Finding Charlie
Lon Lovett
Copyright 2010 by Lon Lovett
Smashwords Edition
Finding Charlie
By
Lon Lovett
This book was born out of some very personal experiences I had shortly after September 11th and takes place in the year following the attacks. I was effected deeply, as most Americans were, and found it difficult to let go of my anxiety and my fear. The idea of one peaceful man going to Afghanistan and accomplishing more than our entire military could was interesting to me. What is the difference between justice and revenge? What could love do that guns couldn't? What could empathy for another human being accomplish that aggression could not? Could love and peace really rid a person of terror and fear? This book is the result of wondering about these things. Let it be understood that this is a total rewriting of history regarding Osama Bin Laden and the events following 9-11 in 2002. I know he was killed by an American soldier in 2011. I just like my ending better. I know you will too.
This is a work of fiction. But the pictures in this book were born out of real circumstances. Many of the events described in the book regarding each picture are slightly true. I say slightly because the people are real. The places are real. But the events surrounding the taking of the pictures have been heavily edited to fit the tone of this work of fiction. It's a slippery slope to say anything in a work of fiction is real. But out of respect to the real people and places in the photographs I feel that it's important to acknowledge that they are real but also to acknowledge to them and, you the reader, that events have been altered and are not totally true to real life. Why would I include a little real with the fiction? Because I enjoyed all my dirty traveling. And I enjoyed the pictures that I took along the way. I think that they are worth sharing. All full size images can be seen at www.lonlovett.com in the Finding Charlie Gallery.
He walked through the park as a homeless man. As a shattered man for all to see. His clothing was stained and riddled with holes. His shoes were a homeless cliché of newspaper insoles and no laces. There was dirt on his face and a dried reddish paste that was either old blood or ketchup. His deep brown eyes were wide open indicating more intelligence than the rest of his appearance would indicate. While his hair was ratted and matted, a careful observer would have noticed that his sideburns were trimmed evenly and the ratty mat was just a carefully done hairdo like any other. Nobody looked at him for anything other than his clothes. Nobody looked him in the eyes and nobody ever chose to talk to him unless he talked to them. And even then...people only responded about half the time. This man will be dead in a thirteen months and 28 days.
Every Saturday Charlie spent his day in a different park. He chose to spend his time watching people. It was an interesting thing how people looked upon someone further down the societal ladder than themselves. He loved it. This was a school unlike any other. Charlie wasn't Christian but he believed the biblical adage that people could truly be judged by how they judged the “lowest” of their fellow man. However he chose to look each week...the grunge on his face, the dirt under his nails, the holes in his clothes....he chose very carefully. How downtrodden and beat up could he look. How sad and world worn could he appear. How destitute could one human being appear to another. Charlie spent the last three years finding out.
He spent the last three years finding out how decent people...the ones with things and stuff and money...how exactly they would treat him...a man with nothing but the clothes on his back and a posture that said...”life has been very hard on me.” His years of theater were put to good use every Saturday in a different park somewhere in California.
It was an outing for him. They were fun outings actually… solitary and peaceful. He spent his week thinking about where he would go on Saturday morning. It was an obsession really. His passion. He had no girl friend by choice. He didn't look for a better job, not because he couldn't use the money, but because his day job allowed him to watch humans be very very human. Every week was so different. Every park, every city, every person, had their own way of dealing with misery and he took pictures of it all: The good, the bad, and more often than not the sad and ugly side of human nature.
His camera had always been a natural extension of his hands. More appropriately, his camera was a natural extension of his soul. His camera saw things that sometimes he didn't even see until he got home and looked inside and found the little nuggets of humanity and the big chunks of inhumanity. Unlike his usual camera, the one that he carried on his day job, this one was special. He had it made just for these trips. It took him several years of playing with various part and asking different craftsmen within the photography industry. And craftsmen they were. Cameras that can be hidden are cheap and easy to purchase. It's no great secret that you can hide a camera inside the tiniest of objects but what good will that do? The pictures come out grainy and cheap. For surveillance or undercover work there are a thousand choices but for high quality 35mm prints there was nothing available. Over time Charlie had figured out that he still needed a pretty big lens to get high quality pictures. He tried all kinds of tiny cameras but they produced pictures that were not the quality that his eye saw or that his mind knew it needed to see. These were special pictures. They were unlike any other pictures that he had taken and they deserved to be shown in a way that detailed every last emotion. This was his life, his love, and his passion.
It began on his day job. Charlie worked for a small newspaper in a middle size city. The paper had a very loyal following that was pretty stable considering the decline of paper print. His paper had recently started an on line version but it wasn't the same as grainy black and white print that he could spill his coffee on. He enjoyed the spontaneity of his work but he enjoyed the human side even more. He went where the paper told him to go and he shot what they told him to shoot. The money shots were always there at the end of the day but what he considered “money” shots were very different than what his paper thought. Over the years he had seen such emotion and reaction to situations both tragic and joyous that he wanted to shoot it all. But you can't always shoot the intimate moments. You can but it was an invasion that was not welcome in some situations. Surprisingly most people didn't care even in tragedy but they never wanted their ugly side to be seen. And this was exactly what he wanted to see. It started with a desire to expose the ugly but it turned out to be a lesson in beauty that was entirely unexpected.
Each week was different and carefully planned. His look and demeanor changed weekly to a different shade of destitute. Sometimes a couple would walk by with their child holding one hand of each parent and the child would smile while the parents would scowl or look away. Kids were so much better at seeing the inside of a stranger.
Her name was Mabel. Charlie noticed her the minute he walked up to the fountain in the center of the park. She was alone and surprisingly so for a girl that was in third grade. Her hair was long, straight, brown and reminded him of a shampoo commercial because of it's extraordinary shine. Her dark brown eyes reminded him of how Japanese animators draw eyes...too big to fit on such a tiny face. As he walked closer she actually did look like something taken from some very well drawn anime. She just stood at the head of the fountain looking at him as he approached her with his best world weary lope. For some reason he felt compelled to walk straight at her. This usually unnerved most people enough that at the very least they move aside like some game of sidewalk chicken. The closer he got, the more a little closed lipped smile grew on her face. He walked up until he was standing three feet away and stopped. She smiled and said nothing. He smiled back and added to what she said by saying nothing. And there they stood with neither of them feeling even the slightest bit of discomfort.
From the outside, as it appeared to the dozens of people in the park, a strange homeless man was staring down a beautiful little lost girl. But there was something about her posture that no casual observer could misunderstand...she was happy and comfortable. He was no threat. It may have seemed to some that they could have known each other prior to this moment. Charlie had never seen her before in his life. They stood looking at each other for exactly one minute but it felt like about five seconds to Charlie. She giggled and it sounded like that of an old happy grandma. “Charles Thomas Gray. Hello!”
Where there should have been shock there was none. This strange little girl just called him by his full name in a park eighty miles East of his apartment. And he wasn't surprised at all. He was actually a little surprised that he wasn't surprised. Strange. Why wasn't he surprised. He looked at her a little longer and smiled a little more. “Hi.” That was all he wanted to say at that point. She put out her hand and he took it. They began to walk hand in hand around the fountain and onto the sidewalk that circled the park. It wasn't strange at all.
“How have you been Charlie?” A small group of ducks was following them on the grass next to the walkway.
“Everything is fine Mabel.” How did he know her name? Again, no surprise when her name slipped out of his mouth. He knew what it was. Her name was Mabel because he said it was. She accepted it as such. And so she was Mabel.
“Have you enjoyed your pictures? You have been taking a lot of them. It looks like you are having fun...learning a lot. That's why you do this...to learn right?”
Most of the time he didn't think of it in terms of learning something in a literal sense but underneath it all he was always excited to learn something new about human nature. As time went by he learned less and less that he didn't already know. There was not so much that he hadn't seen express itself on a human face. Between his years in theater, his job, and these weekends, he had seen humans react to almost everything possible. “I suppose I do it to learn but I really love it. I love watching people's faces. I find it fascinating to see an eyebrow raise in response to my filth. It's amazing to see the joy sweep over a mothers face when she finds her lost child...to see hate on mans face when he walks by his enemy...or even sees his worst nightmare shoot someone on the evening news...even the hate is interesting to me. The creases around their eyes, especially in the old people, say so much about the life they lived. The eyes never end Mabel. There are so many kinds and so many ways for life to impress it's wisdom around the eyes.” They continued their walk holding hands and talking quietly in the warm summer breeze.
“Charlie, how do you know who you want take pictures of? How do you know what you want to see?”
“I don't know. I take pictures of who is put in front of me. I just walk around the park looking at those around me. If they want to come closer they do. If my path crosses theirs with no intention of my own...then I take their picture. I never seek a picture. I live my moments and I find people everywhere. I like living Mabel. It's fun. I don't pay much attention to finding a picture as much as I do to finding myself...in the present. It's strange.”
She didn't react to what he said. She just nodded her head slightly as though she was understanding everything he said. And she was. And he knew it. And it didn't surprise him in the least. He expected it actually. “Have you found what your looking for Charles?”
“No.” He was certain that he didn't know what he was looking for and he was equally as certain that whatever it was, he hadn't come close to it yet. And neither of those certainties bothered him at all.
The sun was setting and Mabel's dark brown hair took on the shine of the golden sun in a way that was stunning and sublime. Her hair almost seemed to shimmer with every slight movement of her head. It was so perfect in how it draped down over her shoulders...not one fly away strand...not one uneven piece...it hung perfectly down to her lower back. Nobody in the park paid them any attention as they walked and talked never letting go of each other.
They walked around the entire park and ended up back at the head of the fountain where they began. He let go of her hand and stood facing her again. The sun had just set behind her and the golden light was fading quickly. “Go ahead Charles. You're living now aren't you? You sought no picture. Our paths have crossed while we both lived with each other. Go ahead Charlie.” Her hair burned with the orange glow of the set sun. She stood still and looked up at him with her hands behind her back. There was not a wrinkle on her face anywhere...as there should not be for a child of her age. But her face looked so old that when he looked into her eyes his breath caught for a moment. He couldn't look away from the depth of her gaze nor did he want to. He didn't remember pushing the shutter button at all.
Click.
The sun was long gone and he sat in his car. He had woken up several minutes prior with his head laying back on the headrest and a couple hours of drool soaked into his ratty shirt. When he opened his eyes he had no desire to move or even close his mouth and so he didn't. He stared at the ripped headliner of his old Volkswagen and made no attempt to close his mouth or straighten his head from its floppy sleep angle.
Mabel.
He knew she was real even though he didn't know how he had ended up sleeping in his car. He knew her name was Mabel and he knew that stored in a camera strapped to his stomach was a single picture of her. And he knew that he didn't want to look at it.
The eggs on his plate tasted like burnt rubber. Nothing tasted the same since Mabel. The last week had been tasteless in general. Smells were less fragrant, tastes a little more dull, and colors were actually less bright to his eyes. This wasn't possible and Charlie knew it...a total sensory upheaval...a slight deadening of each sense. Even his sense of touch felt lessened. The blankets on his bed weren't as soft. Even when he touched his own skin it felt less...alive somehow. None of this alarmed him but it was just a curious thing for him to observe.
He had been observing things a lot more during the last week especially himself. Becoming an outside observer to his own actions was slightly unnerving and completely refreshing. Years had been spent being the outside observer of the world around him and the people in it. Observing was his stock and trade. Observing was his passion and his camera was a way to embrace everyone in their moment. When you spend your life observing others there is a sense of disconnectedness with yourself. During the last week he had stepped outside of himself at the most random of moments to be the observer and each time he did it felt very natural. Considering he hadn't made a practice of doing this very much, he should have been more surprised at the ease with which this dispassionate observation was happening. As with a lot of things since Mabel, he wasn't very surprised at all. Things were happening that felt so natural but they weren't normal for him.
A wall sized map of California hung on his wall that had had to find at specialized cartography shop. The map had every sizable park in the state shown in pink. He avoided smaller parks for the fear of being mistaken for a lurking homeless pedophile. The larger parks usually had a few other homeless people in them so he blended in to the local scenery. This was the first week that he had given no thought at all to where he was going to spend his Saturday. Usually he relished the planning down to every detail of his day including his hobo lunch and which way he would rig his camera. He hadn't thought about it all week. Charlie pushed his plasticy eggs around his plate with the only knife he had. The map was on the wall directly in front of him and he couldn't stop staring at it. The knife suddenly felt very heavy in his hand. It felt perfectly weighted and it looked a lot sharper than he knew it was. Without thinking he or even looking, he threw the knife in an awkward gesture away from his plate and up at the map.
Since childhood he had always wondered how people could throw knifes at walls and have them stick perfectly. This was always something for movies where the hero was trained to do such things or for the circus. The old steak knife stuck perfectly into the wall through the large map. A small grease spot had already started to form where the blade stuck into the map. Panally Park. Whoever Panally was or where ever Panally was, he was going to visit the park in however long it took him to get his clothes on and drive there.
It was a strange park. He took the long route up the coast and had enjoyed the entire drive with no thought at all given to the park or his day. He thought of Mabel but he knew that he wouldn't see her again. The park had a long stretch of road through a small patch of unusually old looking forest. The road was in complete shade and opened up at the end to a large circular road that had parking spots around the entire thing. The parking lot was actually in the middle of the park like a little island of pavement among the green and trees.
His Volkswagen rumbled loudly when he turned the key off. It was an expected ritual upon arrival. He usually parked far away and walked into the park in order to avoid being spotted for the non-homeless man that he was. Today he didn't care and nobody else did either. His camera rig was all set up and strapped to his waist ready to go. Today was a day for very old clothing and an extreme amount of applied grunge. Every now and then a day deserved him at his homeless worst. And today even included some dried eggs mashed into his trousers...the plastic taste mandated that they end up there.
The park was like most others in most regards but it's unusual nature quickly became apparent. Instead of a playground in one place with a sandbox or soft rubber surface, there were small little play stations spread out across the entire park...little islands of fun planted in soft beach sand in completely random places. Usually parks used heavy grain sand in their play boxes...the kind of sand that wasn't entirely comfortable to walk on with bare feet. This park was different. Somebody at the board of parks and recreation must have lobbied to have beach sand brought in by the truck load. The sand was unusual in that it was pure white. Whoever did the lobbying must have put in a pitch to take the sand from Aruba. It was beautiful like well kept golf course for kids.
Charlie saw the bright red merry go round across the field on top of a soft white mound and he started walking. He sat slumped over on the merry go round with his feet dragging in the white sand occasionally pushing off to keep himself moving slowly. Mabel was lightly on his mind like a floating bubble that he didn't want to pop. Had he found what he was looking for. What was he looking for? He wasn't looking for anything really. In the beginning, when he first discovered his camera, he looked for moments...he tried to create them actually. This was impossible and he knew it. Moments were neither created nor destroyed...they just were. Since he began walking among the parks he had learned this very clearly. So what was he looking for? The merry go round stopped suddenly as though he had put his feet down firmly into the sand but he hadn't. Charlie stood up and turned around to find a very tall, very thin, man sitting exactly opposite of where he was. The man's feet were planted into the sand and he sat with his hands open, loosely placed on top of his thighs. He thought of Forest Gump sitting on his bench telling his story. It was no surprise that the man was there. The man didn't move and didn't turn to look at Charlie. As he walked around the merry go round the man turned his head and followed Charlie with his gaze until he was standing directly in front of the sitting man. “Hello Gabriel.”
“Hi Charles.” Gabriel was in his forties with extremely blond hair for a man his age. His hair reminded Charlie of Cindy Brady. It was beautiful and cut perfectly with a part that was split neatly down the right side. His green eyes matched the unusual intensity of his golden blond hair. His face looked like some sort of Scandinavian stereotype written in a book about Vikings. A prominent nose distinguished his face as strong and decisive and his high cheek bones only added to this impression. There was a slight blush to his cheeks that looked as though he had just stepped in from a very cold winter storm. His clothes were a stark contrast to Charlie’s dirty homeless garb and didn't fit with his Nordic looks whatsoever. Gabriel's clothes looked as though he were a beach comber that had just put down his drink and decided to give the merry go round a try. He wore a loose cotton shirt and khaki pants with a draw string in the front. His large feet had no shoes on them allowing his toes to wiggle in the sand.
As with Mabel, there was no surprise in meeting Gabriel. Charlie knew him and so it was. He knew that his name was Gabriel and the man accepted this without reservation. After exchanging greetings they looked into each others eyes for a several seconds with no discomfort in doing so. Gabriel stood up and smiled without ever breaking eye contact with Charlie. “Let's walk together Charles.” And so they did.
Gabriel was several inches taller than Charlie’s six foot frame. His blond hair sparkled under the noon sun as they walked...Charlie with his hands in his pockets and Gabriel with his long arms hanging straight down by his sides. Gabriel's arms didn't' swing when he walked so he had a slightly mechanical look to his gait. They walked in silence from one little island to the next smiling at any kids they found playing on the little white islands. The silence was natural and comfortable with no thought given to what to say or when to say it. What needed saying was being said. This was unusual for Charlie but he knew that silence was Gabriel's way. Although he didn't believe in mind reading, there were moments as they walked when he felt his heart being poked and his mind would fill with several questions all at once in a small burst. The tangled up questions would sort themselves into distinct thoughts as the little mind bursts would fade for several minutes after they happened. Each little burst of thought had so much intent behind it. Even when he couldn't quite sort out all the thoughts, he knew the intent of each little wave that flooded his mind.
They stood upon one little island in the far corner of the park watching two little boys bobbing back and forth on brightly colored metal horses attached to giants springs corkscrewed into the sand. The boys were laughing while their horses sprung back and forth on their giant springs. As Charlie looked down into the sand Gabriel starred and smiled at the boys being happy with each other on their wobbly metal steads. A burst of thought began to form in Charlie’s head while Gabriel smiled at the children. The wave grew larger in his mind as it built up before crashing upon him. Learned. Lessons. Life. Observation. What have you learned. What are you looking for. The intent was clear before this wave had receded in his mind very far.
What had he learned? Why was this so important? As with Mabel, the idea of lessons learned seemed to permeate his interaction with Gabriel. There was a certain unhurried sense of needing to answer that question. The boys dismounted their springy steads and ran off laughing and yelling things to each other that children shout across green fields on childhood afternoons. “I don't know what I've learned Gabriel. I know that I've learned about people and their fears and their happiness. I know that I've learned about myself...my fears and my happiness. But I always knew those things..about myself and others. Those things were buried deep inside me so I didn't really learn them as much as I learned to find them within.” He had never verbalized that thought before but he didn't doubt it's veracity at all. He realized the truth of what he said while he was saying it. Very little needed to be learned in life as much as it needed to be uncovered from where it was buried upon birth. And there wasn't nearly as much to unbury as most people thought. He stood there for a moment while the magnitude of that truth really settled in. Very, Very little was ever learned in his life. People and experiences came into his life that allowed him to realize the knowledge that was inside him all along.
What had he really learned? Surely there was much that his family and his teachers and his life had taught him. What is a square? How do you spell dog? What is a hypotenuse? What's the average rainfall in the Amazon? This was information. This was data and facts to be gathered but they suddenly seemed small. The factual was a thimble of water in the ocean of his mind. Would the facts matter when he was gone? Charlie had always believed that the only thing you can take with you is your experiences. Or more precisely, the memory of your experiences. Facts were not experiences. They were facts. Wherever he was going after he left this life, would a square be a square? Would dog be spelled the same? Would there even be dogs? Would a hypotenuse mean anything in the place that he ended up when he died? Where ever his energy went when his body finally stopped living, he suddenly felt sure that all the facts and data he learned wouldn't matter at all. All the things that he tried to learn...all the things that he studied in college, all of the encyclopedic volumes on the planet...would not count for anything at all. What did that leave him? What had he learned? All of this ran through his head in a few seconds while Gabriel stood smiling, looking out over the green fields under the setting sun.
“Charles, here we stand. We have lived together you and I today. You didn't seek me at all and yet here I am. Go ahead Charles. Look at me. Here is a moment for your camera my friend.” Gabriel looked at him with his deep emerald eyes. The sun was moments from being below the horizon behind him. Charlie stood looking into Gabriel's eyes while the last of the sunlight played on his blond hair giving him a slight amber aura around his head. Gabriel smiled and for the first time little wrinkles formed around his eyes that spoke to many years of laughing and loving. His smiled showed no teeth and his eyes looked so happy that Charles couldn't imagine any one life being enough to impart that much warmth to a gaze.
Click.
He sat in his Van overlooking the ocean on a winding part of Pacific Coast Highway 20 miles from the park. He realized he was awake about five minutes after he woke up. The jagged rip in the headliner of his van was becoming more familiar to him every week. Gabriel was real. Of course he was real. As was Mabel. He didn't exactly read his mind. But he was getting things from him somehow. What have learned? Charlie drove home in silence and enjoyed it tremendously. The silence usually brought loud brain chatter from the day before or his next park outing but tonight his mind was completely still. It was empty. It wasn't that he couldn't recall facts or knowledge...he just didn't...his brain didn't. It was totally present. He was totally present. He saw each bug hit his windshield. He could smell the ocean air and the funky seaweed that floated in the surf below. The moon was bright unlike any moon he had ever seen. He was seeing it...unfiltered with his own learning. He was seeing it for the first time and it was a beautiful full moon setting over a dark ocean. The moments would end soon and he would start to filter things again. Somehow he was sure of it but it wasn't happening yet and until it did he was going to enjoy the different frame of mind. Charlie was aware that he was totally present and it didn't surprise him at all. Gabriel had that effect on people but he knew it was a lingering remnant of their time together.
The moon was setting rapidly on the horizon and he could see the faint reflection in the water stretching towards him and ending on the wet sand where the tide had receded. It was a dark scene even under the full moon. Cars drove by the pull out without the passengers even seeing it. He saw it...the dark little spot on the side of the cliff overlooking the ocean. Even in the daylight, most people would have driven past it as a place barely big enough to fix a flat. But that night, it was a front row seat to a spectacular moon set. Headlights would occasionally flood the little parking spot but they were few and far between allowing him to sit in the front seat of his Van with the radio on like a divine drive in theater… Ella Fitzgerald was singing a slow song about her man. The moon was dusty brown as it approached the horizon. There were no clouds in the sky and the only light other than the stars was a distant oil derrick that looked like a bright star on the horizons edge. The front tires of his van were separated from the cliffs edge by three feet and some blocky wood side rails. Charlie grabbed the second camera that he kept in a bag behind the passenger seat. Without loosing one second of his intense present state of mind he turned the camera on and adjusted all the settings without thinking at all. He plugged in a small manual shutter release button that allowed him to leave the shutter open for as long as he wanted. Most photographs were taken in a fraction of a second. The shutter only needs to be open for small moment in order to take in enough light to make a proper picture. At night it was different. At night the human eye can't see what's really there with the available light. Sitting under the full moon setting, he could see a shimmer on the water and barely make out the wet sand on the shoreline below. It wasn't really a pretty scene at all. It was the beach at night but he could see it for what it was. He sat very still in the musty old Volkswagen watching the moon edge closer to the horizon. The window was already down so Charlie took his camera and reached out the window to rest in on top of his van. There was no framing this shot or even looking through the view finder. He knew he set the camera right and his thumb rested on the shutter release button that was now dangling down through his window. Here I sit. Living. I didn't seek this moon and yet here it is. Go ahead Charlie take the picture. He pushed down on the shutter release button and held it down while he sat still and took in the scene with his naked eyes. Cli......The light gathered layer upon layer, second after second, and his mind saw it building...saw all the light begin to reflect and radiate on the water like the morning sun rising...he saw the birds standing on the wet sand where the tide had gone out...and the rocks exposed beside them...all under the brilliant moon set beside the winding road....ck! He pulled the camera back in and finished watching the moon sink around the bend of the earth. Five minutes later he was driving in silence again. He took two pictures that day. He would only look at one of them.
***
Charlie slept on an old bed. It was his Grandfathers bed and it had been his fathers before him. He held no sentimentality for most possessions in his world...none other than his bed and his first camera. The bed was carved out of solid pieces of dark cherry wood. Considering when his Great Grandfather was born, his bed was carved from what would be considered very old growth wood by current standards. The wood was smooth and even the nicks and dings had been worn down by nothing more than time. The foot of the bed was one solid piece that he couldn't lift on his own. It looked like the end of a sled with hand carved detailing down the sides. The headboard was too tall for the size of the bed but it seemed right for this bed. The large solid knobs on either side had long ago turned into a place for his collection of prayer beads. While he wasn't particularly religious, he had a fascination with prayer beads from every faith that used them...which was all of them in one fashion or another. Three generations of Gray's had been conceived on this bed. He still had the original mattress in storage but the frame had held the passion of 180 years of Gray men. The covers were pulled over his head early Sunday morning while he lay there thinking. The present was more distant now as he thought about Gabriel and the moon and anything but now.
Thinking was an illness for Charlie. It had always been until he found his camera and even with his camera, the thinking only stopped for small periods of time when he was shooting. Breakfast was filled with thought and it felt unnatural. The chatter was all the more deafening with the night before to compare it to. Standing up from several hours of meditation and walking right out into a packed football stadium was about how it seemed to him while he pushed the eggs around his plate. The eggs were edible but joyless despite the lack of plastic after taste. His thoughts were actually making the eggs distasteful. That was not possible but it seemed so that morning. It was the only explanation that made sense to him. The bacon was even dull tasting if that was possible. Burnt or undercooked, bacon was always...bacon. The moon was perfect the night before. He was absorbed in it...absorbed in the moment looking at it and here he sat on a beautiful Sunday morning with the wind blowing through his kitchen window and birds singing in his front yard..and all he could think of was the moon.
The week dragged by slowly as he waited for another Saturday outing. He didn't expect to meet anyone special or see anything out of the ordinary but he didn't expect not to either. His Saturday outings were becoming less about an outcome and more about the experience. It was different than when he started this project 3 years prior. In the beginning he couldn't wait to go because he couldn't wait to come across his next great shot. He didn't seek them back then either but he did expect them to happen. He expected nothing of his day trips anymore. They were just trips...places to go...experiences to have.
Charlie sat up early Saturday morning and put his feet on the ground as he sat on the edge of his bed. Before he was really awake he stood up and walked into his kitchen where the map was on the wall and did nothing more than put a finger gently on the map. He didn't pay any attention to where his finger went. He wasn't awake enough to pay attention. It was going to be a very long day.
The park closest to his finger was six hours North of LA in a large section of farming land in central California. It didn't look very big and the name...Stuart L. Briggs Memorial Park...didn't seem very exciting. With no judgments, he quickly packed his stuff and left to find out why Stuart L. Briggs had a park in California farm country dedicated to him.
The drive was forgettable not because it lacked scenery but because he didn't remember any of it by the time he got there. It looked as though this park had been a corn field at one time. It was extraordinarily flat and devoid of anything park like at all. What was unique was the fence that surrounded the entire six acres. The fence was made from flat black rocks that had been stacked five feet tall. There was no cement or mortar used at all. The rocks were stacked perfectly so that you could see no cracks or light coming through. It was amazing. The time and energy that went into building this fence was obviously enormous to even a casual observer. To an astute observer it went beyond enormous. The fence was solid and straight. It couldn't be pushed over and the rocks fit together perfectly as though it had been a puzzle that someone painstakingly put together. There was green moss and vines growing in patches over the entire thing belying a fair amount of years since its building. The only break in the black rock fence was a small opening in front of the dirt parking lot. A plaque was fixed onto the fence to the right of the opening.
I built this park with my own two hands. I stacked these rocks one by one every day for 18 years and 295 days. I made this placard on day 296. This placard hangs on the final rock of my fence. Enjoy your walk.
S.L.B. 1919-1991
Charlie appreciated the brevity of this mans written dedication to his decades of work. This was clearly a man of purpose. He walked through the opening and realized why the park was so flat. It was a maze. At some point in time this field was full of growing wheat. A lot of it too. It had grown in dense thickets at one point in time. Or more precisely one big dense blanket of growth. It looked like the wheat had grown wild and tall for a long time and then a giant lawn mower had run over the whole thing leaving a twelve inch blanket of dense bristle to dry in the sun. And then slowly and carefully someone had plucked out a 3 foot wide path down to the rich soil below. The path had been walked on so much that it was worn into a slight U shape. As far as he could see in any direction to the edges of the fence was a zig zagging path separated by miles of neatly cropped old wheat stalks. Without several stories of height to gain perspective, seeing other parts of the maze did no good at all. He could only see what was in front of him with no relation to what he saw on either side. How could anyone find their way to the center? One turn was as good as the next. There was one smaller placard on a short stand at the beginning of the maze:
If you need to leave, please step over the natural barriers in a straight line toward this entrance. Failing to do so would lessen the journey for others who choose to stay. Thank You.
I'll see you in the center.
Stuart
If the fence took him 18 years to build, how long had this part taken him? Charlie walked forward into the maze. It occurred to him that at any time a person could step in a straight line to the formation that was in the center of the giant field. But he felt very sure that for some reason, that this seldom happened. He knew this as much as he knew that he wouldn't do that. If he walked the path and failed to find the center, he would exit without regret and he would never know what Stuart had put in the middle. There was some sort of formation surrounded by stones or brickwork in what he presumed to be the center but it was too far away to make out what it was. Charlie was going to reach the center before the sun set or he would have to leave for want of a flash light.
Charlie stepped across the earthen threshold into the maze. Each step forward was slow and steady. He had no desire to hurry even though he only had several hours of daylight left. There was no perspective at all on the whole of the maze. Each time he reached a turn he chose the path that felt right. There was no rhyme or reason to it at all. There didn't need to be. He walked with no real choosing at all. He walked where his heart led him. This maze was amazing in that it had three and four way intersections that cut diagonal as well as at hard angles. On any three way choice he always went straight. This was a reflex that he couldn't stop during his time inside the maze.
There came a time when the path didn't look as worn. There hadn't been so many feet across this dirt. He could tell because the path wasn't grooved as deeply...it was flat and less traveled. The hours wore on and the path became less and less worn down by the travels of others. Occasionally he would start walking in a direction that showed signs of use but it didn't worry him. He knew he was moving towards the center even if he occasionally came across the tracks of others. At one point he had been going deeper and deeper onto a path that showed signs of heavy use. The cropped wheat borders were frayed and the path looked like a narrow U shape. Again, this did not worry him to go where others had gone for a while. Eventually the path would lead him where he needed to go and it did. There was an unusual crossroads that he came to with a five way intersection. Logic, and cliche, would say to travel down the path less traveled to get where he needed to go. Instead, he walked down the path that looked well worn to find his way.
The sun was setting and Charlie knew the end was near whether he found the center or walked away all together. There were only a few small paths leading off of his well worn choice. Each time he came to one, he didn't go down it. He stayed on this well worn path. It could not be possible that this was the actual right path. It couldn't be possible that so many people made it to the center. He could see the small stone formation at the center about 200 feet ahead of him. The frustration of being so close to the center while the day light was fast slipping away didn't clutter Charlie’s mind. He walked closer to the center with a clear head that was in no hurry at all. He could see the center now only about 100 feet to his left. And again Charlie came to a five way choice. The sunlight was almost gone now and he knew that whatever choice he made would probably be his last in the available day light. This time he chose the path least traveled. The path that was heading in the opposite direction from the center.
The dirt was almost flat. Nobody had taken this path at all. Anyone standing where he had been with a five way choice to make, probably wouldn't head in the opposite direction from the final goal sitting not even 100 feet away. He did. He following the path for a while and he started to notice it getting more narrow as it curved in a wide semi circle back towards the center. Every few feet the path narrowed a bit more as it approached what he hoped would be the center. It did. He had chosen the right path.
As he stepped into the center he found himself looking at what appeared to be stone carved mail boxes. Of course they weren't mail boxes at all but they looked about the same. Each one was made out of one piece of solid rock with no front door to close...just a dark opening in the front of each one. The path he walked down led him straight to one of these boxes that stood in a circle. Even in this light he could see that there were other paths that led to this center circle of stone boxes. A quick circular walk around the center confirmed that there were 10 paths and a stone box in front of each one. Each path looked the exact same from the narrow exit to the dirt being barely worn. Charlie stood in front his box wondering what all this had been for. In the center of this circular arrangement was a shiny black stone set into the ground almost like a tombstone. When Charlie walked past his box to see what the stone was, he found out that it was a tombstone. The stone had been very well cared for. Even in the fading light he could see that it was polished and the grain had been cleared neatly around the edges.
I died on May 31st 1991 exactly 8 days after finishing my boxes. One of the boxes contains my last words. The rest of them contain knowledge of no import whatsoever. If you know which box is mine, then don't forget what you read.
Charlie walked back to the his box. Why had he just spent the last five hours walking a maze in a park that he chose by dropping his finger on a map? Why was he standing in the fading dusk six hours from his home in front of stone box? He reached inside the dark opening and felt a brick sized piece of flat smooth stone. Even before he pulled it out he could feel the engraved writing on the smooth surface.
If you don't know where you are going, then any path will take you there. But if you don't know why you are going, then only one path will do. Even the one less traveled. Don't wonder why, just walk on.
This was strangely apropos to Charlie. Just walk on. Stuart had been a man with a purpose. This whole park was his purpose. Maybe he didn't know where this was all going when he started it. Maybe. Perhaps he never even knew what he was doing or why he was doing it. But until 8 days before he carved this final message he was walking his own path and not wondering why at all. Stuart was crazy.
He expected the drive home to be long and silent as he got into his van. Sitting in the van he felt weary from his day walking in the park. There were no other cars in the parking lot so Charlie put his seat back to rest his eyes for a while. Dusk gave way to the night with the crescent moon rising in front of his van.
His eyes opened to the same familiar tear in his old headliner. Even in the dark he could see the fabric sagging down with the tear in the middle. Charlie made no effort to move his head for several minutes as he let the nap clear his mind. His thoughts were coming in little bursts like they did when he spoke to Gabriel. Each burst had a certain intent to go with it that faded into a jumble of separate related thoughts before the next burst came. Why are you walking Charlie. You know where you are going. Why? What have you learned? With each burst came no desire to answer anything. Each thought pulse was just that...a thought. They weren't things to be thought upon but just thoughts to be absorbed and stored. Regardless of what he did with them, he took these thoughts as coming from somewhere other than himself. They were a different voice than his own. When they first started to happen with Gabriel he accepted the foreign nature of these thoughts with no hesitation. He accepted the fact that they were being put into his mind by someone that was not him. Further, he accepted that the thoughts were totally and completely truthful in nature. As he sat here in the dark staring at the ceiling of his old van, Charlie realized the he was hearing voices.
Charlie sat up in his van not knowing how long he had been asleep. Judging from how far the crescent moon had risen in front of his van, he had been asleep for at least a few hours. He snapped his headlights on and fired up the old Volkswagen. The old van idled rough for a while as it usually did. He sat for minute with the headlights on and the engine idle slowly smoothing out. Just as he was about to pull out, a figure moved far out towards the entrance to the park. He wasn't scared at all. Here he was in the pitch dark, half a state from home, and a strange person just crossed his headlights. A small burst hit Charlie’s head. Talk to him. Walk with him. He turned the headlights off and shut off the van. Why was he doing this?
Charlie walked back towards the entrance to the park. “Hello? I was walking in here earlier today. I was sleeping in my van over there. Do you need a ride?”
A deep but friendly voice responded. “No, but I wouldn't mind some company while I walk Charlie.”
Charlie walked towards the voice in the dark with no fear. His mind was bursting with unformed thoughts. They were trying to come through but he couldn't sort them out. learning. walking. questions. Ask them. Charlie almost ran into the man and stepped on his toes before stopping. There was enough star light with the waning moon for Charlie to see the man when he was this close. He was short and stocky. He wasn't quite fat but Charlie could tell he liked to eat. He wore blue overalls and heavy black boots. Under his overalls was a thin red undershirt. The man had a receding hair line of brown hair with some gray forming on the sides. His nose was bulbous and reminded Charlie of a strong laborer. Which is probably what this man was. “Hello Charlie.”
“Hi Leonard.”
They walked into the maze together. The path wasn't wide enough for both of them so Leonard walked in front while Charlie followed him in silence for a while. Charlie knew this mans name and didn't wonder why at all. This man was Leonard because that is what Charlie called him. “Why am I here Leonard?” A question for the ages if there ever was one.
“You chose to be here Charlie.” An answer for the ages as well.
“What do you mean I chose to be here? I dropped my finger on a map this morning.”
“It was still a choice.”
“That didn't really answer my question about why. So I chose to be here but why am I here?”
“Because you dropped your finger on a map that's why.” Leonard walked forward with purpose into the dark. He never stepped on the trimmed wheat stalks. They walked in silence for a long time. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence at all. Leonard stopped suddenly and turned towards Charlie. “How long did it take you to find the center?”
“About five hours.”
“Did you know where you were going?”
“Not really. I knew I needed to reach the center but I didn't know where I was going.”
Leonard turned around and continued walking with purpose. Charlie followed him with no purpose at all. It seemed that Leonard knew where he was going. If he didn't know, then he sure faked it well. Leonard continued to walk. “Charlie, what have you learned?” He didn't stop walking while he waited for an answer.
“I don't really know Leonard. That's a big question. What have I learned? I'm 38. I'm sure that I've learned something.”
“That's not what I'm talking about Charlie. Life can teach us lot's of things. I'm sure that you have learned a few things in your 38 years. We all learn things from life. What have you learned that life didn't teach you? What has life revealed to you?”
Charlie thought of his afternoon with Gabriel for moment before he answered. “I'm not really sure Leonard. I like life. I love my camera. I meet people and take pictures.”
“So life has revealed to you that you love your camera?” Charlie could hear the mild amusement in Leonard's voice. They continued to walk with no hesitation around this boxed in maze. Charlie didn't answer this half rhetorical question for several minutes.
“I love what my camera does for me.”
“Ah, now we get to something good. What does it do for you?”
“My camera let's me enjoy the journey. I live when I hold my camera.”
“And what do you do during all the time that you don't have your camera?”
Charlie became slightly sad as he realized his answer. “I don't live. I exist. I wait for the next time that I get to shoot.”
“That's not good Charles. You know this don't you?”
“Yes.”
“Charlie, you need to live wherever you go. There are no ordinary moments with, or without, your camera. What is it about your camera that let's you live?”
“When I have my camera, I feel like I can sneak up on the universe to steal a moment. I live my life and experience whatever is given to me knowing that at any moment, If I'm careful, I can catch a picture of life being lived. Either my own or someone else's. Usually it's a combination of the two. My camera gives me a reason to be present.”
“You desire to be present in order to steal moments from the universe? That is an interesting motivation to be present.”
“No, it's not like that. I just know that beautiful pictures happen when I'm living in the present. And I love those pictures. I love being that present.”
“Why not be that present even when the camera is gone?”
“I know that I could be but...” Charlie didn't want to finish the sentence. “...I wouldn't be able to capture it.”