Perhaps the police came. It seems much emptier, free space to walk around, but they couldn't defend the position. Things will start again soon.
On the dingy yellow shelves, stacks and stacks of photographs, the fuselage of a bomber taken during a night time attack, night bombing raids on England or Germany, tribesmen of the african sub-continent, machines, objects, images, all in black and white, and very old. I know these pictures, are they all mine? Why would I leave them on a subway? They must be part of the collection of images I rip apart for collages. I cannot imagine that I took them all myself.
I wander among the cracked and dingy cement columns to the other side of the car. More pictures. One catches my eye.
From the low angle I only see a picture of Goran from the shoulders up. He has on a very dapper top hat and tuxedo with a white flower thorugh his button hole. The sharp lines of the clothes he wears contrast appropriately with the aquiline features of his face. I could stare into his face for hours. The picture is very old, taken in the 1920s or so. It has that yellowed quality of sepia to it, telling of its age and well-kept history. I delicately pick up the picture to better examine its features.
The image is of Goran, his full body. He is leaping forward with his body tilted towards me, his right hand extending forward, his left jostling his top hat in the air, and his left leg kicking behind him as he balances on his right leg. He stands on a sidewalk along a moderately crowded street on a sunny afternoon. A model T or similarly antiquated car is parked by the curbside, perhaps still running. The outlines of similar makes of automobiles can be discerned in the distance. A hedge lies on the other side of the sidewalk. Seven or eight young men, also dressed in coat tails stand behind Goran in various states of celebration. They each have white enameled lawn mowers, some of which they hold, others have been pushed into the hedge, or by what appears to be the walkway to a house, though the photograph shows nothing further than the beginnings of a cement embankment. I remember the incident behind this photograph, though I cannot remember if I took the photograph, if I was at all involved in the occurences behind it, after all, this is the 1920s, or if I merely remember a story Goran once told me.
I look at the expression on Goran's face more closely. His nose and forhead have been contorted into a happily crazed expression, his mouth agape, likely yelling something unintelligible. I have to smile . . such a crazy fellow.
This picture was taken on his wedding day. I think he had just been married .. to whom . . escapes me. I should know. The other young men are his grooms. The lawn mowers . . ah, yes, sheer madness . . he planned to use them in a revving perfomance with his grooms, to celebrate his excitment and energy gained from the wedding day. I presume the bride and her family, as well as most of the guests decided to forgo the performance. He insisted on white-enameled facades for the lawn mowers. He, himself, would not start or play a lawn-mower, but would instead depend upon and direct his grooms to start and play the lawn mowers for him, thus expressing his energy through the efforts of others. I cannot remember if I attended the performance.
lynn@pharmdec.wustl.edu