Pictures of Evil by Rick Hartford

They want pictures of "Evil." And with a Holga. So simple. Find Satan's image hiding in plain sight. And capture it with a toy camera. (I remember the line in a movie: We are errand boys sent by clerks.) So to Enfield Street, Where the shattered windshield of a car Frames a man furtively walking away. Then over to Albany Avenue next to the auto parts shop, The one with the graffiti on the wall, Where the poems of the dead, carved into stones, Cry out in mute agony among the trash and the weeds. Then to the apartments on Vine, Where the police and the gangsters circle each other in an endless loop. Sitting in the car by the curb, engine running, waiting for something. Somebody calls my name. He waves from up there on the stoop. It takes a moment. Did I know that he had been shot? There was a parade. So many pretty colors and happy faces. And then. Pulling up his tee shirt, he shows the map of the pain. Scars and sewn flesh, the slugs still inside him. Sensitive to the cold. We draw a little crowd, some bringing smiles, some blank stares. A the kid on a bike glides up with a baseball cap and an RIP tee, Like wearing a tombstone. He looks away, a bird ready to fly, detached from us. Yet listening, monitoring, absorbing everything. An old lady pulls groceries in a cart, Head down as a patrol car swings to the curb. Two policemen walk up easy in the summer night. Got a call, one of them says. The landlord says you are causing a disturbance. We need you to leave. They smile.