Hue

Hue

         The images fly before David Fisher’s eyes in an indiscernible blur, each one jettisoning to the left, one right after the other. It’s become like an automatic reflex to him now. He doesn’t even see the scenes depicted anymore. They are broken down into their component colors. This one is too green, so add a little magenta. Oops, this one could use some yellow. So on and so forth; he doesn’t even need to look down at his fingers working the color control keys. He just sees the effects on the screen in front of him. Sitting in the cushy, grey chair his other senses are muted. He hears the muffled thump of the enlarger lamp encased within the machine, giving it an eerie heartbeat quality. He senses the movement of groups of customers determinedly walking by the lab towards where they pick-up or drop-off film. Some walk faster than others and sometimes he’s vaguely reminded of fish in an aquarium. Other than that there are only the colors. He fears the lingering odor of chemicals in the air has forever subdued his sense of smell.
 
         His day is measured in these long, reddish-brown strips of 24 or 36 inch-and-a-half-long rectangles. Most of the rectangles are identical to the thousands that came before them. Birthdays, weddings, beaches, children; sometimes it seems like there is only one family in the entire town.
 
         On other times the monotony is broken by pictures of such a lewd and taboo nature that he would be shocked if this job hadn’t done such an effective job of jading his mind to such things. He often muses over the dark, hidden underside of his small and painfully conservative town. They still have Blue Laws for Chrissakes! It is amusing and he feels empowered by what he considers to be the key to dirty little secrets that no one else could know. David chuckles to himself. He looks around the lab. The walls seemed barren, even with a train of framed photos (some of which he took himself) wrapping themselves around the lab. The white tiled floor was kept spotless in order to reduce the amount of dust, which mars the photo quality. The printer (a large, off-white, 6-foot by 4-foot box) and the C-41 film processor (a smaller, off-white, 4-foot by 3-and-a-half-foot box) took up most of the space and were pushed against the left side of the wall. The work counter ran its way down the right hand wall, which had an opening by the printer so customers could watch the lab techs work. It really was a place that felt both full of life and lifeless.
 
         He is scheduled to be alone today because Tuesdays are usually slow. Summer is coming to a close and he’s busy at work with beach pictures. These are particularly irritating to print because the film is usually over-exposed from the bright beach sun. It makes turning out a decent shot almost impossible. He’s finishing the last frame on one such roll and he sees the manager, Mr. Hammersmith, approaching from the right.
 
         “Hey Dave. Just wanted to let you know that some students will be dropping by later. They want to photograph some of the stuff around here. Don’t let them get any logos or product names in their shots if you can help it, ok? Other than that just keep working like normal. Maybe show them ‘round a bit.”
 
         “Sounds good Mr. H.” Mr. Hammersmith pats David’s arm and walks back to the sales counter. In actuality, it doesn’t sound good at all. Hammersmith is a decent old guy and runs the shop well, but really needs to learn how to say no. He let an elementary school classroom into the lab once and it resulted in chaos. This must be Summer School students or something. It can’t be good news.
 
         David decides to just get through these rolls and not think about it. Hopefully, it won’t be as busy when they get here. He pulls another overexposed beach roll from the negative stand. If he doesn’t darken them enough, they will be too washed out. If he darkens them too much, they get muddy. There is no way to win. These show mostly teen kids though. They probably won’t really care how the pictures look. Not for the most part.
 
         To David’s relief, he actually gets most of the work done and now he’s just waiting for them to show up. He eats half of a peanut butter sandwich before returning to the printer to twiddle his thumbs. Then he sees them, two teenagers talking to Mr. Hammersmith. He is surprised to see that one of the students is Chris, standing there with his eyes on the floor while Mr. H prattles on and on. Every time David sees Chris he has to restrain himself from blurting out “Hey! I’ve seen every inch of your mom!”
 
         Chris’s mother, Mrs. Calloway, simultaneously amused and revolted David. She is the President of the School Board—District 8. She is in her late fifties, tall, olive-skinned, with long bushy black hair and—with the help of her lawyer husband—has been subject to mass amounts of plastic surgery. Unfortunately, every aspect and type of surgery from her head to her toes is dreadfully apparent in the kind of pictures she takes of herself. Roll after roll of her sitting in her bedroom spreading her legs, or bending over, or shoving objects of various shapes and sizes into one or more of her orifices. If that isn’t bad enough, she always asks for David by name.
 
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         He recalls one time she came in at the end of spring. It had been a busy day and he was concentrating at the printer. He hadn’t seen her enter the store, but he heard her familiar shrill at the counter.
 
         “I would like only David to print these, please. I trust his ability.”
         David’s head shot up like a cat startled out of sleep. He looked down the white lab past the printer and eyed Christine, who was standing by the humidifier loading undeveloped cans of film into the C-41. She looked at him and giggled.
 
         “Sounds like it’s your lucky day again, Dave!”
 
         David grunted. “Yeah. Go me.” He said, and continued printing while mentally preparing himself for what was to come. He didn’t have long to wait. Christine brought the fully developed strip of Mrs. Calloway’s negatives over to David to print. “Here you go,” she said, “Mrs. Calloway asked for you specifically, as usual.” She clipped the negatives to the negative stand and walked, laughing, back to her workstation. David grabbed the negatives and slid the first frame into the negative tray where it firmly clicked. He was pleasantly surprised to see a simple photo of Mrs. Calloway and her son Chris standing side by side on a field of grass, his purple graduation robes contrasting the green of the background foliage nicely. David put extra effort into making the grass especially green for this one. Chris had gone to school with David’s younger brother Anthony for years. David remembered him as being pretty shy whenever he came over to the house. The pictures were a nice change of pace.
 
         He went through a few more graduation poses and smiling faces when, boom, right there before him was the obscenely close-up vagina of Mrs. Calloway. David couldn’t help rolling his eyes. Here we go again. A few more frames of her nude posing went by and suddenly four or five frames of family photos ended the roll. In these shots the family was gathered around a lavishly set dinner table, pictures adorned the far wall, Chris still in his graduation robes. It dawned on David that Mrs. Calloway had excused herself from her son’s graduation celebration for a few minutes in order to take pictures of herself naked in the bedroom. It was astonishing.
 
         When Mrs. Calloway walked towards the pick-up counter an hour later, she stopped by the lab to address David, her hands on her hips.
 
         “Are my pictures done?” she asked with a smirk.
 
         “Yeah, they’re ready for pick-up.” He answered, avoiding her gaze.
 
         “Oh good. I thought you would know.” She gave him a sly wink and moved on. David suppressed a shudder. He was happy for her burgeoning sexual freedom, but he would have been just as happy not to be such an integral part of it.
 
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         Now, three months later, David watches and he realizes how tall Chris has gotten. His jet black hair is cropped shorter than usual and he’s well dressed in black slacks and a white, button-down collared shirt. Around his neck is a new Nikon F5. The other student is a girl about Chris’ age with an older Pentax around her neck. She is also well dressed in similar black slacks and white blouse, her hair hangs loosely around her face. They start walking towards the lab with Mr. Hammersmith.
 
         “Hey Chris.” David says quickly.
 
         “Hey, Dave.”
 
         Mr. Hammersmith’s eyes widen momentarily. “Oh, you know each other already?”
 
         “Yeah Chris used to know my little brother.” He turns to address the girl, holding out his hand. “I don’t know you, though.”
 
         She takes his hand and shakes it. “I’m Mandy. We just want to learn some stuff and take some shots. We won’t be here long. Promise.”
 
         “Alright, I guess they’re all yours David,” Mr. Hammersmith says with a wave of his hand like he was sweeping them into the lab. He turns and walks back to the sales floor, where he starts straightening some camera accessories. David turns sideways and presents the lab to the students as if he were the model presenting game show prizes. Mandy explains that they are taking a summer photography course at the Community College and thought it would be funny to use one-hour photo technology as the subject for their final project.
 
         “It was Chris’s idea, actually,” she says, indicating Chris, who makes no indication that he hears her.
 
         David shows them how film is loaded, two-rolls at a time, into the C-41 processor through an opening at the front of the machine. The finished, developed negatives are matched with their receipts and taken to the printer for prints. Both machines are basically large tubs filled with the developing chemicals and the film or photo paper is guided through each chemical on a conveyor system. The two students snap shots from different angles. David catches Chris giving him an odd stare. He looks away and Chris quietly goes back to snapping photos. It reminds him of one of the times Anthony brought Chris over after school. Their parents had been away for a couple of days. Anthony was in a fury, yelling at Chris for something he had done. Apparently, Chris had freaked out at school and attacked another student for no reason. Anthony kept yelling about how Chris always blames the wrong people for everything. David had been reading a comic book when they came in—a classic four-color, where the hues of objects were composed of thousands of tiny dots—and he glanced up to see what the commotion was about. Chris was giving Anthony that odd stare, keeping totally silent.
 
         David then focuses on the now, and decides to lead them into the back room and show them where the chemicals are mixed in three large containers. He shows them the Silver Recovery Unit, with which silver from film emulsion was extracted and turned for profit. It is all probably much more than they want to learn, but he has spent 13 years of his life working here and feels like imbuing everything with its own special significance. This is what I do, he wants to say. The other stores in this mall exist only to pimp their crap on everyone. But here, I provide a real service. I provide memory. I provide truth.
 
         They return to the lab and Chris crouches low behind the C-41 to get a shot of negative strips being led out of the machine fully developed. The other girl, what’s-her-name, is composing what she probably thinks would be an interesting portrait of the compressed air can and some cotton gloves. She’s even making a square with her hands and looking through it at her subject. David chuckles to himself and tries to stop himself from grinning. Customers are making their way in and there is work to be done.
 
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         The day draws to a close much like any other. The summer days are still very long and the blue sky is only beginning to be overcome with dark gray. The business has slowed for a bit and David looks out of the large Plexiglas windows at some children playing stickball in the mall parking lot. Why isn’t anyone taking pictures of this? David sees the portrait in his mind’s eye. Three kids playing their game at a worm’s eye angle, surrounded by cars and enclosed overhead by that graying sky. Did he ever play outside like that when he was a kid? Not that he could remember.
 
         The night’s orders are all done, boxed, and sent to the pick-up bin. David grabs the green-handled broom and begins sweeping the floor. He sweeps with a little more gusto than usual. He thinks about his little lesson from earlier that day and a feeling of warmth spreads through his chest, a smile works its way at the corner of his mouth. He feels like the day has given him a sense of purpose. He starts swaying to the rhythm of the broom swishing across those blank, colorless tiles. Maybe he will treat himself to a movie tonight.
 
         After closing, David decides to walk the long way around the mall to his car. The cooling night breeze quickens his pace and he finds that every one of his steps is accompanied by a subtle hop. He doesn’t know why his spirits are so high, but he isn’t going to knock it. He wonders what is playing tonight at the theatre when he sees his car. It’s a green 1997 Honda Accord that he bought used about 3 years ago. He grins again when he thinks about how reliable it has been to him. He reaches into his pockets and digs around for his keys when he notices a huge silver swath scraped into the green paint on his car door.
 
         That’s when David Fisher feels something crack into the back of his skull, catapulting his head forward, and then with a hard thud, it hits the hood of his car and shoots back. He lands on his back on the warm, gravelly asphalt of the parking lot. He opens his eyes and sees the form of a young man silhouetted against the gradually darkening sky. Chris’s voice comes from the specter, but David can barely hear. Something about his home, something wrong with Chris’s home? The shape leans closer to David and he sees it is holding a length of wood in one hand and something else in the other. Chris’s shape lets a thick strand of viscous saliva fall from its mouth and onto David’s face. It let’s fly the objects in its other hand—some small rectangles of paper and they land on the pool of spittle. Somehow, David intuits that they are the old photos of Mrs. Calloway and he knows it to be true. He doesn’t know which ones and it doesn’t matter. They are all the same. That thought gives way to dizzy slew of thoughts involving him still sitting in his work chair or being thankful he wasn't subjected to a plank full of nails.
 
         Chris’s silhouette leaves David’s field of vision in a run and all he can see now is the sky. There are some outlines of birds and clouds slowly drifting to the left. Then even these blur away until all that is left are the colors.