The Photograph
Watch your pronation, this surface is uneven.
Well, not uneven like that mule trail at the Grand Canyon Marathon. Lisa Simpson smiled at the memory. Still, on an easy training run like this 5K, she knew her mind could wander. That’s how you get into trouble. With one eye on the road she glanced at her heart monitor: 140 beats per minute. Barely breaking a sweat. Tomorrow she would run it again in the morning then again in the evening at speed.
There was still plenty of time to train for the Charlotte Marathon in November. She could do the pace work in the flat terrain of the Lowcountry, but there was little comparison to the challenging hills she would face in North Carolina. That realization made her want to press harder but the easy run was on
today’s schedule -- and Lisa always followed the schedule.
It was an early August morning but the humidity was nonetheless oppressive. Naturally. No way could it be avoided during the dog days of summer in the Greater Bluffton / Hilton Head Island area. Tourists seemed to love it though, that is, as long as they could enjoy a cooling ocean breeze on the beach. In the wooded section of the Alljoy community, however, there was nary a whisper of air.
Mind wandering again.
Lisa shook out her arms and tried to refocus. She noticed an obscure, unpaved trail leading off to her left, possibly a ‘ghost road.’ These were built and maintained by the locals - some now existing for well over 100 years - as access to property that may or may not have a deed recorded with the county. ‘Heirs property’ they were designated, granted to slaves during the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War.
On a whim, Lisa changed course and jogged down the gently curving dirt track. Giant live oaks closed in overhead, and with substantial understory growth on either side it almost appeared she was in a tunnel. She had not gone far when the trail ended at a small dilapidated shanty with a rusted steel roof and well weathered board-and-batten siding. The front porch was full-width, spanning maybe 30 feet, and absolutely stacked to the open roof rafters with knickknacks and antiques. A hand-painted wooden sign hung over the center steps: ‘The Bluffton Christmas Shoppe,’ it read.
Lisa had stopped running immediately when she came upon the shack, thinking she deserved to be shot as a trespassing fool. Although the place was in the worst location ever for a retail business, it certainly looked like a store with goods displayed and a welcoming sign. She ventured up the steps and onto the porch.
Gingerly she wandered through the stacks of merchandise piled on tables and shelves. There were Christmas tree ornaments of every size, shape and color; tucked between them were packages of stationery with note cards and envelopes adorned with exquisite calligraphy; tooled, leather-bound books with gold-leaf inlays; photographs, watercolors and oil works in ornate frames…
She picked up one framed photo of a man and woman sitting on a bench overlooking the water. It was a picture of her.
It was her!
Wait, what? How could this be? Lisa had no recollection of such a moment - and she had no idea who the man might be that sat next to her. She looked closer. Her first impression must be wrong.
“I must apologize for the disarray,” a deep, booming voice said behind her. She turned abruptly and found a black man, one of the biggest men she had ever seen, dressed in a crisp black suit, white shirt and black tie. He could have been on his way to Sunday church services - but this was Saturday.
“Sorry if I startled you. I am Johnathan, proprietor. Welcome to The Bluffton Christmas Shoppe. How can I assist you?”
Disarray indeed, Lisa thought. She held out the framed photograph to him. “Perhaps you can help. What do you see here, Johnathan?”
The man took the frame into his massive hands and raised his brows. “Ah, I would say this is most certainly a picture of you, madam.” He handed it back with a wide smile.
“I don’t understand, how would you happen to have a photograph of me on your front porch? I don’t have any memory of this and I don’t know who this guy is sitting next to me. Where did you get this?”
Johnathan seemed to be genuinely perplexed. “Well, madam, to be honest that would be very difficult for me to determine. I’m afraid my record keeping is even messier than my porch. But since this is obviously a photo of you I want you to have it, please, with my compliments. Let it be a memento of your visit to my shop.”
Lisa hesitated. The picture had a rose-colored matte and an expensive looking ebony frame with spiral decorations at the four corners. “That is very generous of you, but I can’t accept. I don’t have any money on me - only a bottle of water - but would it be OK if I just kept the photo?”
“An excellent idea. After all, it is your photo.” Johnathan was able to extract it in no time. He handed it to her and said, “I hope your running leads to great happiness in your life.”
Lisa tucked the photograph into her fanny pack and thanked the big man. On her way home her mind was on anything but running.
Bongo, her black lab, greeted her on the screened porch, tail pounding. “Hey, you big lunk. Scare off all the mangy squirrels today?” His spirit was bright, same as it was when he had run beside her for years, but age and arthritis relegated this senior to naps on the veranda. Lisa sat down on the floor in front of the outdoor sofa and let Bongo put his head in her lap. She retrieved the photo from her fanny pack and studied it.
“I swear I don’t know who this is,” she said aloud, baffled. The couple sat facing each other on a bench, their profiles showing expressions of… what? Resignation? Sadness? No, there was an absence of joy and both had more a look of loneliness about them. Lisa glanced over at Bongo and sighed. “If it weren’t for you, buddy, I’d be a solitary mess.”
The store manager, Johnathan, had not hesitated to identify the woman as herself. How could he have been so sure? The woman wore a yellow tank top like one she owned. OK, exactly like one she owned. Perhaps she could figure out where the shot was taken. In the distance there was water: not beach, but marsh grasses and most likely a saltwater river. That didn’t narrow it down much since the county was almost 40% water with grassed estuaries coiled all around the buildable land. Still, something about the setting looked familiar.
“We’ll try to find it tomorrow, eh bud?”
They began the quest at the far western edge of town at the Palmetto Bluff community, one of Lisa’s favorite training spots. The marina had available parking and Lisa pulled in, opened the door for Bongo and snapped a leather leash to his harness. As the two strolled the magnificent waterfront, Lisa constantly held up the photo, comparing its composition to the scene in front of them. After twenty minutes and no luck, she bundled the dog into her car and headed to the opposite end of town.
Lisa and Bongo repeated their process, starting on the eastern edge of the Alljoy community. They followed the riverfront from Brighton Beach and went as far as they could before encountering private property. Again, no matches.
Then it was off to midtown, to the Church of the Cross, the Wright Family Park and the Oyster Factory Park on the May River. There, several benches were situated along the bluff overlooking the water. Holding up the photo, Lisa spotted the exact location within minutes.
Well, so it wasn’t a complete hoax: the site was obviously real enough. The mystery man, however was nowhere to be found. “Now we know where to look, Bongo. We’ll come back tomorrow and see if we can run into our photo pal.”
Normally, he didn’t get out of his apartment this early in the morning but when you sleep only two hours at a clip, ‘morning’ was a relative term. Nick used to hate Mondays when he was in school, then the Marines taught him there was no difference between Mondays and any other day of the week. Now he had a hard time even remembering what day it was. It didn’t matter.
There was something calming about the river, though, the rhythm of the tides, launching of early fishing boats, the shaded banks and cool breeze. When he first started coming here, Nick felt as if he was wasting time and should be doing something more useful. He quickly learned to just blow off the guilt. Besides, wasting time was exactly what he intended. If he tried, perhaps he could sit on the bench, dozing on and off, until the sun shifted west, erased his shade and prodded him on. That wouldn’t happen until late afternoon. He would then return to his apartment - and drink.
A fine life, thought Nick. What day was it? Who gave a damn.
Lisa’s job as a radiology technician gave her some flexibility. She and two other techs had wide latitude swapping hours and days to accommodate personal schedules - and Lisa worked it like a master so she could participate in every important running event possible. Fortunately there was nothing on the calendar for the next two weeks, and she certainly could use the time to reconnoiter the site on the May River in hopes of spotting the man in the photo.
People seemed to bang themselves up on weekends so Mondays were always busy. Today Lisa had the early shift but would be off by 3:00. Then she planned to pick up Bongo and get to Oyster Factory Park. If the man wasn’t there, Bongo would go back on the porch while she did jogging loops through Old Town. Hopefully, for the couple in the photograph, their paths would eventually cross.
But Monday was a bust. Maybe the guy was an early riser? Tuesday was her late shift so Lisa got down to the park while the sun was low and cool but her mystery man did not show. Wednesday was filled with after-work commitments. Thursday was another late shift so Lisa went to the park early. Still no luck.
Friday was an early shift and she jogged over to the park directly after work in mid-afternoon.
There was a man sitting on the bench. Not unusual, but there was something about his silhouette that quickened her pulse. He had that same rugged youthful look, athletic, just like the guy in the photo. Though Lisa had fantasized about meeting him and rehearsed in her mind, in her dreams, what she might say, there really wasn’t a plan. That made the moment all the more nerve wracking, but it was here and she would not let it slip away. She rounded the bench and sat down beside the stranger.
The man barely turned to look at her - no, he looked through her - then returned his gaze to the river. Lisa took a moment to study his profile, trying to fit this person somewhere within the puzzle of her life, but just as with the photograph, the man in person conjured up nothing in her memory.
“Is it OK if I sit here?” she ventured. He nodded. “Haven’t we met before?” The man’s blank eyes seemed to focus for an instant, then he shook his head. Lisa retrieved the photograph of the two of them and held it out. He glanced at it, then away.
“Don’t you see? It’s us,” Lisa said thrusting it at him.
The man took the photograph, scrutinized it for a moment, then handed it back. “Amazing what they can do with Photoshop these days,” he deadpanned.
Lisa was a little rattled, thinking she had just been accused of a scam. “Wait, I didn’t… I don’t think this was Photoshopped… well maybe it could have been, but if it wasn’t, then I wonder how -”
“Look lady, I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t know you. You don’t know me. That can’t be us in that picture.” For once he looked directly into her eyes.
Lisa looked back. He wore a short sleeved sport tee, long nylon stripped pants and running shoes. Definitely athletic. “I found this photo a week ago and it’s been haunting me ever since. You may be right, though. It looks like us but maybe it isn’t. Are you a runner?”
With that the man’s features broke from melancholy to one of complete mirth, a wide sparkling smile and high cackle punctuating his reply. “Yeah darlin’, I’m your champion marathon man,” he said, pulling up his right pant leg to reveal the shiny silver tube of a prosthetic limb.
The ‘pipe’ was a new addition - if one could call replacing a leg with hardware an ‘addition.’ Nick had been fitted with the appliance a few months ago and had gained enough confidence to venture beyond his apartment complex only within the last several weeks. As far as the VA doctors were concerned he was getting along just fine - meaning, he was starting to get the hang of hobbling on a peg leg. And with the new device came a new attitude, far from healthy, that threatened to consume the last pieces of the optimistic man Nick Bowman used to be.
Whenever it was discovered that he was a US Marine, the assumption invariably followed that the wound resulted from combat. But his leg wasn’t shot off or blown off - it was cut off in a loading mishap stateside, just up the road at Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina. When you’re a logistics non-com in the eye of activity among heavy transport helicopters, things move fast. Injuries off the battlefield accounted for a third of military casualties - and Nick could not get past the bitterness of being included in that number.
The woman he met earlier, Lisa, had witnessed his rage first hand. She didn’t know what to say - strangers rarely did - and he hadn’t made it easy for her. Nick had to admit, though, the photo she gave to him was a puzzle. It certainly looked like the two of them, both wearing long faces as if just receiving some very bad news. “So you think this is a scam?” she said. “Well, here then, keep it as a souvenir of our meeting.” Her words, her voice haunted him. He wondered why that should be since nothing really mattered anymore.
Having had enough adventure for one day, Bongo retired to the porch while Lisa changed into running apparel. She had plenty of time to get in several miles, the searing heat of the late afternoon notwithstanding. She loaded a bottle of water into the fanny pack then struck out, settling into a moderate pace, and headed for the Alljoy community. The big man, Johnathan, at The Bluffton Christmas Shoppe had some explaining to do - and this time she wasn’t accepting any excuses about sloppy record keeping.
The guy in that photograph was definitely the same guy she had met on the bench earlier. But that was the very first time she had laid eyes on him. Nick. Maybe he was right and this was some kind of scam. But why? For what purpose? The ghost road was just up ahead and, hopefully, so were some answers.
Hmm, she thought, I’ve gone too far. Mind wandering again. Lisa backtracked looking for the dirt trail, but after scrutinizing every possible opening along the way, she had no luck finding it. Or the shop.
That night Nick made a conscious decision not to get drunk. Instead of pizza delivery or canned soup, he actually made himself a decent dinner: Tilapia in the toaster oven with three red skin potatoes on the edge of their lifespan, peas from a can and the last beer. Afterward, he sat alone with his thoughts, clear thoughts for a change, and remembered the encounter with Lisa.
She looked like a runner: slim, taut, sure-footed. Her approach had been bold but her speech told him she was looking for help, not looking to make trouble. He grabbed the photo from the coffee table in front of him and took another look.
Something had changed.
He and Lisa still faced each other as they sat on a bench overlooking the river. But it was different. In a flash he suddenly knew the man in the photo was definitely not him. This was the old Nick, the guy that loved life and people, the man who had a smile on his face and was enjoying the company of this lady. This was him - before the accident, before he decided to wallow in self pity. And this was the man, he realized at that moment, he so desperately wanted to be again.
Lisa vowed to get back on her training schedule. It went like this: work, run. Run, work. Yes, it was a lonely life but champions made sacrifices. The Charlotte Marathon would be here soon enough, and after that there would be some downtime to contemplate social adjustments. And, truth be told, her life could stand adjustments.
With no trails and few sidewalks, Oyster Factory Park was not really a great place for walking. And Nick had a new-found motivation to get moving on two legs. That’s right, no longer would he think about himself with one leg and a pipe. He had two legs, he was standing, he was mobile, he was lucky. New attitude.
There were plenty of sidewalks throughout Old Town and Nick made use of them, wandering periodically back to the park to check on the bench. He looked for her everyday. One more conversation was all he asked. It was important that he tell her he was wrong: the photograph was not a fake.
Against the odds, the opportunity presented itself sooner rather than later. One day a lady strolling through the park at dusk with a black lab, met a man who carried a picture of a couple sitting on a bench overlooking the river - that bench right there as a matter of fact - and in the photograph, both of them were smiling.
