She knew how to sneak out now. No problem at all. But holding four cameras was a challenge.
Outside she felt a slight end-of-March drizzle. Spring was so close, but the air remained cold and dreary. In her front yard she spotted a few buds. She stepped on them as she walked across the lawn to the garbage.
The trash bins sat by the curb. Tillie put the cameras down next to them.
She grabbed her tiny range finder first. It was easy to break. She just held it, said her goodbyes, and threw it down onto the road. It cracked on the concrete, and with one stomp from her good leg, she turned it into a piece of trash.
This would make everybody happy. No more “stalking,” no more ruining lives.
Her huge film camera, the one that used to be her mom’s, the one that her Google research told her was the same kind of medium-format film camera Vivian Maier used to secretly capture people’s lives on the streets of Chicago, would be more difficult to destroy. Tillie lifted it above her head with both hands.
Art should capture something true, Ms. Martinez had said. But Ms. Martinez had just been a big lie.
With a grunt, Tillie hurled the camera onto the cement as hard as she could.
No one wants the real truth. Jake hadn’t wanted to see that he was just another sad kid from a broken family. And she hadn’t wanted to see that she was just a broken girl. But he was sad, and she was broken.
The lens cracked into a dozen shards, but only a tiny section of the camera’s body came off, and Tillie cursed.
It wasn’t her body that was the broken part. No. It was her. She was awkward. A lurker, a freak. Was that because she was in pain nearly all the time? Was that because people either stared at her or looked away as fast as they could when she walked down the street? Maybe. But it didn’t really matter why.
“Come on,” she said aloud. “Break.” She kicked the camera with her good leg.
Except that it mattered to her mom, who didn’t let her go a second without reminding her that she was different, that she was alone.
“Break!” she commanded with another kick.
And it mattered to her dad. The “why” meant everything to her dad.
Tillie took the metal top off the trash can and held it up high.
I’m so sorry for what I did to you … he’d said.
Tillie brought the trash can lid down onto the camera with a loud crash. The camera splintered into pieces.
Next, Tillie grabbed her best friend, her beautiful DSLR, the one that had captured most of her Lost and Found shots, and placed it by the scraps of metal and glass that lay before her. She lifted the lid again.
Oh, yeah? You’re sorry, Dad?
She brought it down. A couple of fragments of the camera flew off the curb and onto the street’s pavement.
Then why did he just ignore her?
She bashed it again. Harder.
So they got into an accident! He hurt her! By accident! Because of bad luck! Okay, fine!
She smashed it harder.
Did that mean he had to stop laughing and smiling? Did that mean he had to stutter and mope and be ashamed of her? And anyway, he hadn’t done anything to her! This all had nothing to do with him! She would’ve found and loved photographs no matter what happened to her, no matter what path she’d taken. It was who she was!
But not anymore.
Tillie slammed the lid down on the remains of her Lost and Found camera again.
No more “stalker.”
And again.
No more freak.
And again.
Three cameras lay decimated before her. Garbage.
The last camera to destroy was the Polaroid camera her grandpa had given her, the one that no longer worked. It would fall apart with one strike, she knew, but she couldn’t do it herself. She pressed it to her cheek, and placed it in the middle of the road. The next car that came would do the dirty work for her.
She looked out at the mess she’d created. A picture did say a thousand words, Tillie thought. And her pictures had been her screams, showing the world that she was on the outside of it. She only watched, lived in life’s periphery, told other people’s stories … And now, without her photos, she’d just be silent.
Sweeping up the other cameras’ remains, she put them into the trash bit by bit, and that was that. As she walked back into the house, she heard a car drive by and the Polaroid camera crumple beneath it.
There you go, Dad, thought Tillie. No more cameras.