Capturing Savannah (4 page)

On the walk back the guys decide they want to stop off and go into the graveyard.
Colonial Park Cemetery.

“This will be fun guys…oh and Thea you too.
Eh? Savannah is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in America.” Micah says. He goes on to tell us “This city has been through it all. War, disease, famine, duels, natural disasters.”

I think him
nearly winning that game brought him out of his shell some more. Cause I don’t think I have heard him talk this much or noticed how much his Canadian accent comes out when he does. It’s nice to see him get so excited about history. It’s good to have things in your life that excite you. So I play along and keep him talking about it.

“
Ya Button Gwinnet, a Georgia signer of the Declaration of Independence is buried there along with something like 700 victims of yellow fever.” he says. “It was also used as a camp for General Sherman’s soldiers during the civil war. There are rows of headstones stacked along the wall in the back because they broke them off and moved them to make room for their campground.”

“So fascinating
. Eh?” says Dean with a mocking tone and poking fun at Micah’s Canadian accent.

We get to the entrance
. It consists of an impressive pillared stone archway with an eagle sculpture with open wings on top and the engraved letters DAR. The tall wrought iron gate is closed. David and Remy give it a push and it opens pretty easily. It’s dark but we walk through the paths and through the trees draped in Spanish moss. We are all creeped out being here so late but still having fun exploring the history of our new city. We walk past small blank markers to indicate graves and some full blown intricately engraved headstones. And make our way back to the edge of the cemetery with hundreds of gravestones resting against a red, brown and white faded brick wall. The headstones vary in sizes and shapes and color. Most of them are broken but have been rejoined and affixed to the wall. They all have discolored stains on them and a few of them are so old you can’t see the words anymore. Some have a few words others have a paragraph of words. We all start reading the headstones aloud one at a time. Every one of them is interesting.

“
In Memory of William James who departed this life Oct. 1
st
1829 age 17 years & Mary. His wife who died Oct. 25
th
1829 age 17 years also.” Remy reads.

Age seventeen. Just like Jacks.
I have to quickly read another headstone to stop myself from getting choked up. Quick.

“Erecte
d as a tribute…” I am interrupted by bouts of laughter from the guys and Dean parroting “Erection.”

I join in laughing too. “Dean. Guys really? I didn’t write it.
“

“Erected as a tribute
…” I start again slightly pausing for any further interruptions “…to the sacred memory of beloved brother…” I stop there frozen as all the old feelings rush back uncontrollably. Images of the funeral and his face crashing into me. My brother Jacks, who was taken from this world at age seventeen.

I come back to reality when I hear
David’s voice asking “What’s the matter?” I reach up to wipe the tear I can feel rolling down my cheek. David grabs my hand and says to the guys “We are heading back to the dorms. Catch up with you guys later.”

We walk in silence the few more blocks
it takes to get back to the dorms. We check in with Max but I still stay silent. We get in the elevator and I realize David is still holding my hand from before and I continue to let him. He walks me to my room and as we approach we hear music getting louder. Angry girl music and I know it’s coming from my room. The whiteboard outside the door says
Girls Only
. David looks at me and says “You can come hang in my room if you want. I doubt Dax is coming back tonight.”

He said not coming
back. That was a poor choice of words on his part. But I appreciate the thought and agree “Ok”. Not wanting to be in a room full of loud annoying girls right now. Continuing with the hand holding we go to his room. It’s the first time I have been inside it so he gives me some time to look around and lets go of my hand. I walk around looking at some of the photos he has displayed. Some with him and a girl, which he notices me looking at and explains “That one is me and my sister.” He follows that up with “So you have a sister and brother?”

“Just a sister now
.” I say. “My brother died four years ago. He was seventeen.” I say surprising myself that I am telling him this.

I have never told anyone or talked about it with anyone besides my
family. But with David he makes me feel like I could talk to him about almost anything.

“How did it happen?” he asks.

“Car crash. He was driving. He had been drinking and lost control of the car. Hit a homeless man. None of them made it.” I say.

“I have never experienced anything like that. So I can’t imagine what you are going through.
You must have been young too. I have a sister though so I know how strong that bond is. You must miss him.” He says.

“I do miss him.
I was fourteen. I have thought of him a lot over the years. Sometimes more than others and sometimes it’s like it just happened all over again.” I say still starring at his picture of him and his sister. There are some things I don’t say though. Like how much guilt I feel. And like how my family is different now. And how I saw my brother sneaking out of the house that night. I knew he was going to a party and there would be alcohol there. I knew and I could have said something to him. I could have said something to my parents. I could have possibly helped and stopped two people from losing their lives that night. I could have but I didn’t.

“I guess something like that never leaves you. We shouldn’t have gone in that graveyard. That was stupid
.” he says trying to make me feel better.

“No it’s ok
. I wanted to see it. And I learned a long time ago that I can’t go around trying to avoid anything that might remind me of it.” I say.

“You are so strong. I love that you have that attitude
.” he says.

“Ya well I try. So where was this pictu
re taken of you and your sister? Back home in Florida?” I ask ready to talk more about him then about me.

“
Fisherman’s Paradise in Pensacola, close to where I live. We used to fish off that dock growing up.” he says.

“So you and sister are pretty close? Where is she now?” I ask.

“She stayed back home in Florida for school. She goes to the community college there and still lives at home with my mom.” he says.

I walk around his room some more and see the sketchpad at his desk with a drawing half finished of the lighthouse at Tybee Island. “Does she draw as good as you do?” I say lifting the pa
ge from the sketchpad to see an image of one of the trees with the Spanish moss that Savannah is filled with. An image that I am starting to adore. He has captured it amazingly. “These are amazing. I love this one of the tree.”

“Ya when I first got here I thought they were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. But I think I changed my mind on that on the first night
.” he says.

Confused I look up at him and he
is starring at me with that amazing crooked smile. I feel self-conscious again and can feel my cheeks heating up. I am probably blushing right now. Not knowing what to say I move from the desk to the dresser next where there are movies stacked up next to a rather large flat screen TV.

“The TV is
Dax’s. But some of the movies are mine. Wanna watch one?”

“Sure. But you pick
.” I say. I sit towards the end of his bed, the side away from his pillow. He has his furniture the same way as I do in my room. So the side of his bed is against the wall with the dresser and art desk across the room. Only his art desk is on the other side of the dresser. The movie
Spider-man
, with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst starts up. It’s one of my favorites and I am also relieved it isn’t a serious drama flick.

“You good with this one
?” he asks sitting down next to me and grabbing his pillows and propping them up against the wall behind us.

“Ya
. Love this movie” I say as we both scoot back to rest on the pillows and the wall. I kick off my shoes and bring my legs up Indian style. Glad I decided to wear pants tonight so I don’t have to worry about my shorts riding up.

“Only thing missing is
that popcorn and twizzlers I picked up at the store earlier.” I say. “Should have watched it in my room.”

“I can fix that
.” he says pretty much jumping up off the bed and is out of the room before I can say anything. Quite a few minutes later he comes back in with the snacks from my room that I bought earlier from the
Piggly Wiggly
.

“So Emily let you in the Girls Only gathering?”
I say smiling and feeling the butterflies in my stomach like I felt on that very first night I met him.

“Ya she even asked me to stay
.” he laughs.

“Well I didn’t realize you were that into
Spider-Man that you would pass that up.” I say sarcastically.

“Well I told her I already someone waiting in my bed for me to get back
too.” he says with his wicked grin.

“You did not
.” I say jumping up to give him a push. We both laugh and he puts the popcorn in the microwave and hands the twizzler bag to me.

“Kidding. Now please sit back down in my bed
.” he says.

“As long as you know that sitting is all that is going to
be happening in this bed.”

“Got it
.” he says as I climb back on his bed. Two and half minutes later he sits next to me. We laugh at something in the movie and I feel him scoot a little closer to me.

“Would you maybe want to do this again tomorrow night?”
he says.

“What
, watch Spider-man again in your room?” I say.

“If that is what you want. But I was thinking I could take you out to dinner
.” he says. He adds “It’s Friday so no excuses with classes. I do have to work till seven though so it would be after that.”

“Ok. I’ll be
working on a photography assignment late anyways. So eight then.” I realize I think I just agreed to go on a date with him. And I actually do want too but I don’t want to give him the wrong idea about us so I add “Ok but dinner doesn’t mean we are boyfriend/girlfriend. We both need to stay focused on school.”. I have only known David a few weeks now, but I am happy to know him. He makes me smile and laugh and feel ok doing it.

The movie is almost over and I am pretty tired
. Yawning I look over at David and he is asleep. I don’t blame him cause it has to be like five a.m. or something. I move the pillow he gave me to use to the head of the bed and try to push him over onto it. Cause it would suck for him to sleep sitting up like that all night. He lays down and then blinks his eyes a few times. He starts to sit up but I stop him.

“Stay put. Go to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow night
.” I say.

With a yawn he says “Goodnight
Thea.”

It’s already Friday by the time I go to sleep. And around lunchtime when I wake up. I blink my eyes open to the sound of rustling paper and a pencil. Blinking again I see Emily at her desk.

“Hey.” I say to her.

“Hey yourself.” She says. “I am meeting Lilah for lunch if you want to go downstairs with me.”

I
sit up and stretch, yawning “Uhkkaaay” to her.

Getting up slowly
I brush my teeth first. As I look in the mirror I smile a little at myself remembering that tonight I have kind of a date with David. Starting to blush a little I brush my black bangs to the side, even out my part so that all the pink streaks rest on the right side of my face along with my bangs. I pull on a comfy short-sleeved black and dark grey-stripped t-shirt and change into my jeans. I know it’s going to be another typical hot Savannah day but these are going to work better for the photography lab later today.

On the weekends, which includes Fridays, they
still serve breakfast at lunchtime. Which I think is my favorite thing about this cafeteria. I could eat eggs, bacon, and hash browns for every meal. This is feeling like it’s going to be a pretty good day.

After breakfast, well lunch
time really, Emily and Lilah take the blue mini cooper to the other side of town. I go upstairs to collect my camera equipment ready to take on a new project. I throw a secondary empty bag over my shoulder. I decided last night what I was going to do for my assignment. The assignment is to capture multiple images of a landmark or a representative image for the city. For my images I am going to need to walk all over the historic downtown area so I get out my frayed old sneakers. The kind that are comfortable and worn enough that they don’t give you blisters. They slip on easily and I tie up the gray laces that were white once upon a time.

I check to make sure I have my key though the thought crosses my mind that if I were to get locked out again it wouldn’t be all that bad of a thing.
“Ok” I say to myself dismissing the thoughts of David since I have work to do. I stop back in the cafeteria and buy five of the brown bag lunch sacks. Each one holds a BLT sandwich with packets of mustard and mayonnaise. Plus either an apple or a banana, a bag of chips and a bottle of water. I stuff the five sacks into my secondary empty bag I grabbed earlier.

As I am walking out Max
waves at me probably wondering what I am up to with all the bags. Walking out the doors to the dorm I go to the right planning to make a full circle back to the photo lab which is about eight or so blocks up to the left and over from the dorms. I walk to the square, Chippewa Square, below our sixth floor stoop. The man I saw asleep on the bench my first night here is sitting on the bench with his arms folded across him. The chow dog is laying under the bench and behind the mans feet with it’s head curling around them.

I
pull out one of the brown-bagged lunches and approach them.

“Hi” I say. “Pretty nice day today. I brought you lunch.”

The man reaches his arm out slowly. His hands shaking as he does and he grips the bag. He gives me a little smile and I ask him “Is it ok if I take you and your dogs photograph today?” holding up my camera in front of me.

He doesn’t say anything but nods slowly several times.
I take several images of him. Several of his face, which has a cracked leather look from the harsh sun and lines across the sides of his nose that move around his eyes. Stacked lines on his forehead dip down to the top of his nose. Despite the warm weather he wears a faded brown leather jacket that has more lines and cracks then his face. He eats slowly while I continue to take shot after shot. I am trying to be quick because I don’t want to bother him but he is such an interesting subject to capture. And it makes me a feel a little bit closer to my brother Jacks. My last sets of shots are from the top of his knees down his faded pin stripped pants to his mismatched shoes. One shoe has laces the other doesn’t. The shoe facing me on the left is pointed slightly out to the left. The shoe on the right is straight on but propped up some from the back so I can see the empty and frayed lace holes clearly. I can see the details of the chow dogs matted hair and how his position although at ease is attempting to encircle the mans feet. Ok, time to let him finish eating.

“Have a good rest of the day
sir.” I say. Walking away in the direction of the graveyard. I cross the street take a right, and walk around the backside of the enclosed Colonial Park Cemetery. I feel good about taking his picture. About capturing a moment of him and with him. In a way I feel like I am trying to make up for Jacks being responsible for a homeless mans death. I don’t really think I can ever make up for that but somehow doing this makes me feel a tiny bit less guilty. I walk with purpose to another one of the city’s famous squares. Walking what must be miles and passing a few other squares I land at Whitefield Square. In the middle is a beautiful arched gazebo surrounded by bushes and a wide faded red brick path. A man in a green jacket and a blue hoodie is shuffling around the path. I pull out the second lunch bag and approach the man.

“Hi I brought you lunch. Sandwich, fruit, and chips.
My name is Thea and I was hoping if it’s ok with you I could take your picture.” I say.

The man gladly takes the lunch and mumbles
, “Yes. Ok.” He looks up at me and smiles. I start clicking away capturing his toothy grin. He has two teeth sticking out on the left hand side of his face and you can see gaps in his smile where others should be. He has dark brown wrinkled skin. His facial hair is short and grey. I click a few more times and say “See you later sir.” to him.

I walk back towards the river and along the other side of the Colonial Park Cemetery.
Shuddering when I think of those haunting words from the gravestone. Age seventeen. Beloved brother. I continue a few blocks straight to Columbia Square. It features the Wormsloe Fountain in the center with a short brick façade around the perimeter. The branches from the large oak trees extend high into the sky with some of them twisting and turning almost in a motion like the fountain water itself. On the grass sits a younger woman with short dread locks and light brown freckled skin. She is saying something quietly. I get out another of the brown-bagged lunches and attempt to hand it to her.

“Here are you are. It’s a bacon, lettuce,
and tomato sandwich with some other stuff too.” I say. Knowing she is most likely hungry even though it’s late afternoon now and no longer lunchtime.

“Leave me alone
.” she mumbles and I barely understand her words but know what she wants by her tone. I leave the brown-bagged lunch in the grass next to her and walk to another part of the square on the other side of the fountain. Her back is facing me and she hunches over to eat the food I left next to her. I snap some shots so the fountain is visible, adjusting the shutter speed you can see details of the water droplets in the foreground and her hunched over form slightly blurred in the background. I shift around the fountain quickly clicking a few more times. Being considerate not to bother her or get her full face in any of the shots.

I walk along State Street and shift direction on Bull Street entering Johnson Square. A tall vertical structure rests in the middle of this square. There are several banks and businesses surrounding and a hustle and bustle
of people walking through and around it. I see two older men sitting on one of the many benches. As I approach they them seem not to notice me. I pull out the last two of the remaining brown bag lunches and extend them out to them. They struggle a little but successfully reach for them.

“Here is
some food for your guys.” I say. “Ok if I take some quick pictures of you?”

“Alright
.” one of them says with a bit of a scratch in his voice.

“One, two, three, chee
se.” I say. Snapping multiple shots one after another. They stay still for me with no expression on their faces. I play around with the angle by shifting a little framing up the tall vertical monument that is behind them as well as other buildings peeking through the trees. I walk to the side of them snapping a few profile shots as I do. I also capture the hustle of other people walking by. Their forms are blurred a bit but for the guys on the bench time is standing still and they are enjoying their sandwiches.

“Have a good
evening guys.” I say. It’s getting close to five o’clock and I think I have some good shots. But I am only a quick walk to River Street so why not check that out real quick too for possible photos. I carefully walk along the cobblestones remembering how I slipped at the beach with David on the rocks and not wanting to repeat that. I take a few shots of a man playing the trumpet with a can on the ground in front of him for collecting money. In the background blurred is the cobblestone street and a few glimpses of trees. Happy with that shot I decide to start the walk to the photo lab hoping I have some time to at least get started on developing the negatives. It’s six o’clock now so I have about an hour before I need to head back to the dorms to get ready for my date.

Walking I notice several of the run down alleyways like I’ve seen in some pockets of the city.
Most of them appear deserted. I know I should keep going so I can get into the darkroom but a shot of one of these alleyways could be good for the project I am working on. I see a striking graphic of graffiti in the next alleyway I am approaching and decide to turn into it. Not sure yet what else that particular alleyway holds. As I am turning in I snap my camera over and over again and then happen upon several figures. I can’t help but notice how young some of them look. A few look like they could have been Jacks age, seventeen. Their clothes indicate that they are homeless along with the fact that they are going through the trash in the dumpster. There is a broken down partially stripped car in the alleyway too which I pause next too. And I know I should get out of there, keep on walking and mind my own business but a shot of this magnitude would be perfect. I pause keeping the distance between us in check. I decide to take a few shots and as I am snapping away one of the guys looks up in my direction.

“What are you doing there sweetheart?” he asks.

“Working on a school project to take pictures around the city.” I say.

They laugh and yell “Fuck off pink haired princess
.”

“Wow
. Ok.” I say whispering so only I can hear my reaction. I back up a few steps quickly bumping into the broken down car and I feel a stinging sensation on my leg. I make a move back towards the sidewalk that extends down the remainder of the street and to my destination of the photo lab. As I do I hear footsteps and know I am being followed. Stupid. Stupid Thea. I think to myself.

Barely out of the alleyway I hear
“Hey wait a minute princess. I think we can work something out. Come back and take my picture.” One of them says. I glance back continuing to keep walking and see that three of them are practically on my heels. Just then one of them grabs my shoulder roughly swinging me around and the others surround me.

“Hey guys. Look I am sorry I stepped onto your turf. I am just doing a project for my class. I won’t bother you again.” I say.
One of them chuckles and reaches out to my hair touching the pink and moving his face in close. He takes a deep breath trying to inhale me.

“Just what I thought
, your hair smells like pink roses.” he says.

I take a step back shaking my head so his fingers are forced to leave my hair.
For an instant I think about doing nothing. I think about how I might deserve whatever it is they might do to me. How letting this happen might take the guilt I feel away. But then I start thinking of how I could use my camera as a weapon. I do have a pretty strong flash setting if I can get it turned on quickly.

A
car screeches next to us alongside the sidewalk. I hear a voice yell “Get away from her.” And I know it’s David. I fumble with the buttons in my hands and quickly lift my camera clicking the button in the guys face just as he makes a move to get closer to me. The flash goes off blinding the one temporarily and the others jump. The guys take off and David has his arms around me.

“Oh my god Thea. Are you ok?” he asks. “
Your leg. It’s bleeding.” He adds and I can hear the concern in his voice and I look down at my leg and see the cut in my jeans and red stuff underneath the slightly open gap the jeans are making. Physical injuries don’t mean much though. They are on the outside. They don’t compare to how it feels to lose a brother.

“I’m fine.
I think I cut it on a car in the alleyway” I say.

“Alleyway! What were you thinking Thea?”

“About my photography project.” I say with a little sarcasm.

“Well…” He stumbles with his words “You…Get in the car
.” he says.

He opens the car door for me
without his arm leaving my side. When I get in I smell an overwhelmingly delicious smell of pizza.

“Pizza?” I say as he gets into the drivers side of the car.

“Ya I was out on a delivery when I happened to see you in trouble.” he says. “I’m calling the police.”

“No
.” I say. “You don’t need to do that. It’s fine nothing happened. I am ok.”