Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 20:24:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: lost <txdman2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: when-it-costs-too-much-02

lost here. ok, well here goes... again.

i blame this posting upon myself, and i also blame its lateness there
too. (i just needed a wee siesta after fiesta, sorry. oh and there was
the spurs game as well.) oh, and have a good cinco de mayo (if this
actually makes it out before then) and go spurs go.

and i'd like to wish sprout, author of "this gift," a happy birthday,
but i can't cause his isn't for months. so instead, read his story and
then e-mail him (and if you wanna pester "kevin and justin" author
peter to update as well, that wouldn't be a bad thing).

oh, and don't forget to visit the chat room (the link's somewhere
around here... i think maybe on the boyband page, up at the top).
any comments, criticisms, or constructs for furthering the plot are
welcome, if you'd like to send them (txdman2000@yahoo.com).
And you can send me a flame, if ya want; just don't be surprised if
you get a howler back, yourself (i'll borrow hedwig for the
occasion).

disclaimer:
this isn't real. it's not meant to imply anything about the persons
depicted within. (i.e. kinda similar to 'layla' by derek and the
dominoes vs. 'layla' from mtv unplugged. sure they both have eric
clapton singing them, but one barely knows they have the same
lyric, to the point where they are basically two completely
different things.) if you're too young, you aren't supposed to read
this, so please don't. if you're easily offended, get over it or don't
read and go away.

oh, and the terms 'mario' and 'mario cart' are probably trademarked
by nintendo.

and without further ado (since this almost has nothing to have
much ado about)...


- - - - - - - - - -
Chapter 2:
Rites of Passages
- - - - - - - - - -

"Dammit!"

I looked up from the sulfurous liquid, and into the now
overpowered safe light. Even earlier, under its faint red glow, when
the image gradually appeared while swimming in the yellow stop
bath, I had thought my newest print was too dark. I'd hoped it
wasn't; that it was just the low light and that things would look
better with the normal lights on, but no. And sure, it wasn't dry
yet, and maybe it'd lighten up some, but I wasn't counting on it.

I waited the 15 odd-seconds the black and white print had left in its
clear finishing bath, and then moved it into the water tank for its
final cleaning. After ensuring that my newest -- too dark -- print
wasn't getting pushed into the back wall of the tank, or into the
path of the nozzles spraying water into the tank, I gathered up the
nearer, drying prints from the back of the sink.

'At least one of your 5 shots needs to be of a box,' the instructions
said. Or, at least what I remembered of the assignment's
instructions, since my notes on the assignment weren't on my
newly printed sheet, but rather the one confiscated during my little
security violation at the Dome last week. Not that remembering to
ensure that shadows and contrast were the focus for my shots was
that hard to forget. I just wondered if the instructions I'd pulled
down from our class's website had all the information I'd gleamed
from when the assignment had originally been handed out. Ah, but
I wasn't really worried about the whole assignment; just this stupid
box shot.

Had I known the energy I could've saved by simply making sure
the subject of my frame was just a little farther from the white
mass of concrete, I'd've moved the damn box. But no, I hadn't, so I
didn't, and now I was stuck with a triangle of white concrete in the
bottom right corner of the frame. In and of itself, this cement
wasn't such a bad thing; not much of a subject of interest, true, but
not anything close to an abomination. But to have it juxtaposed
within the frame with the dark, shadowed, interior of the box, and
the frame became a nightmare. And the grass the box lay on... well,
it was actually fine. No matter how dark or light the gray grass
was, it still looked fine; no more greener here than there.

In the six "box" prints I had, each separated by a second or two of
exposure, I couldn't get the contrast to work out right. If the
concrete was ok, then the inside of the box was too dark; but if I
made it so that the inside corner of the box showed, then the
concrete and the frame border were the same tone (a big no-no).

I was beginning to wonder if the purpose of this box shot was just
to show us that we couldn't show everything in the frame; that
sometimes the contrast was just too broad for the limits of the
paper. At least, that's what I was hoping for; I wasn't going to
reshoot this box shot again. And my other four pictures for the
assignment were fine. Besides, I didn't have time.

The assignment was due tomorrow night, and Leeza was already
cruising through the top-10 of her weekly countdown on this
mildly tepid Sunday night -- meaning that it was after nine. And I
still had to drive home before dinner.

Sighing out a breath, and glancing around the cramped dark room, I
figured I was done for the evening. Which meant that I should pack
up and move out. So as Sheryl Crow came fuzzily through the
room's old analog clock-radio -- she was the spotlight artist that
week -- I began to clean up. 'Life springs eternal, on a gaudy neon
street, like I care at all...'

I poured the fixer and stop baths back into their storage containers,
and dumped the rest of the liquids. Then I packed up my prints,
most of which weren't dry yet so they were wrapped in paper
towels until they could dry in the car (it's amazing what open
windows and a half-hour drive can accomplish -- they'd be dry by
the time I got home).

'... such a muddy line between the things you want, and the things
you have to do...' was the last bit of Ms. Crow I heard before
switching off the radio, and heading towards the door. Carefully
teeter the wet prints in my hand, I reached the door, and turned
back to look at the room. Taking a final cursory glance around the
room, and not noticing anything out of place, I flipped off the
lights, checked to make sure all the safe lights were off, made sure I
had everything, and stepped out the door.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Hello. Can you hear me? Am I getting through?  JC... you there?
Josh-o-wa? Hey!"

"Oh, hey, J," was Josh's awakening response, his mind temporarily
distracted from the gaudy neon display passing outside the tour
bus. "You need something?"

"Josh, are you ok?" Justin asked, troubled by his friend's recent
quiet behavior. Sure, JC wasn't the first to jump into a
conversation, and never really gave away too much when he did
talk, but he just seemed a little quieter lately -- if that was even
possible.

"Yeah... I'm fine; just thinking," 'or trying not to, actually,' Josh
dredged out.

"Ok, then I'll leave you alone. I need a partner for 'Mario' against
Joey and Chris, but I'll go drag Lance into it. He needs the practice
anyways. I'll come get ya when we stop."

"Alright, thanks Justin," Josh replied as he watched Justin head off
in search of Lance, before returning his gaze, and his confusion, to
the window.

He didn't understand what was happening, or had happened, to
him lately. Or at least how he'd gotten where he was, let alone
where he was going. Well, he knew how he'd gotten there; it was
just that his view of 'there' had switched so dramatically that day.

Well, maybe not that day, per se.

Lynn's returning of the pictures had been the definitive catalyst to
his awakening, whereas the others had only steered him down this
path. He'd been so excited about getting those pictures back,
primarily so that he could show them to Justin, and they could
laugh about their brave moment a few days back. When he'd finally
had enough of the reporters and photographers violating his and his
friends' lives. He'd finally done something to stop it. And what
happened? He'd found the one person on the planet, it felt like,
that was taking pictures of him but really didn't mean to.

Well, 'Hudson' certainly had meant to shoot him and Justin; the
shot plainly showed that. But it also showed that they hadn't
really been the focus of the shot, even though they were the center
of the picture. Well, not the focus even, cause they were partially;
maybe more like reason for the shot. No, not that either. Who he
was wasn't the reason for the shot; that was kinda it. It was just
'cause he'd been there. Or something like that.

And if that picture didn't concur with this belief, the rest of the roll
helped. There was the fact that the damn things were black and
white, which was why it had taken a few days to get the shot
developed -- who knew 24-hour processing didn't include black and
white film, let alone that normal people still took pictures with it.
And then there were the rest of the pictures...

At first, he'd thought that the box picture was a mistake; that it
was just accidentally shot as the first picture on the roll. Like
Hudson had just put the film in, and wasn't too sure whether he
was on the first picture or not. But when he'd seen the other
pictures, which ranged from two shiny, mirroring metal curved
poles sticking out of a tile floor to a row of over-head flood lights,
he wondered if it wasn't so accidental after all. And then, after he'd
dragged what turned out to be an assignment sheet from the also-
confiscated plastic bag still inside his backpack instead of his
discman earlier... that had confirmed his suspicions.

But those suspicions had been there ever since Hudson had stood
up. 'Hudson', a name he only knew because it was on the top of the
sheet... which also showed that his project was due tomorrow...

Hudson's height had initially thrown him; towering over his own
5'11" frame. It was intimidating, at first. But looking closer at the
man, he'd know Hudson was at least a little worried. It had shown
in his eyes, even through the round glasses perched on his nose,
and later in his voice. He'd fed off his worry, and it had stabilized
him for his attack; an attack which almost died when he'd touched
Hudson. The strange questioning in Hudson's eyes had broken his
minute spell, and rekindled the arrogance necessary to complete the
dismissal.

He now wished he could as easily dismiss the memories of the
event. He wished that he felt comfortable enough to surprise Justin
with the pictures, like he'd originally planned. Now he was just
glad that he'd not mentioned giving the film to Lynn, so that, on the
lark, they could see what shots of them normally got stolen -- what
didn't make the papers.

He also wished he hadn't taken the rolls. It wasn't so much the
comparatively blasˇ 'shadow' shots for the assignment, or the
almost invasion into Hudson's life that the other, color, roll entailed
-- it looked like he'd visited his family and that someone close to
him swam, or something. No, the voyeur in him ashamedly almost
liked that -- not to mention the suits...

No, it had more to do with the shot that had led to all the trouble.
The one of he and J... sitting, laughing, just being. And with the rest
of the guys and Lynn in the background, actually hacking from the
looks of it -- definitely a rare moment.

The plainness of the picture -- like he and his friends were normal
people, just being normal -- bisected by the shadow layering half
the frame... which made it appropriate for the assignment. When
he'd seen it, he'd felt... he felt... well he knew he didn't want to
share it with Justin; at least not for his original purpose.

Josh's gaze finally fell upon the Nevada desert, as the bus headed
west toward L.A. and their next stop. The diminishing lights of Las
Vegas paralleled the "Stardust" -- where'd they'd coincidentally just
left -- which Natalie Cole sang of and which must have calmed him,
as he didn't feel up to any more thinking. Maybe that, or the light
rain that had begun to fall outside the bus.

So, on that note, Josh removed his headphones, and turned off and
set down his player on the seat, as he went to join the 'Mario Cart'
battle in progress.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ttfn

feedback, comments, suggestions welcome at txdman@yahoo.com