Speculation was made concerning the possibility of breast enhancement and liposuction. It was decided, in general terms, that there was a desperate need for electrolysis professionals in this day and age, and for a time the conversation turned to the outstanding prospects a seasoned professional could expect in a seemingly competition-free environment.

Bat finally grew weary of that line of conversation and returned to the original subject. “That Amelia Peyton, now she was fine. I never even noticed her in high school. Back then she was trying too hard to be like everyone else. Just another April Destino clone. But now…I got one look at her at the reunion and my wife got mad, told me she thought she’d need a winch to get my tongue back in my mouth.”