The box of photos

I drove into the parking lot from Arden Way on my way to the Petsmart on Watt Avenue to buy food for The Pets. As I drove past a long-vacant storefront I noticed a bearded man seated erect inside a low, long box. His hands rested on his outstretched legs, fingers splayed. His shoes were outside the box and his socks were pulled nearly off, leaving his ankles and heels bare.

That was worth a picture, I said to myself as I drove on. And if I'm going to do a blog about pictures of the day surely I can't pass that up.

But I didn't stop. I went on to Petsmart and selected two bags of cat food after carefully reviewing the ingredients. Then I picked up some expensive dog food that comes in a huge sausage-like plastic package. The Pets eat well.

I left the parking lot the way I arrived. There, in the doorway of the vacant store, was the man in the box, still seated erect, his hands unmoved from his legs, his belongings scattered about him.

This is just not something you see in a neighborhood of expensive suburban ranch-style homes. This was really worth a photo.

But I didn't stop. I continued east on Arden on my way to pick up some "treats" for The Wife and some fresh fruit for myself. The decision not to stop and take a photo, not once but twice, gnawed at me, chewing on scars so old you'd think by now they'd be too tough to hurt.

What really bothered me was the reminder of a day in the summer of 1976. I was working as a reporter/photographer for a community newspaper in Sunland-Tujunga, and I was returning from a "Man On The Street" interview assignment. I had been walking around a neighborhood park asking what people thought of the African nations' decision to boycott the 1976 Olympics. The editor had picked the topic. The answer I got was most often, "Huh?" from the people hanging out in a public park in the middle of a workday.

At the time I was just realizing that bothering people bothered me. My curiosity, or in this case the need to collect some public opinion, didn't outweigh what I perceived as my intrusion. As a cub reporter starting out in a career in journalism, this was a troubling revelation. On my way back to the newspaper, I was mulling over that discovery when I came upon a crime scene.

Police officers were milling about as I started taking photos. In the doorway of a building in the backyard was a man lying on his back, obviously dead, blood filling and overflowing his open mouth, bubbles from his last breath captured in the goo.

As I moved around taking more photos I could hear people arriving. These were the man's relatives and friends. They were clearly distraught. Cries of despair marked each arrival.

I continued to take photos of the crime scene, but I could not turn my camera on the weeping crowd gathered just outside the police lines. I couldn't put the camera down and take out my notepad and ask them who the dead guy was. Whose child was he? Whose husband? Father? Son?

Instead, I got into my car and drove back to the office and called the local law enforcement office for the details needed for a short story about a local murder investigation.

That was the day I realized I would never be a real newspaper reporter.

Years later, working as a night assistant city editor at The Sacramento Bee, I worked with real reporters and sent them out to crime scenes and I edited their stories describing the anquish at the loss of a loved one. And once, late at night after the paper was put to bed, I chatted with a couple of reporters and asked how they could just walk into a house full of grieving people and sit down on the couch and start asking questions. "I'm giving them an opportunity to tell their stories," I remember one reporter explaining. "It's not an intrusion," another reporter said. "It's a service, a gift I offer."

It's a sort of guilt I feel for not being a real reporter, and that was the guilt I felt at not stopping and taking the photo of the guy in the box. It was like not doing my job.

At Whole Foods I bought $90 worth of frozen vegetarian dishes and fresh fruit and loaded them into my car. I drove out of the parking lot and headed home on Eastern Avenue. I got about two blocks before I finally couldn't take it any more and turned around.

What finally broke my inertia was something I had read a few days earlier during my morning prayers. On our altar is a small spiral-bound book, "Daily Wisdom from the writings of Nichiren Daishonin," and I had set aside the entry for January 3, thinking I'd do something with it. The entry reads:

"Just as flowers open up and bear fruit, just as the moon appears and invariably grows full, just as a lamp becomes brighter when oil is added, and just as plants and trees flourish with rain, so will human beings never fail to prosper when they make good causes."

I drove back to the man in the box and parked. I gathered a half-dozen tangerines and several apples in a plastic bag and then I got my camera out of the trunk of the car. I walked over to the man and set the food down near him.

"This is for you," I said.

"It's outside my reach," he said, his hands still on his outstretched legs.

I moved the bag next to him, within easy reach, and asked, "Can I take your photo?"

"No," he said.

"That's OK," I said. I smiled and walked back to my car. As I opened the trunk I heard the man say something.

I walked back, still holding the camera, and asked if he had said something. I couldn't understand what he said. He was mumbling and I don't have the best hearing. He had to repeat himself several times until I finally heard him say, "You can take my photo."

He offered to stand up, but I said he should just stay where he was. I took a half-dozen photos, thanked the man, smiled and left.

This Photoshop treatment of one of the photos says everything. The black and white stamp filter applied with a hard light mode and the effect reduced just enough to let some of the color emerge reduces the reality of a man living in a box outside a vacant storefront to an unreal pastel cartoon.

Day 30 of 365