Dad’s crying was big. I asked him if he needed anything and he shook his head no. I wanted to give him space so I told him I’d be back in a little while and I went to the darkroom. I checked on the print dryer, and the contact sheets were dry.
I got the scissors and cut out the little negative-sized pictures and I stuck them into my sketchbook and taped my fortune under it.
Everything serves to further.
I wrote it, too. Everything serves to further.
I opened Why People Take Pictures. I heard Dad blowing his nose upstairs and wondered if one day I should show him the book. Or if maybe he’d seen it and left it hidden for me to find. Maybe this was all planned. Maybe he wanted me to meet Darla on my own terms. Or maybe he wanted me to meet Jasmine on my own terms. You choose.
Next page was a smaller print of Bill—the man with no head. Above it was this: I saw Bill again today. He was in the darkroom with me. Still no head.
Below it was this: Why did you shoot your head off?
As I read those words, Why did you shoot your head off?, I realized that Darla had been trying to find the answer to the same question I was. I didn’t know when her quest started—was it early in life? Had she wondered since she’d heard about it the first time? When do normal people really think about suicide for the first time? Darla was seven when Jim Jones slaughtered his followers in Jonestown and called it mass suicide. Maybe she’d seen it on the news. Maybe it came later, in art school when she learned about Diane Arbus, one of her favorite photographers, who died in 1971—the year Darla was born. Maybe it was Kurt Cobain in ’94. Roy and Darla were big fans.
The more I looked at that page—Why did you shoot your head off?—and compared it to my page—Everything serves to further—the more the two blended together. Maybe I’d found Darla her answer.
Why did he shoot his head off?
Because everything serves to further.
Even if it makes no sense.
Even if it leaves behind a hole so big you can’t breathe some days.
My phone rang. It was Ellie. I ignored it and let her leave a voice mail. And then I checked the voice mail because for all my pretending, I was still on the fence about our friendship… even if she was a dipshit.
“Hey, Glore. Can you call me back? I have to talk to you.”
I didn’t call her back.
But everything serves to further. Even inaction.
Everything serves to further. Even naked pictures that your best friend gives to your husband.
Everything serves to further. Even birthing a baby who will birth another baby who will die in a smoke-filled tunnel sometime in the future.