The Man from the Pictures

A Story by Greg Welch

"A cold January day.."

The wind was biting as Peter walked down the sidewalk of Mcnair Street. He was hunched over with the collar of his jacket pulled up as high as it would reach, but the wind still slapped him across his bare cheek with almost blinding force. A middle aged couple passed in the same hunched over position, their faces were pinched and a dry pink color. The man gave a pleasant nod as he passed looking for a response from the corner of his eye. Peter nodded in return.

The town was cold and the small buildings along the bare sidewalks make strange and unusual pathways for the wind. It was hard for this place to breath. Dirt and little specks of paper swirled in the middle of the street as the cars drove by and broke through the small cyclones. The filthy water in the gutters was a frozen brown. Peter was looking forward to getting home and indoors away from the foul January wind.

For the second day he was out looking for a job. It had been almost a year since he had worked and he decided that after a sparse Christmas maybe more people would be looking for help. Now the excitement of the holidays were over and the normalcy of everyday life was comfortably setting back in. He had hoped to find some small business in need of his limited services. Thus far though there was no such luck.

The woman that he met today had greeted him with the same indifference that he had experienced the day before. She was a tall and thin and appeared to be in her fifties. Her voice was sharp and showed no signs of ever having possessed humor. When she would ask Peter a question she would look up at him through a pair of thick glasses and await a reply. Peter suspected that she may have been attractive at some point. There was a slight indication behind her tightly wound hair and stern face that once a pretty girl full of laughter had lived there, but this was probably just wishful thinking.

She looked meticulously over his resume and asked him a few times what he had written in some places. She wasn’t very good at reading foreign print. Peter supposed that was the purpose of the large glasses that slid down her slim nose each time she looked down. She gave a low mocking chuckle as she read something in front of her and then looked up at him. Peter lifted his eye brows as if to ask her the joke.

“When this asked why you are applying I see that you wrote, ‘Because I need a job.’ Is that a joke?” she asked looking back down.

“No ma’am. Just being as honest as I can,” Peter answered. He knew that this was the end of this interview and was angry that he had sit through the rest of this farce wearing a smile. He felt like some old bum dancing for someone to throw a few quarters at him.

“We will let you know,” was her response. He gave a defeated ‘thank you’ and left the small office.

“Happy Holidays,” the girl behind the desk up front said to him. She looked to be about twenty and about as sharp as a butter knife. It made Peter feel hopeless to see that this pretty moron was receiving a check every week and he wasn’t able to land a job in the same office cleaning the toilets. He knew through that this wasn’t the girls fault and turned and gave her lift of the hand and said, “Have a good one.” The stupid girl was still wishing happy holidays three days after New Years. Peter did the best he could to shake it off.

When he opened the heavy glass door it was caught and snatched away by a heavy gust. It almost took his arm with it, but at he managed to catch himself and jerked against the unforgiving wind to pull the transparent door safely closed. A few feet down the road a malicious part of him had wished that he had just let the door be slammed against the brick building behind it. For a moment he could see the glass shattering as he strolled away calm and victorious, like someone in one of those action movies walking away from an explosion as if nothing had happened. Just fantasies though, no one would have really cared if he had the door go. At least not in the way that he wanted them to.

The corner of Mcnair was always a hassle to walk across. The building on the corner was some sort of Mexican church and they put potted plants outside that had grown to the point that it was hard to see around them. No one did anything about it and there they stood growing into a more dangerous blind spot every day. Peter looked around the large bushes as best he could and crossed with as much speed as he could muster on such a windy day. As he ran he was pushed back by the unseen wall of current. Peter ducked his head and pushed against it until he was safely on the other side of the street.

Ronald Avenue was the street that Peter lived on. It was a safe neighborhood, but was still pretty low rent for the town. Several apartment buildings lined the avenue with buildings of brick and a few tin warehouses in between. His own building was one of the oldest on the block and also the cheapest. There were only old one room apartments there.

Peter felt fortunate to get the apartment that he was renting. It was on the far end of the top floor and there was a decent view from his front door. Being such a fastidious person, he was not very pleased with the brown ring that hung around his bathtub and his toilet like dirty halos. All of the scrubbing and bleach in the world were not going to make that porcelain white again. He learned to live with it. The carpet was stiff and beige, which made the stains hard to spot. All in all, Peter was happy with his small apartment. It was good enough for a single kid in his mid twenties.

The complex that stood in front of his building was a much larger and housed a lot of families with somewhat low incomes. There were kids hanging around his building constantly. They came across and played in Peter’s parking lot as if they didn’t have one of their own. Peter supposed that they did this for the change of scenery. After all everyone needs that occasionally. It made him nervous to have those kids around. Single people don’t have that instinct to look for children when they back their cars out of their spaces and Peter believed that it would just be a matter of time until one of those kids got hit by one of the unsuspecting bachelors or bachelorettes living there.

Peter saw a strange figure from a distance. It was a woman holding something. She was walking up to a man and looked to be pleading with him. The man looked down at the woman and kept walking. “Great. That’s all I need today. Some crazy bag lady,” Peter thought to himself. He decided to stay on the far side of the street and then cross right in front of his building.

The desperate woman spotted him as he was passing and ran to meet him. Peter sighed slightly, but it was ignored by the woman. She was short and didn’t look much older than him. Her face was swollen and a plum color of red. Her crying had created grey streaks from mascara down her puffy cheeks and her hair was a blonde mess. Peter could tell by the way that she moved that she wasn’t just some crazy asking for a few bucks.

When her body had fully twisted he saw that she had been holding a baby in her right arm. It looked to be cupped and snug tightly in a thick blanket. The only part of the child that was exposed was his tiny head that was squished inside of a blue wool cap. It was attached with a piece of wool under his chin. He looked fragile but very safe in the woman’s arm. While the rest of the woman appeared hysterical, her one arm was as steady as a stone.

“He’s dead! He did it,” the woman wailed when she realized that Peter wasn’t going to walk away.

“Who?” Peter asked. “What happened?” The woman was pointing to an open door that was on the ground floor of the brick apartment building.

“He did it. Jason, he did it,” she wasn’t making sense, but Peter thought that he knew what had happened.

“I need to you calm down,” Peter said grabbing her shoulders firmly. “Listen to me. Did you call anyone? Have you called an ambulance?”

“Nnno….No, I didn’t do that. I wasn’t sure,” she had stopped moving, but her face couldn’t shut off the tears. Her eyes had become so swollen that Peter couldn’t she what color they were.

“Is your baby ok?” It occurred to him only after he asked that this was an odd question.

“What? He’s fine. Why did you….Its Jason,” she said pointing to the open door again.

“Alright. Is that your apartment?” Peter asked. The woman nodded and looked at the open door as if she were looking into the face of a ghost.

“I’m going to go in and call an ambulance from there. You stay here with your baby.”

No, no. You shouldn’t go in there. You don’t want to,” she pleaded holding onto his arm at the elbow. “It’s bad. You shouldn’t see him.” She was beginning to get hysterical again. Peter put his hands on her shoulders again to calm her. He could feel the tenseness frozen and solid in her thin shoulders.

“Do you have a cell phone on you?” he asked.

“No. It’s inside. But, don’t go in.”

“I don’t have one,” Peter said remembering the day that he realized he wouldn’t be able to pay his bill. “I have to go in and use the phone. If I don’t then we won’t be able to get any help here. And, we need help, don’t we?” she nodded again and slid down the red brick of the building clutching her sleeping baby close to her chest.

As Peter walked closer to the open door he could hear her muffled sobs behind him, and heard her say the name Jason again. He pushed the door slowly open with his index finger. The living room was spacious and as he entered Peter looked at a framed portrait that hung above the couch. It was of the girl outside and a dashing young gentleman. She wore a white wedding dress and he stood in a tux as comfortably as if he were born in one.

As Peter studied the picture, he felt guilty that his first thought was how much more attractive the young husband was than the wife. She wasn’t unattractive, by any means, just very plain. Her thin blonde hair was plain and her pale and rosy skin was plain. Her eyes were hallow and deep when they weren’t swollen. The young husband had a brightness and attractiveness that was even evident in pictures. He stood with a straight and proud posture and his smile was an easy one. His eyes were full of exuberance and dreams that would one day be fulfilled.

Peter noticed several other smaller pictures placed strategically around the small living room. Mostly it was the happy couple, but the baby pictures appeared to be slowly taking precedence over their happy life together. The apartment was roomy and as tidy as his own place. He looked down the hallway by the living room and saw three door closed tightly. His search for a telephone would probably end with one of those rooms, but he felt some morbid curiosity draw him to the kitchen.

When he turned the corner into the kitchen he came to a dead stop. In the chair before him was the lifeless body of the charming man from the pictures. He was turned crooked in the wooden chair and his left arm dangling. From his fingers thick drops of blood fell heavily on the small black pistol that had fallen below where his arm hovered. His eyes were open but they were no longer full of the wonder that Peter had seen in the pictures. They were now dull and vapid.

For some reason Peter kicked the gun from under his suspended arm. It skidded across the tile of the floor in slow spirals and came to a stop against the near corner of the wall. He knew that it was a stupid thing to do as soon as he did it. It wasn’t as if he would somehow come alive and grab it. His quiet need to stand and look at this body was for the moment overriding his need to call an ambulance.

The man from the pictures was wearing a t shirt that had just less than an hour ago been white. His khaki pants had a crisp crease running through the center, and had somehow remained fairly clean. The wall behind was splattered in a way that Peter had never seen before. It was as if someone had thrown a large cup worth of red paint at the eggshell color in one hard and quick motion. A small puddle had gathered behind the chair and was already beginning to congeal. A thin film rested motionless on top of the crimson pool, giving it the appearance of gelatin.

Peter looked directly behind to man and spotted the phone on the table. It was a black cordless. The dark color made it hard for Peter to notice that it too was covered in blood. He felt a thick wetness as he picked it up from the table, like touching wet paint. He dropped the phone with a thud back onto the table and looked at his hand. It was bright and stained. He pulled the bottom of his shirt from his pants and wiped his hand on its tail furiously. It was as if what brought the man from the pictures to this state could be contracted from his blood.

Looking around Peter saw a small dish towel on the oven beside him. He wrapped the phone in it with precision and dialed 911 with a tarnished and unsteady finger. The voice on the other end was mechanical. “911 emergency. How can I help you?”

“Yes, hello. I’m at the scene of a suicide, and I need some assistance.” His voice was quivering in a strange way.

“Is anyone else injured, sir?” Peter wasn’t sure if the person at the other end of the call was a man or a woman.

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t live here. I was passing by and some woman asked for my help. I think she was the guy’s wife. The guy that died I mean.”

“Where is she right now?” the operator asked apathetically.

“I think she’s outside with her baby. At least she was a minute ago.” Peter was beginning to be astonished by his own calmness.

“What is the address, sir?”

“It’s the Hamilton Apartments on Ronald Avenue. I’m not sure what number. It’s on the ground level though.”

“Someone will be there shortly,” the operator said.

“Thank you,” Peter said as he hung up the phone. He didn’t wait for a reply. He was afraid that the operator would try to keep him on until the ambulance arrived. He felt that his time would be better served waiting with the distraught widow outside.

The phone made the same thud when Peter dropped it back onto the table. He looked one last time at the man from the pictures. The small hole between his eyes was growing a green bruise color. The wound was so small. Not much more than an inch, yet it ended everything that this man would ever do. Looking at the body and thinking about the woman outside with her baby, Peter for the first time realized how easy it was to ruin someone.

When he walked away he felt an odd presence there as if he was being watched. He looked back at the body once more, still half expecting it to move. As he passed the picture in the living room he stopped and looked at it again. Such a sweet existence there in this little family and in this place. Never again, not here. Peter looked at his own eyes in the pictures reflective glass and noticed the heavy exhaustion. He gave a weary smile at this, and felt guilty for being able to do such a thing.

The wind again smacked him across the face when he walked out onto the bare sidewalk; it wasn’t as noticeable now though. The woman was still sitting with her back against the brick wall and her knees pulled up blocking the baby from the harsh elements. Even now, her motherly instinct was working. Peter was a little amazed at this and wondered if she even realized that her body was protecting the child.

When she looked up at Peter she began to cry again. Peter slid down the wall beside her and draped his arm around her neck. He looked down at the baby. Still and undisturbed by the madness going on around him, not aware that everything in his life had just drastically changed. Still, the only thing showing was his tiny face; he looked like one of those old cameo necklaces.

“Jason’s gone, isn’t he?” she asked looking up at Peter.

“Yeah. He’s gone,” Peter answered.

Two teenagers walked by laughing and leering at the three of them. They must have been a strange sight, huddled together in the middle of a sidewalk on such an unforgiving winter morning. As the boys walked by the open door one of them glanced inside and continued walking. It was a casual glance of curiosity, nothing more. Peter envied them for being able to walk by and go about their day without having the slightest notion of what had just happened there. The woman was still leaning on his thickly padded shoulder with muffled groans.

“It’s going to be alright,” Peter assured the woman. She ducked her head between his head and shoulders and continued to sob. He could feel her breath on his neck. It was warm and invisible. The sound of the ambulance was drifting in and out through the sound of the winds. Peter and the woman sat in silence. Directly ahead of him the grimy water of the gutters was beginning to thaw. Little brown flakes were drifting with purpose on down the street and into less familiar surroundings.

THE END