the little telescope

The woman I have lived with for thirty five years (and is also my wife) has a shiny little telescope that lives in her mind, one that comes and goes as it pleases, occasionally leaving behind a puzzle or an image for her to ponder.

Once it was a snapshot of a scene that involved Peter Haley, an old friend now, but just a photographer at the time, and one whose name I recognized solely by his reputation alone - we'd never met, not even close.

The picture in the little telescope was of Peter (we'd seen his face next a prize photo he'd taken in a magazine), as he approached me during a party of some kind or another, and of us talking and carrying on as if we were the best of friends. From the telescopes narrow point-of-view, it looked to be that we were at some kind of party or another. Blurting out the image a moment or two after it had just occurred to her, completely out of the blue, she stated at the time that "You and him obviously knew each other quite well - you were laughing and talking, clearly very familiar with one other." And then: "You two will become very good friends someday."

A couple of years later Peter and I would briefly cross paths - for the first time - at a sporting event we were shooting for our respective newspapers. There were no magic moments, no bolts or jolts of instant recognition either way, and for a while I thought nothing more of it, mysterious prediction or not. Months later, however, we were both interviewed, and subsequently hired, as part the new photo team for the News Tribune, a paper which had recently come under new ownership in Tacoma. And, what do you know, a few months later we'd be sharing that exact little moment that Linda had spied a few years earlier, through her little telescope.

Such things do occur, it's only for us to decide under what category we file them in our lives. Precognition, or predictable situation? Your guess is as valid as the next, although I personally opt for the "mystical" interpretation, as I have long ago discovered that any life stripped of the mystical is hardly one worth living.

The spyglass begs some additional explanation: She may occasionally peer out into her own life, and into the lives of those in her close orbit, to witness a random hug or stray giggle, a kiss, a warm embrace. But there is also a cautionary note here: because the little telescope is simply that, and does not possess a soul - not to mention a heart - of its own, it may also reveal events or circumstances that are frightening to consider, even painful to know.

The moment of her own death, for instance.

Without elaborating, she says she has witnessed it all, through the tiny lens, and is not afraid, just the opposite, in fact. It was/is a simple moment, she tells me. Perhaps to soften the blow, she tells me that that my face is the last thing on this earth she will see. Without the benefit buffer of a mystic glow, it is perhaps harder to listen to this than it is to have seen it, and no part of this message arrives as the least bit of comfort, at least to me.

The little telescope can be a mischievous one, it seems. Perhaps as time goes on and on, and the nearer to the end it moves, it is simply just running out of new snapshots to share, glimpses to glimpse. Could that be it?

It doesn't speak, although I sense a smile.

Only recently a picture postcard of myself arrived, taken from down on the death promenade. It was an old moment of me, very, very old (or at least, that's what I'm told). My exact age was not in sharp focus, but I was looked to be in my late 70's, maybe a bit older. In the spyglass I was seen walking, alone, along a dusty road. I stopped and slowly bent over to pick up a small branch I encounter in my path. There is a pause and "Pop!" - a little blood vessel bursts in my head. And I drop down into the road, dead as a door nail. As I'm laying there, a small group of children approach me to see what it is the matter. But I am long gone.

What my old friend and the little telescope couldn't have known was that I had already previewed that exact scene myself, almost a whole lifetime ago, when I was still barely a boy. Thirteen.

My visit came in a dream in which I drifted, a dream that is still as clear and real as raindrops: I'm walking alone along a quiet road (just as she says, I am very old), when I stop to pause. From her own vantage, it appeared that I was stopping to pick up a small branch, but that is only how it would appear from a distance, out of speaking distance. In fact, it is not a twig that catches my eye, but a voice that catches my ear. It is a familiar voice, and startles me as being so, yet one I am unable to instantly place it.

I turn my head around to see - is it perhaps someone who has stolen up quietly beside me? Then I see him. And I remember. Everything. Remember that "he" is me, and that this is my last dream and that now, also at last, my time is finally all up. And in that same moment I both vanish, awaken, and reappear. Somewhere entirely else.

I'm still working on the part up to that.

march, 1994: big black dog

A few years short of our new century (and my 40th birthday), an old voice called to beckon, at 4:30 a.m. on our bedroom phone. Never a happy omen.

On this particular morning the sound didn't come as a complete shock - Linda's mother was
in a local nursing facility at the time and was not expected to live out the week - but the voice at the other end gave me pause - it was my older brother.

"I wanted to let you know that Dad died last night."

Under the circumstances, I wasn't exactly sure how to respond. Several weeks earlier he'd phoned as well, timidly inquiring (as much he was able) to see if I would be interested in flying back to Kansas to visit Dad one last time, as if a family. I opted not, and stayed behind. Roger flew back alone. Poetically speaking, a bold stroke.

"I'm sorry for you, Rog."

But, in fact, I was more curious than sorry, and less about the old man's pitiful, final hours then why a son he had routinely beaten the shit out of (at around the age of five) would end up rushing to his bedside in his final hours, except perhaps to hear an apology, which no one on this earth would have expected (or ever received) in the case of Dale H. Hinds. Wife beater, child beater, and worse.

Picturing it all I found equally difficult. What kept pushing its way into my mind was the image of a dog that had lived in our old neighborhood, so many, many years ago. A mean, black dog. Every kid on the block feared it, and hated it, and it hated us.

A handful of years before our family had split up for the first time, we lived in a two-story corner house on Jameson Street, in Old Woolley. In those days, Jameson was a cement-topped street, although it lacked an actual curb, and just a few yards east of us even that distinction ceased - it was where the marked streets ended and gravel and dust began.

In the communal map of a child's mind, our homes, schools and the corner store were connected with an informal and invisible grid of shortcuts and favored paths, which wandered through assorted backyards and alleyways, overgrown vacant lots, local playgrounds, and in very special cases, an abandoned building or two, which could serve as a hiding place, if such a need arose. And occasionally did.

Guarding one such alley was a single vicious, nameless cur that roamed freely the realms between our street and next few running north. He showed no sign of either an owner or home base, and if a dog actually did stand guard at the gates of Hell, at least to our wary handful of five and six year olds, he was it. We referred to him simply as the "Black dog" and avoided him at nearly any cost. But of course there was a catch: his alley was also the quickest direct shortcut to and from our grade school.

Although a Hellion, our experience had lead us to believe he was also a lazy one, and only half the time at best was found to be guarding his post. In fact, many mornings were just fine, and showed no sign of him. But then, just when you had almost forgotten about him, there he was, lurching around the corner with teeth bared back to his ears, and a snarl to send you running, late for school or not, our lunch bags dropped and left for him to savage.

Several of us had even taken the precaution of stashing weapons along the route, just in case. Rocks, bottles, sticks, a broken hammer, the usual items. At some point I'd found an old bean pole, sharpened to an approximately lethal point, that, at least in my imagination, would protect me come what may. I kept it at the ready, tucked under a garage just off the main street on the way in to Black dog alley, and in a thick bush at the other end, and it provided a degree of security that allowed me at least to consider the route a survivable path, although I never had the opportunity chance to actually use it. And likely wouldn't have, if genuinely confronted. But like the others, I stayed lucky.

And then came the day, on the way home from school, on a early, crisp September afternoon, when luck, real-life and illusion smashed headlong in a way it will do only with an innocent life.

I took a look down the alley in question - clear -, slipped my sharpened stick out from under it's hiding place, and preceded home, straight in the direction of Kool-Aid, cinnamon toast and J. P. Patches. I didn't make it. Halfway there I heard him coming.

Or at least had thought I did. I burst out of the alley and ran towards a large vacant field, the last stretch that separated me from the safe island of my own front porch. But I could still hear him. Somewhere. Close.

I looked over my shoulder, thinking that maybe someone else had snuck up behind me,
making a panting sound. But when I turned, I was alone. I turned around and scanned the drying grass across the little field, but saw nothing. Then came a whimper. I moved closer
into the field, sticking close to the skinny path that a thousand small tennis shoes had patted down and carved through its center, step by step.

At first the sound and shape was unclear, but as I clutched my beanpole and inched warily, deeper into the tall grass, a form finally came into clear view: it was Black dog, he was hurt, and hurt bad, obviously either hit or run over by a car, and left for dead. Even at six, it occurred to me that, given his track record in the neighborhood, it may have been no accident.

Still alive, but just barely, he was bleeding and shivering horribly. With a Herculean effort, he'd somehow managed to drag himself a few yards into the field and out of the street, but from the looks of things he wouldn't be moving much further: The grass underneath his spotty-black belly was matted with thick, dark blood and one leg was twisted strangely under his one side, out of sight. Bad.

Although I wasn't about to move any closer, it was clear that most of the fight had already leaked out of him, and when he did see me, and raised his snout to aim his yellow gaze in my direction, it was not with the fierce, bared teeth I'd come to recognize as the image of pure fear. It was a helpless, suffering stare that was, with no other words to describe it, eye to eye, creature to creature. Without dropping my stick, I sunk to my knees and just watched him.

Die.

It was me and Black dog. And I squatted there and waited, until his panting slowed, his head bowed, and his tiny whimpers faded to be only the air moving in and past his whiskers, and then did not move at all. When dark came, I stood up and walked the half-block to home.

By the time I reached it I knew that death had came to us both that afternoon, in the same gold-grass field. Me, for the first time, and for Black dog, a last time. There was no fear left in my heart now, only shame, and pity, and sorrow. For the both of us. I had seen Death wink at me and would never forget its face. Ever.

So when my brother asked me to ride with him back to see Dad one last time, I knew entirely what I was passing up.

For that poor, angry, dumb, black creature I had spilled out my heart and had it broken, piece by piece, drop by drop, until I was almost dead myself.

Men and fathers, at least my own, did not warrant such a privilege.

my old girlfriend from Paris

The face certainly comes as no shock to our old friends and confidentes. Andromeda, She's French, and a tad older than me.

She's been with me since I was just sixteen, all through high school (we meet quite unexpectantly on a shopping trip). She was never any kind of secret as far as my family was concerned, after all she stayed in my bedroom and and that was that.

When I was married, at 26, it went without being said that she was just part of the arrangement. And the three of us, Linda, Andromeda and I, have been pretty good company.

to be continued...

news clips: death goes click

Viewed on the scale of a map, or from a great altitude, roads and highways often appear almost as straights lines, linking them ever so neatly between given way points, but that is hardly ever actually the case.

Except for the unusually featureless expanses of a desert or flat grid of Midwestern farmland, they each will invariably possess any number of unique curves, swoops and corners, and that applies to almost every road leading to anywhere.

Our very own lives suffer this same illusion, and particularly so when observed by strangers.

As horrible as it sounds now (which it does, and should) I once spent sunny weekends stalking motor vehicle accidents, the kind of which some newspaper photographers seem to specialize in, and along a certain road. I would agree that aspects of a pursuit such as this are, by its very nature, somewhat despicable, and in writing this I will mention that I neither seek forgiveness or expect it, except to say it was not done out of blood lust. It was all about pursuing the meager local offerings of journalism's sacred Three Ds: Death, Destruction and Drama. Such as they were.

Chuckanut Drive, a Washington byway often cited as one of America's most beloved and scenic drives on the Pacific Coast, was a such a place for me, and specifically for the above stated purpose. I do not pretend that I did it solely because "it's my job" (or was at that time), or that it was the most distateful aspect of my then profession (it wasn't). This is not to say I am a completely heartless bastard, only that where there are accidents there is drama, and where there is drama there is always the opportunity for a dramatic - perhaps stunning - news photograph to be made. Heartless bastards not withstanding.

And there were plenty. Of both.

A biker who cut the one last swooping corner into the oncoming lane - into the grill work of a 3/4 ton van filled with vacationers. Another who took his girlfriend out for a fast ride but lost control in the gravel of a sharp curve, then slid into a guardrail, rocketing them both down the cliff (he lived, she did not). A young woman who left a late-night party too late and was found the next day, 100 feet below, twisted into in a pile of dead leaves. They are not photographs of events that were ever published, except in a place I would choose to forget them, but won't.

Now, it must be pointed out that motor vehicle accidents, and especially fatalities, share a certain morbid irony. The more terrifically horrible they are, the greater - and lesser - chances are they will rate a photograph in the local rag. It's a tricky business for newsrooms, because while technically being real news ("spot news", to photogs) they will generally stand a slim chance of ever seeing ink, at least in the photographic rough. Editors avoid them like dog shit (not an undo comparison, in some cases), mommies don't like them, and a whole lot of other people don't either (not to mention the grief-stricken friends or relatives of the injured or deceased). Wise photographers learn to shoot around the ugliness, thus sparing their editors the dilemma of deciding whether or not to publish, and their readers the unvarnished reality as it honestly appears, year after year, tragedy after tragedy.

But again, death or heinous injury still holds the eager promise of high drama, and that is the magnetic force that attracts news photographers like flies, myself included. In this instance it meant cruising a lovely but occasionally perilous 10-mile strip of two lane blacktop winding north along the coastline cliffs into Bellingham.

There's one more thing I should mention about Chuckanut Drive - it was where I witnessed my first fatality, so in this sense we shared a sort of personal history, albeit a regretful one. That same accident (a motorcyclist hit broadside when a sedan ran a stop sign doing 40 mph) was also my first glimpse of a dead human being, or very soon-to-be. So I was a sort of a double-virgin at the scene, all eyes and with very little to say.

Such events stamp deep impressions in one's mind, if not their souls, and that's no matter their professional intentions. As paramedics and police went quietly about their grim business, so did I. Even when there is no decently publishable photo to be made (and with such happenings, more often than not, that is the case), there is still always a story, though it may not always make ink, for one reason or another.

This time is was about 16-year old girl who took a chance at a familiar intersection and lost badly, though not as badly as the teenager whose life she had just ended. By the time I arrived the motorcyclist was already dead - or very soon would be - sprawled across the road a few feet from the twisted hulk of his motorbike. There was very little blood (as was not unusual, I would learn). He wore no helmet, this fact explained as a horrible fluke by his parents when they were briefly interviewed in following days edition. He was simply unlucky, and only for a split-second.

The girl, the motorist, had already assumed a stunned pose of shrunken grief, and was kneeling, entirely alone, beneath a large fir tree not far from the intersection.

In terms of imagery, it was a scene neither fantastic nor even remarkable, except for its obvious tragedy. Looking back now, with the memory of having photographed literally dozens of accidents, fires, rescues, drownings, shootings and what-have-you, on the whole I'd say it was just about average, as fatalities go. Quiet, cold, sad.

For the most part, the others present were all professionals, or seasoned volunteers, who went about their work in a well-trained fashion. Their apparent lack of surprise or shock spoke to a presumption that there was probably little here that each had not witnessed too many times previously, and likely far worse. They undertook their role with the same steady cadence and precision as might a highway work crew, each man or woman silently at their own specialized task, secure in their own mind as to where their job fit into the team effort. The same could not be said for myself.

State patrolmen coolly measured and mapped the distances of tire marks and positions of the wrecks themselves, estimating speeds and angles of impact. As paramedics and fire personnel attended the motorcyclist as best they could, others set to sweeping up or gathering the assorted pieces of catastrophe - a shattered headlight, an empty shoe, a brown leather wallet, this in addition to a scattered bag of groceries that the motorcyclist has carried on his last, short errand from a local roadside market. Three hours later you'd have driven past and never guessed what had happened, if it occurred to you that anything had happened there at all.

In every sense, it was long ways off from the way you tend to picture such things in your head when you read about them, and definitely a far cry from the sirens, screams and body fluid-drenched dioramas that you see depicted on TV and in the movies.

If you had been there earlier, in the minutes soon after, I would guess that only three individuals might have stood out from the rest, if only subtly.

One was alone in the middle of the intersection, covered with a yellow cotton blanket, and one other was sinking slowly under the first waves of everlasting regret, alone, under a tree.

I had not captured a "moment". At the same time I received some friendly advice from an inner demon I thought of as being strangely benevolent, under the circumstances. The message was as clear as if it had been whispered into my ear:

Watch, carefully. Do not feel.

It was a good tip, and intended to help keep me alive.

On the inside.

news clips: a first pop

The first photograph of mine ever published in a daily paper was of a firecracker exploding in the hand of a kid standing in a Mount Vernon parking lot. It wasn't a "great" shot, but it did "capture the moment" (see glossary) and it was taken on a slow news day, which was also the Fourth of July, two lessons in successful photojournalism which are worth noting because they amply demonstrate how and why certain images reach the public, often in lieu of much better ones.

It was 1/4 incentive and 2/4 "newsworthy", chiefly, once again because it was a certain event happening on a certain day when a certain need arose. The other 1/4 came from my motor drive (at 1/1000th of a second), which captured an image that I honestly never even actually saw happen at that moment, at least with my own two eyes.

If I'd kept a copy of it (which I never bothered to do) I'd show it off to you now, but again, I didn't, and because of that you will likely imagine that it was far better than it really was. That's one more important thing: the facts surrounding a particular photo are often less interesting than the actual image itself. Your imagination will serve to fill in the blanks (the fragments of paper bursting in all directions, the look on the kids face), applying your own standards and imagination in the process, and I will gladly take the credit. I'd be crazy not to. That's the gig. When you win, you're a whiz, and when you screw up, the readers don't even know about it. Magic. Illusion, really. But that's the nature of the gig, as I said.

Not much later, after I'd signed on with that first daily paper (the Skagit Valley Herald) back in 1984, a favorite newsroom joke was repeated to me, which was: if you got more than two photographers in a room together, the first thing they'd do is appoint an awards committee. Funny, and also not entirely inaccurate.

Now, I'm sure no stranger to photo contests, nor to the large helping of foolish pride frequently attached to pursuing them. They can be heart breakers, but also career makers. And especially for the unknown photographer, they can provide a crucial means by which their best work, and their name, can be seen outside the small town where they may feel professionally marooned. In some cases this will mean it is shared with top editors and photographers from across the entire U.S., or even around the world. The effect of that kind of exposure (pardon the expression) can be nothing short of miraculous. My own career might have stalled right where it began were it not for a handful of winning photos that caught the eye of just the right folks, at just the right time. More on that later.

There was a time (I need also mention that it is a tradition now almost wholly extinct), where most newsroom employees (which includes reporters, photographers, editors, layout folks, advertising people, the entire lot) all began their respective careers at the very bottom and worked their way up, inch by (column) inch. In that distant, semi-non-computer-stone-age era there was still such a thing as a "print-out" (news copy being physically printed out before being passed on the next editor), and subsequently, a need for some poor schmuck to shuttle paper from desk to desk to desk. Copyboy, was the vernacular of the day, but in '85 it was a job description with a short lifespan.

From that lowly post (and a 35mm camera, or ninth-grade grasp of the English language) you could conceivably work your way up to be a part-time "stringer", when you would occasionally be asked to cover a story or two, which very likely would be "breaking news" or a piss-grade local sports event. The same rule applied to any prospective photogs, except their lowest rung would be shooting "real estate" photos (in fact, houses for sale or rent), or used cars for the advertising sections.

With signature aplomb, it was little time before us "shooters" began competing for top honors, which in this case would come for having invested the very least amount of time possible required to shoot the actual picture. Note: When considering this dubious distinction, it is important to consider the extremely hybrid - and insular - environment of the average newsroom. In this particular case, the winner eventually was a photographer who not only didn't leave his car to get his shot, but simply photographed it by rolling down his drivers-side window and firing his motor drive as he (briefly) slowed the car while passing by. 1st Place!

Honors, by necessity, had to be gathered such as they were. On one car lot "assignment" I recall having to wait while a dealer coasted a vehicle out onto the lot by hand, not just because it simply lacked a battery, but also because it would not have started even if it had had one. This so that I could take an unobstructed photo of the vehicle for his weekly half-page ad, which proclaimed "Great Little Commuter - Needs a New Home!". True story, needless to mention.

On another occasion, as I scribbled down the details of a dealers weekly lineup, the sales staff (composed largely of men five to ten years older than me, mind you) took turns shooting me in the ass with paper clips, fired over their desks from across the room.

These were humbling affairs, for reporters and photogs alike, but their sting was always softened with the hopeful prospect of a shot at the real deal, which meant landing a full-time job at real newspaper (any newspaper), and the opportunity to be working on "real" news stories on a daily basis.

Starting out was always a tough gig for news folks, and one fueled far more by fantasy than the desire for overtime pay, an idealistic inclination that most any newspaper was (and still is, I'm guessing) only too happy to oblige. The "big" assignment beckoned.

As it turns out, however, when compared to sleazy car lots and real estate ads, your first so-called breaking news or sporting events often measure only a notch or two up on the scale of mediocrity, and - in grand newspaper tradition - they're frequently garnered standing in the rain, or working late on weeknights and holidays, most often with the verbal arrangement that your work time is officially "off the clock".

But, after all, what is life without the fantasy of fame or fortune? Or at the very least, a photo credit?

after the fremont thing

My wife, Linda, occasionally reminds me that in a blog, entitled "orange chair pictures", I hardly ever include any "pictures". I agree.

Even though I no longer earn my living by taking photographs, I confess that almost every night I dream that I am still out roaming with my camera bag, making snaps, meeting new faces.

Unlike my old, veteran and behemoth shoulder-lug, in the bag I carry now are nondescript items much closer to means of personal, rather than professional, survival. There is my wallet, a flashlight, extra batteries, Pepto-Bismal, prescription reading glasses and a variety of items that let me lead an orderly life. Lately, this includes a notebook, several pens, a few unnamed meds and two or three unpaid bills, just to help me keep track. Most importantly in there, however, I still pack a camera, although it is not very high-falootin' by today's standards. But it is reliable, and gets the job done in a fashion I find predictable and pleasing.

Today, spending a few hours with Linda at her Fremont flea market thing, I managed to record a good image or two, most notably of Frank, our friend and a premier junker. The two photos you see are my favorites of the day. One is plucked from a pile of abanonded old photos showing a young woman - whose name I shall never know - young, beautiful and sporting a new gown on her front lawn, obviously for a pageant or prom. Love that picture.

The other is our good friend Frank, also a beauty. I adore this photograph as well - far more, really - for the trust it took to take, and that it speaks of everything about my own self that I lack the honesty to tell you.

So here are photographs, just my same my orange pictures really, although somewhat more tightly cropped.

Thanks Frank.

bruce: weekends, radios, electric chairs

Workplace anniversaries are typically marked with perfunctory, polite accolades and tidy, room-temperature anecdotes, spiced up with few mildly embarrassing snapshots, and mine was no different.

Later that afternoon, as I zeroed in on our parking lot after quitting time, I was surprised to be gently confronted by a woman I did not recognize having met, on campus or otherwise. As she spoke she struck a classic poker face, vacant of both smile or frown: "They didn't mention the electric chair." she said.

For a long moment I mentally stumbled, speechless, and upped my effort to place her face. Nothing. Electric chair...? Then it hit me: during the first days at my new job, the employees had gathered for the annual after-hours Christmas party. Among the usual festivities and chit chat was also circulated a fresh pad of post-its, upon one of which we were directed to scribble "something about you that no one knows", to be left unsigned. Favoring a persona of vaguely weird over the ubiqitous cuddly or cute, I jotted that I "..had once constructed an operational electric chair". Party goers where later playfully challenged to match this "secret" with the wide range of mostly familiar faces.

My note and I were eventually paired up and, apart from a few snickers, that was that. Again I mention, this event being ten years prior to the awkward moment I was currently sharing in the parking lot. "You remembered that?" I asked. "Well, yes." These two words came delicately framed with a facial expression which hinted kindly at the obvious, and in this instance might best be summed up as being Vaguely Weird. Ouch.

But weirdness is spawned not from sunshine, a poet may have said.

In the Pacific Northwest of the mid-60's, rainy weekends were not typically special days, and very often only especially-boring. It was such a day, left alone to drift about our fir-enshrouded house, that the challenge became to find out how best to make a good time of it, in spite of the weather.

On summer Saturdays I could walk the train tracks out of town for two or three miles and pay a visit to Bruce's new residence (a much smaller abode just off Hiway 9), but during winter it usually came down to making phone calls and hoping that someone would just show up and help you pass the time.

Burt, the latest of my short string of stepfathers, was an electrical engineer who had a passion for electronic gizmos even greater than my own. One of his best was a console reel-to-reel tape recorder that he would use to compile hours of Louis Armstrong jazz tracks for later listening. For me personally, this was a toy almost as much a delight as a movie camera (or video camera, if it were 25 years or so in the future). In a similar vein, it seemed so natural at the time that both Bruce and I collected the same, enhanced stereo sound effect albums (LPs), that the fact bore no scrutiny between us whatsoever. Together with Bruce, Burt's tape recorder and our pile of sound effects records, every MAD magazine or ARCHIE comic became a potential radio script, which we populated with an ambitious and ridiculous assortment of voice characterizations limited only by our imagination and a mid-adolescent larynx.

But, getting back to the electric chair, that was Bruce's idea. And a short time later, his sincere regret, of course.

The whole thing began when Bruce, alone at home in his basement, had accidentally dropped a large vacuum-style radio bulb on the cement floor. When it shattered, it sent aloft a pale cloud of an anonymous gaseous nature, potent enough to send him running for the stairs, and then to his backyard in order to avoid fainting after his whiff of the mysterious and unnamed fumes.

This event appears to have posed to Bruce a reverie of sorts, but not in the cautious direction of self-preservation that one might have expected. Instead, he began to quietly ponder a diabolical use for his newly discovered supply of "gas". By his own admission, his first inclination came in the thought of constructing an actual "chamber", possibly employing a hollowed-out hot water heater for the vessel itself, it being the approximately correct size to encapsulate a like-sized teenager. Into this sealed vault he could then vent the odorous contents one of his broken vacuum bulbs, and then "just watch". Then what?

His zeal for this particular contraption lost steam when he began an actual examination of the family hot water heater. It was soon obvious that the transformation from heater to gas-chamber would demand heavy labor, too much, he decided. But with his appetite for mock-execution already wetted, he wasn't about to give up, and began looking at alternatives to his original plans for "gas". Iron Maidens and guillotines posed much the same obstacle as the gas chamber - too labor intense - and while a trap-door gallows held a certain charm, he ultimately judged it too pedestrian.

It was about at this point that my Saturday blahs and Bruce's gruesome imaginings met head-long, in the way of a serendipitous visit to my stepfathers wood shop. It was only by chance that on this particular day an ordinary, straight-back wooden chair had been left there by person or persons unknown, but there in the sawdust it did linger. Bruce did not, his inspiration once more aflame. An Electric Chair. Yes.

Rummaging my house and garage for the additional components required (electrical wiring, some steel grating, assorted bolts, straps and a helmet of some kind), we devised a blueprint on the fly that bloomed before us as if it were a sunflower in a dark swamp.

In less than two hours it was completed, right down to the leather leg straps we'd manufactured from an old belt. As much as possible, every necessary detail was attended to, including a five-inch eye bolt that could be "screwed" down into the head of the due-to-be-executed. Wooden manacles (sculpted carefully from plywood using a jigsaw) hooped around ankles, wrists and elbows with equal, solid security.

So there we stood, admiring our greatest creation, without doubt the pinnacle of our most heartfelt and malevolent mischief. The Chair. And if there was ever to be a single moment wherein our two peculiar-formed psyches merged to form a single, monstrous mind, this was it.

Of course, Bruce was a fool for ever letting me convince him to be strapped in. To say the least.

With every appendage secured or strapped into place, it was now all he could manage to simply twist his wrist, not to mention in any way actually free himself. True to his vision, he himself had made certain escape was virtually impossible, and he knew it. He also realized that, in as much as he'd become obsessed with the construction of this screwball abomination, so was I now being swept up with the notion of convincing him he would be it's first test pilot. So to speak.

As he bounced and squirmed atop the chairs steel-lined seat (an electrical conduit cleverly fashioned from the bottom rack of my mothers refrigerator) I held up the electric cord wired to the chair and dangled it absently in the direction of the electric outlet next to my stepfather's workbench. Try as he might (and did, desperately), he was trapped.

But of course I let him go, eventually. And he had his day as well, when my own time eventually came. In both instances we remained close friends.

While she doesn't actually know me, or for that matter ever heard of Bruce, or even the slightest in particulars regarding our friendship, the woman in the parking lot was right.

In fact, a few minutes later that same evening, as I drove home and caught myself giggling out loud, I was sure of it.