When It Costs Too Much

lost here. ok, well here goes... again.

i blame this posting upon myself, and i also blame its lateness there too. (i just needed a wee siesta after fiesta, sorry. oh and there was the spurs game as well.) oh, and have a good cinco de mayo (if this actually makes it out before then) and go spurs go.

and i'd like to wish sprout, author of "this gift," a happy birthday, but i can't cause his isn't for months. so instead, read his story and then e-mail him (and if you wanna pester "kevin and justin" author peter to update as well, that wouldn't be a bad thing).

oh, and don't forget to visit the chat room (the link's somewhere around here... i think maybe on the boyband page, up at the top). any comments, criticisms, or constructs for furthering the plot are welcome, if you'd like to send them (txdman2000@yahoo.com). And you can send me a flame, if ya want; just don't be surprised if you get a howler back, yourself (i'll borrow hedwig for the occasion).

disclaimer: this isn't real. it's not meant to imply anything about the persons depicted within. (i.e. kinda similar to 'layla' by derek and the dominoes vs. 'layla' from mtv unplugged. sure they both have eric clapton singing them, but one barely knows they have the same lyric, to the point where they are basically two completely different things.) if you're too young, you aren't supposed to read this, so please don't. if you're easily offended, get over it or don't read and go away.

oh, and the terms 'mario' and 'mario cart' are probably trademarked by nintendo.

and without further ado (since this almost has nothing to have much ado about)...

• • • • • • • • • • Chapter 2: Rites of Passages - - - - - - - - - -

"Dammit!"

I looked up from the sulfurous liquid, and into the now overpowered safe light. Even earlier, under its faint red glow, when the image gradually appeared while swimming in the yellow stop bath, I had thought my newest print was too dark. I'd hoped it wasn't; that it was just the low light and that things would look better with the normal lights on, but no. And sure, it wasn't dry yet, and maybe it'd lighten up some, but I wasn't counting on it.

I waited the 15 odd-seconds the black and white print had left in its clear finishing bath, and then moved it into the water tank for its final cleaning. After ensuring that my newest -- too dark -- print wasn't getting pushed into the back wall of the tank, or into the path of the nozzles spraying water into the tank, I gathered up the nearer, drying prints from the back of the sink.

'At least one of your 5 shots needs to be of a box,' the instructions said. Or, at least what I remembered of the assignment's instructions, since my notes on the assignment weren't on my newly printed sheet, but rather the one confiscated during my little security violation at the Dome last week. Not that remembering to ensure that shadows and contrast were the focus for my shots was that hard to forget. I just wondered if the instructions I'd pulled down from our class's website had all the information I'd gleamed from when the assignment had originally been handed out. Ah, but I wasn't really worried about the whole assignment; just this stupid box shot.

Had I known the energy I could've saved by simply making sure the subject of my frame was just a little farther from the white mass of concrete, I'd've moved the damn box. But no, I hadn't, so I didn't, and now I was stuck with a triangle of white concrete in the bottom right corner of the frame. In and of itself, this cement wasn't such a bad thing; not much of a subject of interest, true, but not anything close to an abomination. But to have it juxtaposed within the frame with the dark, shadowed, interior of the box, and the frame became a nightmare. And the grass the box lay on... well, it was actually fine. No matter how dark or light the gray grass was, it still looked fine; no more greener here than there.

In the six "box" prints I had, each separated by a second or two of exposure, I couldn't get the contrast to work out right. If the concrete was ok, then the inside of the box was too dark; but if I made it so that the inside corner of the box showed, then the concrete and the frame border were the same tone (a big no-no).

I was beginning to wonder if the purpose of this box shot was just to show us that we couldn't show everything in the frame; that sometimes the contrast was just too broad for the limits of the paper. At least, that's what I was hoping for; I wasn't going to reshoot this box shot again. And my other four pictures for the assignment were fine. Besides, I didn't have time.

The assignment was due tomorrow night, and Leeza was already cruising through the top-10 of her weekly countdown on this mildly tepid Sunday night -- meaning that it was after nine. And I still had to drive home before dinner.

Sighing out a breath, and glancing around the cramped dark room, I figured I was done for the evening. Which meant that I should pack up and move out. So as Sheryl Crow came fuzzily through the room's old analog clock-radio -- she was the spotlight artist that week -- I began to clean up. 'Life springs eternal, on a gaudy neon street, like I care at all...'

I poured the fixer and stop baths back into their storage containers, and dumped the rest of the liquids. Then I packed up my prints, most of which weren't dry yet so they were wrapped in paper towels until they could dry in the car (it's amazing what open windows and a half-hour drive can accomplish -- they'd be dry by the time I got home).

'... such a muddy line between the things you want, and the things you have to do...' was the last bit of Ms. Crow I heard before switching off the radio, and heading towards the door. Carefully teeter the wet prints in my hand, I reached the door, and turned back to look at the room. Taking a final cursory glance around the room, and not noticing anything out of place, I flipped off the lights, checked to make sure all the safe lights were off, made sure I had everything, and stepped out the door.

"Hello. Can you hear me? Am I getting through? JC... you there? Josh-o-wa? Hey!"

"Oh, hey, J," was Josh's awakening response, his mind temporarily distracted from the gaudy neon display passing outside the tour bus. "You need something?"

"Josh, are you ok?" Justin asked, troubled by his friend's recent quiet behavior. Sure, JC wasn't the first to jump into a conversation, and never really gave away too much when he did talk, but he just seemed a little quieter lately -- if that was even possible.

"Yeah... I'm fine; just thinking," 'or trying not to, actually,' Josh dredged out.

"Ok, then I'll leave you alone. I need a partner for 'Mario' against Joey and Chris, but I'll go drag Lance into it. He needs the practice anyways. I'll come get ya when we stop."

"Alright, thanks Justin," Josh replied as he watched Justin head off in search of Lance, before returning his gaze, and his confusion, to the window.

He didn't understand what was happening, or had happened, to him lately. Or at least how he'd gotten where he was, let alone where he was going. Well, he knew how he'd gotten there; it was just that his view of 'there' had switched so dramatically that day.

Well, maybe not that day, per se.

Lynn's returning of the pictures had been the definitive catalyst to his awakening, whereas the others had only steered him down this path. He'd been so excited about getting those pictures back, primarily so that he could show them to Justin, and they could laugh about their brave moment a few days back. When he'd finally had enough of the reporters and photographers violating his and his friends' lives. He'd finally done something to stop it. And what happened? He'd found the one person on the planet, it felt like, that was taking pictures of him but really didn't mean to.

Well, 'Hudson' certainly had meant to shoot him and Justin; the shot plainly showed that. But it also showed that they hadn't really been the focus of the shot, even though they were the center of the picture. Well, not the focus even, cause they were partially; maybe more like reason for the shot. No, not that either. Who he was wasn't the reason for the shot; that was kinda it. It was just 'cause he'd been there. Or something like that.

And if that picture didn't concur with this belief, the rest of the roll helped. There was the fact that the damn things were black and white, which was why it had taken a few days to get the shot developed -- who knew 24-hour processing didn't include black and white film, let alone that normal people still took pictures with it. And then there were the rest of the pictures...

At first, he'd thought that the box picture was a mistake; that it was just accidentally shot as the first picture on the roll. Like Hudson had just put the film in, and wasn't too sure whether he was on the first picture or not. But when he'd seen the other pictures, which ranged from two shiny, mirroring metal curved poles sticking out of a tile floor to a row of over-head flood lights, he wondered if it wasn't so accidental after all. And then, after he'd dragged what turned out to be an assignment sheet from the also- confiscated plastic bag still inside his backpack instead of his discman earlier... that had confirmed his suspicions.

But those suspicions had been there ever since Hudson had stood up. 'Hudson', a name he only knew because it was on the top of the sheet... which also showed that his project was due tomorrow...

Hudson's height had initially thrown him; towering over his own 5'11" frame. It was intimidating, at first. But looking closer at the man, he'd know Hudson was at least a little worried. It had shown in his eyes, even through the round glasses perched on his nose, and later in his voice. He'd fed off his worry, and it had stabilized him for his attack; an attack which almost died when he'd touched Hudson. The strange questioning in Hudson's eyes had broken his minute spell, and rekindled the arrogance necessary to complete the dismissal.

He now wished he could as easily dismiss the memories of the event. He wished that he felt comfortable enough to surprise Justin with the pictures, like he'd originally planned. Now he was just glad that he'd not mentioned giving the film to Lynn, so that, on the lark, they could see what shots of them normally got stolen -- what didn't make the papers.

He also wished he hadn't taken the rolls. It wasn't so much the comparatively blasŽ 'shadow' shots for the assignment, or the almost invasion into Hudson's life that the other, color, roll entailed -- it looked like he'd visited his family and that someone close to him swam, or something. No, the voyeur in him ashamedly almost liked that -- not to mention the suits...

No, it had more to do with the shot that had led to all the trouble. The one of he and J... sitting, laughing, just being. And with the rest of the guys and Lynn in the background, actually hacking from the looks of it -- definitely a rare moment.

The plainness of the picture -- like he and his friends were normal people, just being normal -- bisected by the shadow layering half the frame... which made it appropriate for the assignment. When he'd seen it, he'd felt... he felt... well he knew he didn't want to share it with Justin; at least not for his original purpose.

Josh's gaze finally fell upon the Nevada desert, as the bus headed west toward L.A. and their next stop. The diminishing lights of Las Vegas paralleled the "Stardust" -- where'd they'd coincidentally just left -- which Natalie Cole sang of and which must have calmed him, as he didn't feel up to any more thinking. Maybe that, or the light rain that had begun to fall outside the bus.

So, on that note, Josh removed his headphones, and turned off and set down his player on the seat, as he went to join the 'Mario Cart' battle in progress.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ttfn

feedback, comments, suggestions welcome at txdman@yahoo.com