Graven Images

“Well, what have we got today?” the man said, seating himself in the chair, his back to the window so that he was silhouetted against the twilight.

“Back already?” Benny said. One of the things Benny hated about the man was his heartiness, the slick, salesman’s boom of his voice. “I thought I had seen the last of you for awhile.”

“I can leave if you’d like,” the man said. He had the blackmailer’s upper hand, and he knew it.

“Okay, okay,” Benny said, reaching over to the nightstand and opening the drawer. He took the photographs out and spread them on the bed.

The man leaned forward. “We could use some more light,” he said.

Benny walked to the door and flipped a switch. The room brightened, and he walked back as the man lifted one of the photographs and held it up.

“Tell me about this one,” the man said.

Benny took the photo and sat on the edge of the bed. His shoulders sagged. “Well, that’s my daughter Lucy. She was nine years old or thereabouts. And in the wagon is our dog, Zenith. She would haul that dog all over town, dress him up, go rolling down a hill with him clutched to her chest. Zenith doted on Lucy and so he let her do most anything. I guess men and dogs are alike in that respect. They’ll tolerate some rough handling from the women they love.”

“The house in the background,” the man said. “Yours?”

“Well, we lived there. That’s on Cedar Avenue. We rented it for three years in the early fifties. Our landlord lived next door, an old Italian man who didn’t speak much English and always wore a suit. They sold the house shortly after he hanged himself, so we had to move. I remember it was his brother who came to our door and told us the news. I didn’t know who he was. There was this small, tearful man in suspenders standing at my door. He was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he looked real frail, and the first words he spoke were: ‘My brother he is suicided with the chair.’ And I didn’t know what he was talking about or who he was, but Eileen came up behind me—she always saw straight to a person’s heart—and walked quick past me and took him in her arms and he went to sobbing on her shoulder while she held him.”

Benny sighed. “She was good with people, Eileen.”

“I’ll take it,” the man said, standing up.

Benny blinked. “What?”

“The photo. This one will do,” the man said.

That was in the summer—at Brodin Memorial Hospital. In November, Benny woke in his own home in the middle of the night to relieve his bladder, and he heard a sound in the kitchen.

It was the man again, seated at the kitchen table. He had poured himself a glass of milk.

“Just make yourself at home,” Benny said.

The man smiled broadly. “Oh, I’m comfortable most anywhere,” the man said.

“I bet,” Benny said. He knew why the man had come. Without saying a word, he left the kitchen and returned with the photographs. He tossed them on the kitchen table.

The man finished his glass of milk, and tapped one of the photos.

“That’s Lucy graduating from high school,” Benny said. “What’s to say? The day was hot, I remember that. She’s wearing a bathing suit under that black gown. So were a lot of the kids. They went … look, you want it, you got it.” Benny handed the photo to the man.

“They went to the beach,” the man said.

“Yeah.” Benny stood up. “You got your photo. It’s two in the morning, and I’m going back to bed. You know the way out.”

The man shook his head. “No. I’m not interested in that one. This one, perhaps. That’s your wife, isn’t it? And the young man, who’s he?”

“That’s Danny Miller. He played clarinet in a band. And that’s Eileen, all right. She wasn’t my wife then. Hey, maybe you want this picture. It’s yours.”

“I’ll take it,” the man said.

“You son of a bitch.”

“Well, I’m not a fool. She looks quite luminous in this picture, breathless, and the lights in her hair … you kissed her for the first time that night, or I can’t read a photo.”

“Take it and get out,” Benny said.

As the man walked toward the door, Benny shouted at his back: “I don’t need a photograph to call up that night. There ain’t so goddam many perfect moments in a man’s life that they get clouded with time. Ask me what perfume she wore. Ask me what the band played or how the champagne tasted or what the night air felt like or how the back of her neck surprised my hand that first time I kissed her.”

The man didn’t turn around. He walked down the hall and out the door without a word.

A year later, the week before Christmas, Benny was watching the rain fall, a grim, flat attack on the hospital’s parking lot. The man came up behind him.

“You gave me a start,” Benny said.

The man apologized. He seemed to have put on weight since Benny had last seen him. He seemed, in fact, tired, disheartened.

“Well,” Benny said. “Here’s what I’ve got.”

This time the man sat on the bed next to Benny, and Benny showed him the photographs.

“This is Aunt Kate,” Benny said. “She made the best fudge brownies. And she loved to sing. She would sing ‘Amazing Grace’ while washing the dishes.”

“No,” the man said. He was shaking his head. He stood up and thumbed through the photos in his hands. “You insult me. These are not the goods. These are not … these are not your photographs.”

Benny chuckled. “You are sharp. I got to give you that, you are sharp.”

The man threw the photos on the floor. “In all our dealings, we have been above board. I am disappointed in you.”

“Those are Lou Himmel’s photographs. Perhaps you recognized them. That really is Aunt Kate. Lou’s Aunt Kate, not mine. Lou being dead, I figured he wouldn’t mind.”

“I wish to see your photographs.”

Benny shrugged. “I burned them.”

“You know what this means.”

Now Benny stood up. “Yeah, it means I don’t give a goddam. Now get out of here.”

The man sighed and looked around the room as though seeking a reasonable audience. “I’ll complete the paperwork, then.”

“Whatever lights your fire,” Benny said. “Whatever honks your horn.”

The storm raged outside. Benny was watching the six o’clock news when Nurse Cable—everyone on the ward called her Julie—entered. She was a pretty young woman with black hair, cut rather severely, and a lush Georgia accent. She took Benny’s blood pressure. “How are you doing?” she asked.

“Poorly,” Benny said. “I’m an old man, and anyone my age who says he is feeling great has simply forgotten what it means to feel great. I’m going to die, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. These tests are perfectly routine. We all die someday, but I don’t think you’ll die today, Mr. Levin.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Benny said. “I’m sick of the game, frankly. What sort of a game is it when your opponent can look at the cards when he deals the hands? I’m beginning to think that Lucy had the best of it.”

“Lucy?”

“My daughter.”

“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“I did. She drowned.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? We are all sorry for what’s inevitable. Piece by piece it is taken away from us. We appear to bargain, but it all comes to the same thing in the end. Death and condolences.”

Julie fluffed the old man’s pillow. “You are in a morbid frame of mind tonight, Mr. Levin, I’ll say that. I’m not sure I can absorb so much philosophy this evening. There are three very sick people on the ward, and some less sick ones that need a bit of coddling.”

Benny chuckled. “That’s the spirit. Youth has no business mucking with philosophy and despair.”

“Not during work hours any way,” Julie said. She left.

It was nearly ten when she returned. Benny was sitting up in bed looking at a photograph.

“He missed this one,” Benny said. “He held it right in his hand, but he thought it was one of Lou’s.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Julie said. She had to go. There were meds to disperse, I.V.’s to regulate.

He handed the photo to her. “It doesn’t look like much, I suppose.”

It didn’t. The photo was black and white, and showed a motel looking like a grey shoe box on its side. There were some vague mountains in the background hoarding rain clouds, and you could almost hear the hiss of tires on a wet highway. A sign said: Parkway Motel. The camera, a cheap box-camera judging by the quality of the image, had been jarred during the exposure, tilting and blurring everything.

“Eileen hugged me just as I snapped it,” Benny said. Benny laughed and took the photo back. “Oh, I don’t expect you to admire the beauty of the photo. Its charms are all internal. That was our honeymoon. We stayed there the first day on our way down to Key West.”

Julie said she had been to Key West a year ago with her parents, and the conversation turned to the despicable nature of land developers and the apathy of the powerful. Than Julie had to get back to work.

Benny watched the eleven o’clock news that evening and then turned the TV off and went into the bathroom. He turned the shower on, brushed his teeth.

When Benny turned back to the shower, the man was standing under the fall of water, his dark suit soaked, his hair plastered against his forehead, his small eyes grim and veiled by the twin waterfalls pouring over the bony ridge of his brow.

“Son of a bitch!” Benny said, stepping backward as though bitten. He slipped then, reached out for a handhold, and caught only a draped towel that came away from its rung, falling with him. The back of his head slammed against the tiled floor.

“Are you all right?” Eileen asked. Her face was inches from his. The shower was still on, the pouring water making a mist behind her head.

“I slipped,” Benny said. “Wow.” Eileen helped him up, an arm around his waist. She was still fully dressed, a dark dress with white dots, and she was soaked. Benny was suddenly aware of his nakedness. He had never been naked with Eileen, and he felt awkward and ungainly. The throb at the back of his head was insignificant.

Eileen dried him and hustled him under the covers. “Are you okay?” she asked, leaning over him.

“I’m fine,” he said, reaching to touch her cheek. “But you are soaked.”

“That’s easily remedied,” his new bride said, and she shucked her dress in one effortless motion, the wet garment rising over her head, her slip following. She walked toward him, glowing, her crooked smile enriched by the fullness of her hips.

“I wish I had a photograph of you right now,” Benny said.

“Not on your life, fellow,” she said, crawling under the covers. “You’ll have to settle for a snapshot of this motel.”

And the shock of her body, its full length falling upon him, clicked the shutter of his heart.