An adult stories – The Naked Eye by midorigreengrasses,midorigreengrasses This series continues but I plan to post just a few more stories here, then remove them all. The last has the title “Fallen Man.”
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For readers who are confused by these many notes, there is now a post with the title “Bridge.” It explains what they are, gives context and more, not just orientation but a deeper glimpse into the main and supporting characters.
Sorry for the many typos and other proofreading errors.
There was a fateful day in my love affair with Pam. We went to a gathering. Her sister was there. She and I were introduced for the first time. Should have happened sooner!
Moments later, I said to Pam, “I like your sister.”
“I knew you would.”
“Then why am I meeting her only now?”
“She likes men liking her, has a following.”
“Then you’ve been keeping me from her.” The thought made me angry. Pam had known I wanted a woman with appeal she didn’t have and was deliberately blocking my way. I understood she had done that just because she wanted to be with me, out of love, but I felt deceived, that I’d been tricked, even imprisoned in our love affair. What else, what other possibilities for happiness had I missed by being with Pam?
Her sister really was fetching, with a bow haircut that swooped toward the front along her cheeks, a simple style, and a rather heart-shaped face, simple in form, appealingly so. You wanted to smother her in kisses, take her broad cheeks in your hands. I could see why Pam got, instinctively, that my meeting her might threaten what we had, highlight its fragility. She and I had been together almost three years and I had yet to encounter her older sister even once. True she lived in another state, didn’t visit home often, but still.
Pam hadn’t introduced us before because she knew her sister was the attractive one in the family, and she thought I’d be interested. And she was right.
At the same gathering I met a guy from Korea. He looked about thirty-five, too young to have a son entering college, yet he did and talked about his prospects. He’d been kicked out of high school for cheating. Father spoke of his plans for college and beyond, of career ambitions and how he might win success, bring honor to the family name.
I thought, how could he if he’d cheated? What good college would accept him with that on his record? But apparently his father had fixed things so it was possible. Even so, I wondered, what kind of future would the young man make if he had the habits of a cheat? Had he learned them from his father?
The patriarch voiced no such concerns. It seemed that to his way of thinking getting ahead was paramount and any means to that end were all right. Was that part of his culture, I asked myself. Korea, now known for its high tech industry and pop culture, still has a reputation for corruption, people using money and connections to advance themselves over others.
I saw a connection, strange as it seems, between that conversation and the one with Pam. Were we all cheaters? Was Pam really deceiving me in order to keep our love affair going? Was I in turn being deceptive by looking for a woman I wanted more than her?
There are times when cracks form in a love affair, along fault lines you might not have known were there. Eventually, the whole thing will fall apart. The sooner the better, I felt that night.
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At the college there was an assembly in the amphitheater, auditorium in the round, college students and faculty and leaders called together to address the state of the nation, the emergency we face with fascism in the ascendancy, those opposed to our democratic system poised to take over power.
Of course the college, faculty and administrators alike, are pledged to take no position on politics and they didn’t here. The current situation we all face goes beyond left and right, Republicans and Democrats, and strikes at the heart of our country. The college president felt there is a crisis at hand that can’t be ignored. He wanted to at least hold an open discussion with students, many of whom are troubled, anxious about the future.
I sat next to Akemi high on the right of the crowded stands and I knew she didn’t fully understand what was happening. Her English isn’t up to following talk with technical vocabulary reflecting a deep knowledge of current events in Washington and beyond. And she’s not from here. She knows Japanese news.
I felt protective of her, in part because she doesn’t understand- that leaves her vulnerable- and also because, living here, she is subject to the same harm the rest of us are at the hands of the crowd determined to impose their will, seize power by force.
In the end- really from halfway through the presentation and dialogue- I found myself paying more attention to Akemi than to the topics on the table, crucial ones though I knew them to be. I was looking at her beside me, feeling for her. She faced front, dutifully following events on stage (a platform in the center of the round arena). Even though the words were beyond her grasp, making it difficult for her to keep grasp of the meaning, she listened intently, out of respect as well as interest.
I found her beautiful that way.
It occurred to me that people in the seats on the other side of the arena, high rows opposite us, likely included some I knew, friends, faculty and students, and that they could see me, see I was gazing at Akemi as attentively as if I were not in that auditorium at all or at least didn’t care that we were. Friends, acquaintances might find it strange that I was turned to the side to look at Akemi while everyone else, her included, faced forward. I might have stood out as the only one not intently watching those important proceedings.
Conspicuous, I might have drawn the attention of people I knew sitting opposite us. The possibility didn’t bother me at all, of course.
We went out afterward, needing to clear the air, clear our heads. The stuff we’d seen, the dangers under discussion are too great to keep in mind too long. You go a little nutty, because there is nothing much you as an individual can do to fend off the crazies dead set on mayhem. Their presence and the possibility of them taking over and destroying the country as we know it, abandoning rule of law and institutions that preserve our system, seems too far-fetched to be true, yet it is real, and a meeting like the one at the college brings that home. You want to get away from the seriousness at the first opportunity.
Though Akemi didn’t comprehend it in detail, she felt it.
We walked to the waterfront. I had my camera and saw some good potential for photos, a view to the opposite bank (reminiscent of the one across the auditorium before, our seats looking toward ones identically situated on the other side, separated by space there, water here).
Akemi asked if she could take the picture and I said yes and gave her the camera. The problem is that she doesn’t know how to use it. I mean she can find focus (that’s automatic) and press the shutter release, but when it comes to adjustments required to get the picture that looks best she has no idea where to begin. Natural, that. She’s a painter not photographer.
I knew I couldn’t explain to her what to do. It was too complicated and transferring words to actions a leap too far. What I wanted was to keep the foreground, dark blue, almost black near bank, out of focus so it formed a wall, yes, shimmering wall, and have the lens sharpen on the water itself, a cooler dark blue which some remnants of the sun still lit, and the far bank also show at a high resolution, city scape of low buildings seemingly carved out of brittle rock, almost crystalline silhouette, hard but fragile looking.
Getting that effect would require setting the light meter to shutter priority, which reduced the depth of focus, softening everything in front of and behind a selected narrow zone. Opportunities for good photos seldom linger long enough for translation to word from action in any language, and the barrier ours presented made it all but impossible for me to quickly tell Akemi how to carry out the chore, navigate the menus as needed.
She stood facing the banks, one near one distant, and water between. She seemed to see the beauty I did and be moved by it, but with the camera configured as it was the photograph taken would miss the elements that constituted the beauty. A lot of the trick of photographing is identifying what makes something look good to the naked eye and then enhancing it through technical means.
Akemi didn’t know how to or see the necessity. As a painter, she lacked familiarity with the tools of a photographer. I’m not a professional but have enough experience to nail good shots more often than miss them.
I thought of taking the camera back from Akemi and adjusting it myself (via menus visible in the viewfinder). But she looked so happy, rapt looking at the image, the real one before us, evening, night about to fall, dark coming like the water surface racing on the river- the lights and shadow there- more of the latter- tantalizing the only word I can find. No, I couldn’t bring myself to seize the camera from Akemi even for the moment needed for me to make the adjustment and return it. That would have been tantamount to flaunting my expertise before her, could have destroyed the sense of accomplishment she’d looked forward to by getting the good shot on her own.
I thought about suggesting a simpler change of meter setting, the simplest of all, return to default, which was achievable manually by a single turn of a ring on top of the camera, just to the left of the shutter release. Though not ideal, the compromise, gamble, whatever word you want to use, would give a slightly better chance of success, of capturing the moment, what made it visually compelling, that is.
Speaking of darkening and moments passing, the time this particular image- of sunset- no, evening arriving- on the waterfront, the dark blue warmer than you associate with the color, the deep red rim of sun disappearing on the far bank, low behind the jagged line of black buildings small like miniatures, toys- was limited. The final transition from day to night takes place in a matter of minutes. Get the picture of day now or lose it to the abyss of night. The change when it comes is sharp and sudden. That’s why I decided in the end against interrupting Akemi even for a moment, making any changes to the camera at all. There really wasn’t time to lose. She had to shoot away.
Here’s the funny part: Before she did and afterward I realized the photo really didn’t matter to me.
I wanted the shot but saw I wanted Akemi more. She too formed a luminous part of the landscape, in the near foreground- I faced her from the riverside, the view behind me- she was wrapped up in dark and light like the rest of it, her hair like sea anemone, she seemed twisted in chains- were they necklaces or her hair itself?- like a statue drawn from the sea. I was ready to lose the photo I’d hoped to get because reality trumped it.
Going home, arriving there without anything worthwhile on the camera’s memory card was fine because I’d still have Akemi, visual beauty and more that suffused my life.
There’s a difference between us. She seems to take her painting as seriously as anything in the rest of her life. I don’t look at photography that way. As I’ve said, I’m not a professional. I’d never chose my art over us. I don’t know if she would say the same.