Remembering C is a tribute to a friend that life drew me away from. A tribute to 9 days of bliss and freedom that I will never experience again and would never have - without him. A tribute to a man who died far too young and left the world a better place that he had been there.
Kodak. Florence 2019. C1
I met C at a photo course at the local community college. My uncle and I were taking it so we could learn how to print Kodachrome slides. The Cibachrome method is what it was called then. The color from a Cibachrome print is something otherworldly and we both wanted to be able to do it.
My uncle and I would drive up in his battered Ford half ton, stand outside a bit and smoke before we went in. Then we’d sit and listen and drink coffee and everyone there would banter a bit about their cameras and their favorite film and the weather.
C. missed the two first classes and showed up late for the third. He was short and wiry but he exuded a presence that made him 7 feet tall. He joined right in the conversation and the talk fell of course to cameras and the Nikon F2. That NASA has chosen it as the camera for the next space flight. And its exorbitant cost.
And somewhere in that conversation, just as an aside, not bragging or putting on airs, just as a simple sentence C says “Ya. It’s a great camera. I love mine”
I looked at him and I thought you stuck up lying bastard. A Nikon F2? In the middle of fucking Alberta? This isn’t Vancouver or Toronto. People here don’t have that kind of money.
So I said
“I’d sure like to see it”
C. looked at me and I knew that he knew that what I really had said was “I call you out you liar”
He just smiled and said sure, come on.
I said I had to stay to drive home with my uncle, and he said he’d drive me home. I told him it was out at the end of the north road and he said it didn’t matter. So I was caught. But then I thought to myself - so was he.
We walked out the door and he angled towards a blue and white Austin Healy roadster. People in Alberta didn’t have those type of cars. I had lost the stupid game I was playing before it even started. If he had that car he had an F2. Probably three of them.
“It’s OK” I said, I’m certain I didn’t say - you win - “ of course you’ve got an F2”
C smiled at me. A smile I came to love.
“Don’t be an asshole” he said “you want to see the camera don’t you?”
I nodded.
“If you give me a cig you can even smoke in the car” he said, laughing as he pulled open the door.
My wife. Years ago. Split in former Yugoslavia. C2
C. was an exceptional person. I learned later he’d inherited money from an aunt or some relation and he did what he wanted. But he would have still been exceptional even without the money - except for the car and a damned nice camera - you would never have known that he had anymore money than I did. And I didn’t have much. Not much at all. He had charisma. Real charisma. C. was, as I’ve said, short. But you only noticed that once. Whether you were a man or a woman. Only once. And after that he was just there and you were happy he was. There are a lot of days where I wish we hadn’t drifted apart. Days where I wish a lot of things but mostly that.
His entire family was different from anyone I had ever met. Open. Friendly. Intelligent. Happy. All things most of the people I met weren’t. And they weren’t prude either. C’s sister was the first live woman I ever saw naked. They had a pool. It was August and in August even in Alberta the afternoons can be warm enough to want to swim. So we decided to change into swimsuits and have a swim. I changed quickly but forgot something, I can’t remember what it was, and went back to the room and there she was - buck naked looking at her own reflection in the mirror. I stammered something and she just turned to look at me, didn’t even try to cover herself up or hide her femininity. She just smiled at me - and noticed my erection.
I covered myself and backed out of the room. I was more embarrassed than she had been. I didn’t know what to say or what to do.
She did.
She came out and jumped into the pool and looked at her brother and said
“Your friend has seen me naked”
C. just glanced over at me and shrugged.
And that was it. None of the three of us ever mentioned it again. But if I close my eyes and remember I can still see her in the slatted shadowed light of the room - proud and happy to be who she was.
Me. A few years ago. C3
I blinked against the sun, waiting for the glasses to darken. I should have already put in the contact lenses, pulled the shades out of the pocket of my denim jacket, the one I still have now over 40 years later, but I was tired after the shift.
C. Was waiting for me. Leaning back against the fender of his car - the English roadster he so treasured - cigarette hanging from his lips, one foot up against the tire.
“Hey man” I said “you’re up early”
“Got a lot to do” C said, savoring the smoke of his cigarette as he slowly exhaled. “Got to pick up my friend from work and get an early start”
I looked at him quizzically. It had been my third Night Shift in a row. Hadn’t been sleeping well during the days.
“We’re driving to the Gulf of Mexico” C said, flicking the half smoked cigarette onto the already hot tar of the parking lot. “How many days have you got free?”
I shook my head to clear it.
“Four” I said “counting today. Next shift is Thursday morning at 7”
C. looked up at the thin white clouds and counted in his head.
“Go get a couple of more days, I’ll wait” he fished another cigarette out of the crumpled package and lit it with his Zippo.
I walked back in, talked to the shift manager, a couple of guys I knew who wanted some more shifts. I was gone half an hour.
This time I took the time to put the contact lenses in. Already had the shades on when I walked out into the harsh yellow prairie sunlight.
“I got 5 more days. Gotta be back at 7 PM in 9 days.”
C. Smiled. Walked around his car, slid in and started the engine.
“Well come on then” C said. “We haven’t got all day”
Unending view. C4
We drove over the American border in burning sun light. It was so harsh that it burnt my eyes though I wore the darkest shades I could. You see I am a photophile. I can’t adapt my pupils enough to sunlight. It is literal pain and burning. A bit like Dantes’ hell but without the cool visual effects. But it was freedom. It was life. It was - what it was. Beautiful and wonderful and everything in between. I have never felt that way again. Maybe I will when I die. C. may know. He died before me. WAY too early. The capitals are on purpose. Way too early. I might even write that again just to emphasize it. Way too early.
It was sometime in the early afternoon when we crossed the border. I had crossed it twice before in my life. Once on the way to Butte, Montana with my parents and once on the way back, also with my parents. While I was in Butte I bought myself a pith helmet - but that is another story. The first time I had been there it had been 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot. I had never experienced heat like that before.
Now it was probably 95. But we were in a 1960’s stock version blue and white Austin Healy Roadster with the top down. We were young and we were on our way to the Gulf of Mexico. To put our toes in it. No other reason. Did there have to be?
The Mounties on our side of the border - the civilized side where you could buy a gun and a beer when you were 18 and did not have to wait until you were 21 to drink it - but could shoot your neighbor anytime before that - waved us through. Whatever they were - policemen, border guards, customs? - I can only remember they wore starched green uniforms - on the other side, stopped us to look at our drivers licenses and waved us through.
We were about a mile from the border when C. gave gas and glanced at me.
„Light us up two cigs yeah?“
I nodded and pulled two out of the package I had rolled up in my shirt sleeve. John Players Special. The plain black packaging fit to the car. Fit to how we felt. Lit them with the car lighter. Gave him one. We smoked. Didn’t say a word. Why should we? Fuck. We were free.
No horizon. C5
It was exhilarating, it was wonderful, it was boring. We drove. One of us would doze off in the passenger seat and the other would drive. When we were both awake we stared in awe at some of the landscape flashing around us and smoked. We smoked a lot then. One cigarette after the other, often using the still burning butt to light the next one. It was the same trick Germans had used after the war - if you smoked a lot you weren’t hungry. So we stopped for gas, and for cigarettes, and water from the fountains that were often outside the washrooms, but nothing else. That’s not quite true. We stopped for coffee as well. Coffee, bacon, eggs, toast. At diners where there were lots of trucks - assuming the truckers wanted good food. Some of the time that was right, most of the time it wasn‘t. Bacon that wasn’t crisp, toast that was burnt or not toasted, coffee that you could see the bottom of the cup. At least the eggs were always acceptable. Although I have to say that neither of us were egg connoisseurs. Hard over, cooked through. Any cook can do that.
We drove like that into the night that first day. Finally pulled over at a roadside diner probably about 1000 km from home. I think we were in Colorado though I could be mistaken. Although it was dark, close to closing, we had - bacon and eggs. Who could have guessed it? Smoked too much. You could still smoke in restaurants then. Drank Coke because we weren’t yet 21 and couldn’t drink beer there yet. Talked. A lot. About what we wanted to do with our lives. Where we would be. What we would do. At that time I think I still wanted to get into med school. I can’t be sure. I can’t be sure how much is real memory and how much my experiences since then have filled in the inevitable gaps.
I know we ate more, stopped more, talked more and definitely smoked more on the way to the Gulf but I can’t remember it. Not the way I can visualize the happenings on the way back. I can’t even really remember where we where when I put my toes in the Gulf of Mexico. I think it was somewhere around Galveston. But it could have been anywhere. It wasn’t the place that mattered. It was being there.
Detail of an old door. C6
It was evening when we pulled the car to a stop above the beach. Got out. Walked through the sand. Took off our shoes and waded into the Gulf of Mexico.
We sat on the cooling sand as our feet dried and talked. About photographers. About Kodachrome. Talked. Smoked. We had picked up some strange cigarettes in a garish blue red package at the last gas station. They were horrible - but they were a lot cheaper than JPS.
We didn’t move the car that night. We slept in the seats and woke up about 4 to rain. We had the top down so we woke up fast. Decided to drive on and not wait for the sunrise as we wouldn’t see it anyway through the rain. It was when we stopped at the next diner that was open that we realized our predicament.
„How much have you still got?“ C asked me, cradling his mug of coffee in both hands, cigarette hanging out of his mouth James Dean style.
I crammed out my wallet and counted. I had 65 dollars.
„You?“ I asked
„About the same.“ he said
We were 3000 miles from home in an English sportscar and we had 140 dollars to our name.
„What’s a tank been costing us?“
„Topped up about 30 bucks“
We both did the math in our heads. We were getting about 300 miles to a tank. If we drove a bit more carefully, maybe 4. So we would have to tank 8 times. Just for gas we were short a hundred.
C smiled. Stubbed out what was left of the cigarette in the ubiquitous ashtray. We looked around the diner. Americana pure. Red leatherette seats, chrome.
“Might as well start saving now” he said, stood up, waved at the waitress and walked out.
I swallowed. Hard. I had never stolen anything in my life before and now I was going to steal a coffee. I drank the dregs out of my cup. Lit a cigarette. Smoked on it. Tried to figure out what I would do. I was too nervous to walk out. If I ran they’d know something was up. I stubbed out the cigarette, stood up, looked around the diner. No one noticed me. The till was by the entrance. I can still remember it as if it were yesterday. Yellow. Big handle on the side to open the cash drawer. I started to walk but I found I couldn’t. So I skipped.
Skipped out on the two coffees. Literally.
Storm. North Sea. C7
We were driving north in Louisiana. In rain I had never seen in my life. Rain that didn’t come down in drops but in sheets of water. The wipers barely kept open enough of a spot for us to see. It would be ten years before I experienced rain like that again and that would be on another continent.
I also had never seen green like that before - thick verdant green. The leaves, the vines hanging from them, the moss on the tree trunks. Deep dark green. I could begin to believe the books I had read, Conrad, Kipling. The jungle. It’s sensuality. A pulsing heat I could feel through the sheets of rain pounding down upon us. I was glad I wasn’t driving. I could see it, feel it.
A white police cruiser passed us by headed south. He must have turned quickly because within a minute or two he was behind us, siren and lights both on.
“You speeding?” I asked, incredulous.
C shook his head.
“In this fucking rain?” He shook his head again “I’m insane but not that off my rocker”
I turned to look at the cruiser.
“Then what’s going on?”
“Find out when I pull over I guess”
So we pulled onto the side of the highway, the white line in the middle somehow shining against the wet black pavement, the rain still frothing against the windshield, the leaves still exuding that dark green sultriness. The cruiser came to a stop about twenty feet behind us. We waited for about a minute and then the doors opened. On the passenger side a guy in a black slicker and a white hat covered in plastic leveled a shotgun over the door. I could see the rain fall from it. On the drivers side a big fat policeman, as if it were a bad movie, signaled for us to roll down the window. C rolled.
Rain on a window. C8
“Ya boys up there!” He yelled between his cupped hands over the roar of the rain on the ground and in the trees “Ya all just be calm and pretty. Put ya hands up on that cute little roof and keep ‘em da”
We put our hands on the roof and looked at one another. It was Deliverance with cops. We were fucked.
The fat guy had on some type of bomber jacket. It was already wet by the time he got to the drivers window. His hat was also covered in plastic. Rain sluiced down from it. His right hand was resting on the butt of a silvered revolver. A big one.
“Now ya boys just sit there pretty and all will be well” he said, or something like that - it was hard enough to hear him over the rain and the only Southern drawls I had ever heard were in movies - and they were more understandable.
He asked C to pop the trunk. He said sorry, I cant, got to get out and do it.
The fat sheriff - at least I think he was the sheriff - told us not to move. They’d open the trunk.
I think I said something like “Great now they’ll plant whatever they want in there and we are fucked big time”
C turned his head a bit to me and whispered “Let’s hope not cause the other alternative is we move and the guy back there uses the shotgun”
I nodded. I could feel the sweat from my palms drip down my arms. C didnt look much better than I felt.
They opened the trunk and rummaged around a bit. The fat one came up to the window again and poked his head inside and looked at the back seat.
“Sorry about that boys” he said “Someone just robbed the bank and got away in their car. Only thing the teller could tell us was it had foreign plates. Dumb tussy probably meant Tennessee.” He finally took his hand off the butt of his revolver. “Have a nice day and drive careful ya?”
We nodded and took our hands down from the roof. It was raining less than it had been. Started the car. Signaled and pulled away.
Girl picking cherries. C9
We were driving through the ode that is Kansas and Nebraska when we began to talk about Freud. Please - anyone whom lives in Kansas and Nebraska - don’t take my negative view of your landscape personally. I feel the same way about Alberta and Saskatchewan, where I was raised. It’s flat. There is either wheat or corn for as many miles as you can see and the roads are basically straight. It’s boring. At least when you’re 20. Perhaps now I might find extensive landscapes to photograph, but then, then I thought it was boring.
We’d both started to read Freud, Nietzsche, Hesse. In English of course. It would be 20 years before I read them natively. Before I could really appreciate what they wrote - and then not only because I knew the words but because I had lived the culture and could appreciate the nuances.
When the next wheat elevator is miles away on the horizon, you let the nicotine and the tar take over your mind, and you think of many things. Of girls, of life, of futures, of many things - but not of death. Who could think of death in a blue white roadster with the top down?
So we talked of Freud and ego and id and of course sex. We were twenty. I think sex is the thing we thought the most about then. And C had the idea. He would photograph girls for their portfolios for Playboy or Penthouse. Hustler was too vulgar. Penthouse - borderline. And when he’d had enough of that he’d study film. Any one else and I would have said yeah, I believe you - and not meant it. When I said it to him I meant it. Every word.
And he did it. Thats what C did when we got back. He started to photograph girls who wanted to be in Playboy or Penthouse. Creating their portfolios - all on glossy Cibachrome of course. We hadn’t taken that course for nothing. Two years later he started at the University. Film. He always did what he wanted and what was right for him. Something so many of us don’t do because we are too afraid of ourselves, or what the neighbors will think, or something else. But C wasn’t. I have written it before. You don’t know what you’ve lost until you lose it. I wish I had never lost him.
Shore. C10
What C didn’t tell me when we first discussed our meager finances is that he had fifty bucks stashed for weed. He wanted to buy enough to last for months from some guy he knew in South Dakota who grew really good stuff in the middle of his corn field. We pulled off the highway where he’d been told to and bounced over a gravel road that was in worse shape than the one that led to my farm. Stopped at the farmhouse. The guy who came out of the barn looked like a cross between a Vietnam vet and a hippie. Green field jacket, military pants and boots, beard, earrings in both ears and a feather in his ponytail.
C obviously had been there before. They shook hands and he came over to me - I had hung back at the car- and introduced himself and said hello. He’s probably 80 now but I won’t write his name. Marijuana is still illegal in South Dakota.
He went into the house and came out with a good size packet all wrapped in plastic and C slipped him the fifty. He asked if we wanted coffee. We politely declined and threw the packet into the trunk before we drove off. After we were out of sight of the house C pulled over and we both got out of the car.
“Got any paper?” he asked
“Nope”
I hadn’t started smoking roll your owns yet then. Only old men and tokers rolled their own. That would come the first time I tried to stop smoking.
“Have to wait then” C said.
Then he pulled up the carpeting in the trunk and on the drivers side, by the wheel well, there was like a little box beneath the carpet. I don’t know if other Austin’s had that - never had the chance to ever look at a second one. But this one did and that’s where we stashed the weed.
We drove on. Hours and hours. Through South Dakota. Into Montana. Through Billings. It was already dark when we pulled into the diner outside of Bozeman.
Waiting. C11
We spent the night in the car outside the diner where we had eaten. We had paid so it would be fine. A lot of the way back we hadn’t. We woke up with the sun and trooped back into the diner for a coffee. Today we’d drive all the way back so we didn’t need food. Paid again and we were on the road before 7.
The closer we got to the border the more nervous I got. I guess C did too because about an hour south of the border we pulled into an off road where there was a picnic bench and a trash can. He didn’t say anything but got out of the car, walked to the back and opened the trunk. Then he took out the weed and put it carefully in the trash can.
“It’s a waste man” He said “but I’ve got a bad feeling”
I nodded. Promised him I would give him half when I got paid. He waved it off.
“Was a stupid idea” He said “we’re not smugglers and I bet we are just the guys they want to tear apart.”
I nodded. Said it was too bad we hadn’t at least tried it. C nodded. Shrugged. Asked for a cigarette. I lit his from mine and gave it to him. Then we got back in the car and drove.
My dog. Golden hour. C12
We had a guardian angel, or at least someone who liked us. At the border they waved us over and the Mounties brought the dog. He went right for the trunk. They opened it and he went for the wheel well. He was a dammed well trained dog. The Mountie pulled up the carpet. Nothing.
He turned and looked at us. We looked back. We didn’t have anything to hide anymore. He just smiled. I’m pretty certain he knew we had had weed in the car. They asked us if it was OK if the dog sniffed us. Both of us nodded. We’d washed our hands about six times since we had ditched the weed. The dog came up to us but just wagged his tail. Nothing.
“Lucky day” the cop said
“Nothing to hide” said C
The cop just smiled and told us we could go on. They never even asked us if we had something to declare.
C motioned for me to drive so I drove us back across the border and the last 4 hours home. We had been driving for 8 days. I had one night and the day until the Night Shift started where I had to work. Where I then did a thirty six hour shift to make up for the guys that had worked for me. But that is another story and has nothing to do with C.
I drove into our farmyard and we both got out. The dogs and the cat all ran to greet me. No one else was there. C followed me in for a coffee. There was always a pot brewing on the farm. You never knew when a neighbor would stop by. It had evaporated a bit sitting on the hot plate but it was still coffee - and you couldn’t see the bottom of the cup.
Storm on the North Sea. My grandson. Beginnings and endings. C13
The last time I saw C was over 30 years ago. He came by for coffee in the house my wife and I and new baby daughter had just moved into. Brought a kangaroo pelt with him as a gift. He had been in Australia scuba diving for their electric company and then in New York for a while working on Broadway. Anyone else and you’d swear it was braggadocio but not with him. It was real.
We sat and talked and laughed and joked and reminisced. He offered to trade me the Healy for our Pontiac. Straight trade. If I could have found a way to get the children’s car seat in it I would have said yes.
He probably spent about two hours with us. On a a rainy and grey afternoon. A Saturday. I know it was a Saturday because we weren’t in the University and after he had left I went shopping. Back then Safeway was closed on Sunday.
That was it. Now C is gone. To where souls like that go. And I still have the kangaroo pelt on the wall.
Epilogue.
I wanted to at first match this prose with a literal photo - a photo of that kangaroo pelt. It means much to me. But it also means looking back. So instead I matched it with a photo that means as much, if not more to me, and is looking forward.
Wherever you are C. Take care.