Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 (21 page)

 
          
 
The camera clicked like an insect. It was blue
and metallic, like a great fat beetle held in the man's precious and tenderly
exploiting hands. It winked in the flashing sunlight.

 
          
 
"Hsst, Ricardo, come away!"

 
          
 
"You down there!" cried Ricardo out
the window.

 
          
 
"Ricardo, stop!"

 
          
 
He turned to his wife. "Don't tell me to
stop, tell them to stop. Go down and tell them, or are you afraid?"

 
          
 
"They aren't hurting anything," said
his wife patiently.

 
          
 
He shook her off and leaned out the window and
looked down into the alley. "You there!" he cried.

 
          
 
The man with the black camera in the alley
glanced up, then went on focusing his machine at the lady in the salt-white
beach pants, the white bra, and the green checkered scarf. She leaned against
the cracked plaster of the building. Behind her a dark boy smiled, his hand to
his mouth.

 
          
 
"Tomas!" yelled Ricardo. He turned
to his wife. "Oh, Jesus the Blessed, Tomas is in the street, my own son
laughing there." Ricardo started out the door.

 
          
 
"Don't do anything!" said his wife.

           
 
"I'll cut off their heads!" said
Ricardo, and was gone.

 
          
 
In the street the lazy woman was lounging now
against the peeling blue paint of a banister. Ricardo emerged in time to see
her doing this. "That's my banister!" he said.

 
          
 
The cameraman hurried up. "No, no, we're
taking pictures. Everything's all right. We'll be moving on."

 
          
 
"Everything's not all right," said
Ricardo, his brown eyes flashing. He waved a wrinkled hand. "She's on my
house."

 
          
 
"We're taking fashion pictures,"
smiled the photographer,

 
          
 
"Now what am I to do?" said Ricardo
to the blue sky. "Go mad with this news? Dance around like an epileptic
saint?"

 
          
 
"If it's money, well, here's a five-peso
bill," smiled the photographer.

 
          
 
Ricardo pushed the hand away. "I work for
my money. You don't understand. Please go."

 
          
 
The photographer was bewildered. "Wait .
. ."

 
          
 
“Tomas, get in the house!"

 
          
 
''But, Papa . . ."

 
          
 
"Gahh!" bellowed Ricardo.

 
          
 
The boy vanished.

 
          
 
"This has never happened before,"
said the photographer.

 
          
 
"It is long past time! What are we?
Cowards?" Ricardo asked the world.

 
          
 
A crowd was gathering. They murmured and
smiled and nudged each other's elbows. The photographer with irritable good
will snapped his camera shut, said over his shoulder to the model, "All
right, we'll use that other street. I saw a nice cracked wall there and some
nice deep shadows. If we hurry . . ."

 
          
 
The girl, who had stood during this exchange
nervously twisting her scarf, now seized her make-up kit and darted by Ricardo,
but not before he touched at her arm. “Do not misunderstand," he said
quickly. She stopped, blinked at him. He went on. "It is not you I am mad
at. Or you." He addressed the photographer.

 
          
 
"Then why—" said the photographer,

 
          
 
Ricardo waved his hand. "You are
employed; I am employed. We are all people employed. We must understand each
other.

 
          
 
But when you come to my house with your camera
that looks like the complex eye of a black horsefly, then the understanding is
over. I will not have my alley used because of its pretty shadows, or my sky
used because of its sun, or my house used because there is an interesting crack
in the wall, here! You see! Ah, how beautiful! Lean here! Stand there! Sit
here! Crouch there! Hold it! Oh, I heard you. Do you think I am stupid? I have
books up in my room. You see that window? Maria!"

 
          
 
His wife's head popped out. "Show them my
books!" he cried.

 
          
 
She fussed and muttered, but a moment later
she held out one, then two, then half a dozen books, eyes shut, head turned
away, as if they were old fish.

 
          
 
"And two dozen more like them
upstairs!" cried Ricardo. "You're not talking to some cow in the
forest, you're talking to a man!"

 
          
 
"Look," said the photographer,
packing his plates swiftly. "We're going. Thanks for nothing."

 
          
 
"Before you go, you must see what I am
getting at," said Ricardo. "I am not a mean man. But I can be a very
angry man. Do I look like a cardboard cutout?"

 
          
 
"Nobody said anybody looked like anything."
The photographer hefted his case and started off.

 
          
 
"There is a photographer two blocks
over," said Ricardo, pacing him. "They have cutouts. You stand in
front of them. It says 'grand hotel.' They take a picture of you and it looks
like you are in the Grand Hotel. Do you see what I mean? My alley is my alley,
my life is my life, my son is my son. My son is not cardboard! I saw you
putting my son against the wall, so, and thus, in the background. What do you
call it—for the correct air? To make the whole attractive, and the lovely lady
in front of him?"

 
          
 
"It's getting late," said the
photographer, sweating. The model trotted along on the other side of him.

 
          
 
"We are poor people," said Ricardo.
"Our doors peel paint, our walls are chipped and cracked, our gutters fume
in the street, the alleys are all cobbles. But it fills me with a terrible rage
when I see you make over these things as if I had planned it this way, as if I
had years ago induced the wall to crack. Did you think 1 knew you were coming and
aged the paint? Or that I knew you were coming and put my boy in his dirtiest
clothes? We are not a studio! We are people and must be given attention as
people. Have I made it clear?"

 
          
 
"With abundant detail," said the
photographer, not looking at him, hurrying.

 
          
 
**Now that you know my wishes and my
reasoning, you will do the friendly thing and go home?"

 
          
 
"You are a hilarious man," said the
photographer. "Hey!" They had joined a group of five other models and
a second photographer at the base of a vast stone stairway which in layers,
like a bridal cake, led up to the white town square. "How you doing,
Joe?"

 
          
 
"We got some beautiful shots near the
Church of the Virgin, some statuary without any noses, lovely stuff," said
Joe. "What's the commotion?"

 
          
 
"Pancho here got in an uproar. Seems we
leaned against his house and knocked it down."

 
          
 
"My name is Ricardo. My house is
completely intact."

 
          
 
"We'll shoot it here, dear," said
the first photographer. "Stand by the archway of that store. There's a nice
antique wall going up there." He peered into the mysteries of his camera.

 
          
 
"So!" A dreadful quiet came upon
Ricardo. He watched them prepare. When they were ready to take the picture he
hurried forward, calling to a man in a doorway "Jorge! What are you
doing?"

 
          
 
"I'm standing here," said the man.

 
          
 
"Well," said Ricardo, "isn't
that your archway? Are you going to let them use it?"

 
          
 
"I'm not bothered," said Jorge.

 
          
 
Ricardo shook his arm. "They're treating your
property like a movie actor's place. Aren't you insulted?"

 
          
 
"I haven't thought about it." Jorge
picked his nose.

 
          
 
"Jesus upon earth, man, think!"

 
          
 
"I can't see any harm," said Jorge.

 
          
 
"Am I the only one in the world with a
tongue in my mouth?" said Ricardo to his empty hands. "And taste on
my tongue? Is this a town of backdrops and picture sets? Won't anyone do
something about this except me?"

 
          
 
The crowd had followed them down the street,
gathering others to it as it came; now it was of a fair size and more were
coming, drawn by Ricardo's bullish shouts. He stomped his feet. He made fists.
He spat. The cameraman and the models watched him nervously. "Do you want
a quaint man in the background?" he said wildly to the cameraman. "I'll
pose back here. Do you want me near this wall, my hat so, my feet so, the light
so and thus on my sandals which I made myself? Do you want me to rip this hole
in my shirt a bit larger, eh, like this? So! Is my face smeared with enough
perspiration? Is my hair long enough, kind sir?"

 
          
 
"Stand there if you want," said the
photographer.

 
          
 
"I won't look in the camera,"
Ricardo assured him.

 
          
 
The photographer smiled and lifted his
machine. "Over to your left one step, dear." The model moved.
"Now turn your right leg. That's fine. Fine, fine. Hold it!"

 
          
 
The model froze, chin tilted up.

 
          
 
Ricardo dropped his pants.

 
          
 
"Oh, my God!" said the photographer.

 
          
 
Some of the models squealed. The crowd laughed
and pummeled each other a bit. Ricardo quietly raised his pants and leaned
against the wall.

 
          
 
"Was that quaint enough?" he said.

 
          
 
"Oh, my God!" muttered the
photographer.

 
          
 
"Let's go down to the docks," said
his assistant.

 
          
 
"I think I'll go there too." Ricardo
smiled.

 
          
 
"Good God, what can we do with the
idiot?" whispered the photographer.

 
          
 
"Buy him off!"

 
          
 
"I tried that!"

 
          
 
"You didn't go high enough."

 
          
 
"Listen, you run get a policeman. I'll
put a stop to this."

 
          
 
The assistant ran. Everyone stood around
smoking cigarettes nervously, eying Ricardo. A dog came by and briefly made
water against the wall.

 
          
 
"Look at that!" cried Ricardo.
"What art! What a pattern! Quick, before the sun dries it!"

 
          
 
The cameraman turned his back and looked out
to sea.

 
          
 
The assistant came rushing along the street.
Behind him, a native policeman strolled quietly. The assistant had to stop and
run back to urge the policeman to hurry. The policeman assured him with a
gesture, at a distance, that the day was not yet over and in time they would
arrive at the scene of whatever disaster lay ahead.