Tell Me One Thing by Kerri Schlottman

Author:Kerri Schlottman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

ALEX AND GENE DANCING

1985

C-print, 8 x 10 inches

Gene is in a blue and green flowered kimono when Quinn arrives. He tightens the straps, runs a hand over his hair to soothe a crown of mischievous coils. There’s a zigzag of glitter pencil drawn from the corner of each eye toward his temples, which calls Quinn’s attention to a bolt of blue vein below his left eye, barely noticeable under his dark skin. Alex hands her a cup of coffee. The radiators spew and hiss despite the spring temperature. Daylight streams through the gauzy curtains and brings a feeling of well-being, however feigned.

“How are you feeling today, Gene?” she asks, taking his hands and pressing her palms against their coldness. He is thinner than just a month ago, a gaunt hollow in his cheeks despite her initial sense of optimism. In winter, it felt as if every day might be the last. Spring, as it can, has brought a sense of devious renewal.

“Like a shimmer,” he says. “Like sunshine on water. You know how that looks?” Quinn nods, and she can easily feel that feeling too. Gene sits on the couch, almost regal in the way his arm drops over its back. His legs tuck to the side.

Alex says, “New doctor, new pills.”

He leads her to a chair by the window, and she takes her camera out of the bag, changes lenses, and checks the light. She shifts focuses, using the parquet floor until she gets the slight fuzziness she’s hoping for. As she prepares, she asks, “What do these new pills do?”

“This,” Alex says, and his hand flips in motion toward Gene, who is staring in wonder at his own hands. “None of these doctors wants to deal with him too long. They keep shuffling him around. They’re all just amazed he’s still alive.”

I’m sorry, Quinn mouths because Gene has turned his attention back to them.

“Before you came, I was telling Alex a story of a parade I saw when I was a kid,” he says. “Quinn, it was the most beautiful thing. There was a mermaid with a gorgeous tail. She spun around and around on the top of the float and her hair was red and thick like rope. All the way down her chest. And it’s all I wanted. I wanted to be a mermaid like her.”

“That’s a beautiful image,” Quinn says, taking a photo of Gene in the refracted light from the window. “Was it the Mermaid Parade?”

But he doesn’t answer, instead says, “I have new pills,” and he cranks open an orange bottle from the coffee table, holding one up for Quinn to see. She shoots a photo. “They make the room glimmer, like a disco ball. Do you want to dance?”

Quinn smiles. “I do,” she says. She twists out from the camera strap and hands it to Alex as Gene stands, grasps her hands, and pulls her toward him. He circles them around the room, humming a song Quinn doesn’t recognize.

“Quinn, you look like stars,” Gene says and squeezes her hand.

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