The Last Blue

by Isla Morley

  “Betty’s just Betty.” Havens thinks now is as good a time as any to be preoccupied with the book.

  “The way she was carrying on, straightening your tie, ‘did you remember this, don’t forget that.’ I’m surprised she didn’t hop on the train with you. Don’t you feel she mothers you?”

  Betty is seven years Havens’s senior and she’s never had children, so if she has some misplaced maternal instincts, what harm is there in it? “She just wants to help me.”

  “Help you what?”

  “I don’t know, not end up a bigger disappointment than I already am.” Havens knows that look on Massey’s face, so before his friend launches into a pep talk about the importance of believing in oneself, he ends the subject by saying, “Betty wants what’s best for me, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “There is if that’s why you marry her.”

  This train ride is going on much too long. “Who said anything about marriage?”

  “Santos.”

  Havens sighs and lets his chin fall to his chest. He didn’t tell Massey about the modest little ring he put on layaway at the pawn shop because he didn’t want to defend or debate the conclusion that led to its purchase, which is that there comes a time when a man has to put aside thoughts of passion and consider what’s practical. His brief failed marriage at twenty had been all about passion, and look how far that got him.

  “I’m not telling you how to live your life,” Massey continues, “I’m just saying, don’t sell yourself short. As with art, so, too, with the heart.” Massey gets out his notebook, pulls the pencil from behind his ear, gives it a lick, and starts writing.

  “You went to see Santos again?” Havens knows Massey doesn’t have anything left to pawn.

  “He gives me a fair deal.”

  “Don’t tell me you cashed in your father’s officer’s watch.”

  “Man’s gotta eat, doesn’t he?”

  Havens watches his friend fill one page after another, never once pausing. Neither Massey’s passion nor his output has diminished since they met at the Cincinnati Enquirer eight years ago. Covering the labor beat, Massey was a star who had already risen to the fifth floor by the time Havens hired on as an assistant photographer assigned to operations in the basement, and their introduction came about on April 1, 1929, after Havens’s photograph of Louis Marx and his yo-yo made the front page, bumping Massey’s report of the Loray Mill strike to below the fold. First, Massey gave the editor an earful about how 1,800 women sticking it to the Establishment, strikebreakers, and even the National Guard deserved more attention than a toy maker, and then he sought out Havens in the cafeteria, only to pump his hand and call it a fair fight. “Your Marx beat Karl Marx, but just this once.”

  So began a friendship that soon extended beyond the walls of the paper. They dined with Massey’s band of pent-up activists and boozy poets, were hustled out of their wages playing pool, and hung out in Havens’s darkroom, where Massey would show interest even in the photographs that ended up on the cutting-room floor. “You can’t expect those jackasses upstairs to know what art is,” Massey is still fond of telling Havens all these years later. After the stock market crash, the paper had to let people go, but Massey fought for Havens to be kept on the payroll, and out of loyalty, two years later Havens followed Massey to the start-up rag across town that was more sympathetic to the unions. Last year, that paper finally went belly-up, just a month after Havens was awarded the Pulitzer for his picture Orphan Boy. Like an overburdened foster parent, the FSA took both Havens and Massey in, though Massey still moonlights for several dailies and Havens still takes pictures that end up never seeing the light of day.

  Havens turns his attention to the book, but the rhythmic rocking of the cabin soon induces slumber.

  * * *

  It’s mid-afternoon when Massey nudges Havens awake. “You’re drooling.”

  Havens has a crick in his neck. He packs the book in his bag and takes half of the sandwich Massey offers him.

  “I’ve decided we aren’t going with the folklore angle.”

  Havens doesn’t like the sound of this.

  Massey continues, “We’re going to show the devastation caused by the coal industry and the threat of industrialization on an agrarian way of life.”

  “Pomeroy said we’ve got to stick with the format this time—no tangents, no causes, no editorializing.”

  “What does that windbag know about field work? We keep turning in material and where does it go? Archives, that’s where.” Massey leans toward Havens. “The FSA is sucking us dry. I’ve not written anything I’m particularly proud of and you haven’t shot anything that makes you light up, so I’m saying let’s get back in the trenches, portray things how they really are, and when we’re done, we’ll shop our stuff around.”

  If Havens is expected to stand up and salute, he’s not going to—not this time. “I need this job.”

  Massey folds his arms and wedges his hands in his armpits. “Well, I’m not doing one-dimensional profiles of banjo players and wood carvers so we can all mythologize the mountain man.”

  “Do both, then. Give Pomeroy what he wants, and shop your masterpiece around, and if the lords at The New York Times give you entrance to their court, then you can flip Pomeroy the bird. Just not before.”

  “Mr. Compromise.”

  Havens shrugs. “I’ve been called worse.”

  “The thing about compromise is how innocuous it sounds. So reasonable.”

  Havens rolls his eyes. Here we go.

  “But it’s not reasonable. Half-measure, that’s what it really amounts to. And nobody likes stuff that’s half-measure.” The train whistle signals their approach into Chance. “Look out there.” With the fevered expression of a prospector, Massey gestures at the densely wooded hills as though there were gold nuggets waiting to be plucked from them. “Somewhere in those hills is a story that I’m going to write the hell out of, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop playing it safe and shoot what makes your blood flow. Get out there and take the best pictures of your career. That’s our only chance to get off the public dime and get back into prime editorial real estate where what we produce actually matters.”

  Havens stares out the opposite window, where the view is much different—a small shoddy station with a platform barely longer than a diving board. Hardly a launching pad to this bright new future Massey has in mind.

  They step off the train and pass through the shabby wood and brick station onto Main Street, Chance, Massey striding with confidence, Havens with the leaden gait of a man walking to a duel with an unreliable pistol. He hoists his camera bag on his shoulder and seesaws along with his tripod in one hand and his duffel bag in the other.

  “What’s that smell?” Massey turns up his noise at the fetid odor in the air, scanning for the culprit.

  “That would be the smell of nature,” answers Havens.

  “Too much nature.”

  Two-story brick buildings straddle a couple of dusty street blocks with signs advertising nothing out of the ordinary—Steeple-Busch Shoes, Howell Furniture, Rakestraw Hardware & Feed, Ethel’s Diner, Spurlock Drugs. About a dozen cars are parked along the wide, paved street.

  “Well, howdo, Chance.” Massey adopts a wide stance and puts his fists on his hips. A woman in a full-length dress from a fashion many years past skips in alarm when Massey tips his hat.

  According to the last census report, Chance is home to fewer than three hundred people, even though it is equipped for ten times as many. Like many other towns in eastern Kentucky, it got its start shortly after the Civil War, when corporations swarmed in like termites to claim the hardwoods, but it was the demand for coal that brought the real boom. Thrusting its way through the mountains, the railway took coal on its way out and deposited laborers on its way back in, and soon there was a town like Chance around every bend. Many of the hills have since had their insides carved out and prosperity has taken off for other parts,
leaving towns like this to slump into a state more pitiful than the one that preceded it.

  Massey fixes on a point of interest. “Before we go set up base camp, how about a quick turn at the gin mill?”

  As they start across the street, they are startled by honking noises. A man raps the center of the hubcap he’s holding like a steering wheel, and makes more honking noises as he passes, then continues running in the lane without paying any attention to the Ford about to overtake him. Slowing, the driver of the vehicle pulls up alongside the running man, and yells out the window, “Get your black ass back up on the sidewalk, Chappy, unless you want me to run over it!” But the man with the hubcap only tips his hat and keeps running, making the sound of an engine shifting through the gears.

  The establishment they enter is not much more than a bar counter weighted on each end by an old-timer, its fulcrum a stony barkeep. Packed tightly in front of the dartboard at the far end are three young restless-looking men, none of whom respond to Massey’s cheerful greeting, but by the time Havens comes back from the john, Massey is buying them a round of drinks.

  “Everyone calls me Tick,” says the stouter of the bunch, quick to shake Havens’s hand. He has a pale face, dark smears under his eyes, and the same uneven haircut as his friends, brushed forward over his forehead.

  Massey nods toward the scrawny kid returning with the darts, whose manner of walking brings to mind hinges working themselves loose. “This young fella is Faro Suggins, the sheriff’s nephew.”

  Faro squints at Havens and plants himself next to the third guy, who stares at Havens with the eyes of someone who works the gallows.

  “And Ronny Gault here is the mayor’s son.” Massey seems pleased, as if Ronny’s an acquisition, while Ronny makes it clear he shares none of this enthusiasm by downing the rest of his beer instead of shaking Havens’s hand.

  Havens has heard of hill people being tight-lipped and suspicious of outsiders, but liquor and Massey’s interest soon make these three eager to talk. Massey unpacks the recording machine and asks if they mind going on record, and after a brief hesitation quickly dispelled by a demonstration of how the device works, they go back to talking as if it weren’t there. None of them are employed or have any prospects for gaining employment, unless they want to relocate to Smoke Hole, the coal town twelve miles away. Faro and Tick cite relatives with black lung and say they can think of better ways to die.

  Ronny says, “I don’t see no point in going to work when every other week you’re told to go on strike.”

  If this touches a nerve with Massey, he doesn’t let on. “Do you think the mining companies are doing enough to ensure the safety of their employees?”

  “I ain’t got a fancy education like city boys, but I’m smart enough to know those union bosses aren’t in it for the little guy, not as long as they’re taking their cut. Besides, all the workers will be sent packing as soon as they figure out how to make a machine that cuts out the coal.”

  Faro elbows Havens. “You get Ronny liquored up and he’ll talk you drunk, hung-over, and sober again.”

  “Well, stories are what we’ve come for, boys,” says Massey.

  Tick turns to Faro. “In that case, you ought to tell them about that bear that tackled you and damn near changed you into a woman. Not that it would take much.”

  Havens has little interest in barroom banter, but just as he is about to excuse himself and go outside to photograph the building, Ronny addresses Massey with a scornful tone. “What’s the matter with your friend here? He don’t drink, he don’t talk, he just stands there staring.”

  “He’s a photographer,” Massey answers, as if this should explain everything. In an attempt to mollify the mayor’s son, he orders another round of drinks. “Say, how about Havens here takes your picture?” He shoots Havens a private look as if to say, Buck up.

  Skinning a cat would be a more pleasant task, but Havens reluctantly unpacks his Graflex. It becomes apparent that the men have never seen a camera before. Massey tells them that this is a landmark year for picture-taking, that Kodachrome has just been invented, and that full-color images are about to change everything from art to news reporting. From his wallet, Massey pulls a card, unfolds it, and hands it to Faro, who whistles at the color photo of a naked woman with parted red lips and long black hair brushed from one shoulder to expose a heavy pale breast.

  “That’s color photography, fellas. That’s the future,” Massey says.

  “Well, ain’t that a pretty future.”

  The men now regard Havens with respect, having assumed he is to be credited for the shot, which he is. Not quite the lowest point in his career, the photo is a reminder of how desperate a man can be for rent money, and whatever Havens regrets about the months he spent posing and photographing naked women also desperate for rent money is nothing compared to his regret for letting Massey have that dumb picture.

  Now the men are only too happy to pose in front of the camera. While Havens takes a reading with the light meter, they throw their arms over one another’s shoulders and complain about how slim the pickings are in Chance.

  “The only one who’s got any looks is Sarah Tuttle, but Ronny’s courting her,” says Faro.

  When Massey asks what kinds of trouble young men can get into when they’re not hunting tail, Tick flicks his cigarette ash and says, “There’s blue coon hunting.”

  Havens thinks the fault is in his hearing until he sees Ronny’s face redden. “Shut your trap!” he snaps.

  “I didn’t mean nothing by it, just—”

  “I said shut the hell up, Tick!”

  Involuntarily, Havens presses the shutter.

  “What’s blue coon hunting?” Massey asks, but Ronny and Faro jostle Tick outside before he has a chance to respond.

  Havens turns to the barkeep. “What’s blue coon hunting?”

  Even before the question is asked in full, the man slides him the tab and replies, “Couldn’t rightly say.”

  Headed for their lodging, Havens and Massey puzzle over what Tick might’ve meant.

  “Were they trying to prank us, like snipe hunting?”

  “Maybe it’s code for poaching,” Havens suggests, trying to think what species in this part of the country might be protected by the federal government.

  “Maybe it’s got nothing to do with game hunting at all. Maybe it refers to an activity of an illegal nature.”

  “Moonshining, you mean?”

  “Or gunrunning, but whatever it is, they were quick to backtrack.”

  Curiosity is the swell on which every photographer rides, but for Havens, the tide has been ebbing a long time, so it is with more than a little relief that he finds himself now intrigued. “I guess we should find out,” he tells Massey, who raises his eyebrows. “Just maybe we’ll find that story of yours.”

  “Well, look at you.”

  HAVENS

  Massey has a leftover football injury that at opportune times becomes a limp and an easy way that gets him more action than any other man Havens knows, but when he is nosing around a story there is a famished way about him that makes women fix him hot dinners and men pour him the last of their good whiskey. It’s this Massey who now takes off his hat in a sweeping introduction to the woman who opens the door to her boarding house, hands the woman his calling card, and announces his name as though it were the byline at the end of a published essay: “Ulys P. Massey, and this is my associate, Mr. Clayton Havens.”

  There is no hint of softness on the matron’s whiskered face. “FSA, huh?”

  Massey explains that they’ve come to do a report on Appalachia. Leaning toward her and lowering his voice, he adds, “We aren’t telling folks the president sent us, so if we could just keep that between us.”

  Never has this well-used tactic fallen as flat as it does now. “This here’s Chance, mister, so unless the president wants to know all about crop rot and coal mines, best you look for Appalachia in some other town.” The woman starts to close t
he door.

  “We’re happy to pay double the going rate,” Havens pipes up.

  The door opens again.

  “And my colleague here will do a beautiful photographic portrait of you for free,” Massey tacks on.

  Havens hopes his face is doing a decent impression of enthusiasm at the prospect when she offers them passage into the house.

  “Name’s Sylvia Fullhart.” After taking their money, she leads them up a scuffed, squeaky staircase and along a hallway, where the wallpaper is beginning to peel and the smell of mold is most concentrated, before throwing open a door to a musty room under a sloping ceiling. Two narrow cots are separated by a washstand, and a single small window faces a backyard of slag and a stand of imposing trees.

  “Dinner’s at five.” She looks at Havens. “I’ll sit for my picture after that.”

  Most of what Havens unpacks is photographic paraphernalia. He has been given a ton of black-and-white cartridges for this assignment but only two rolls of color film, of which he will make judicious use. He loads the Contax with standard black-and-white ISO 120 while Massey picks up Havens’s portfolio.

  “Don’t waste your time looking at those,” Havens tells him.

  Massey thumbs through the latest black-and-whites—switchboard operators at the Union Terminal at Cincinnati Bell, the Saturday night goings-on at the Cosmopolitan, teenagers lined up in front of the Bijou Theatre—then singles out a picture of two dancehall inspectors, their stern faces a contrast to the revelry in front of them. “Okay, not heart-stopping, but pretty darn funny.”

  “What if I don’t have what it takes anymore?” What if he’s never had what it takes?

  “You can’t expect every picture to be a Pulitzer winner.”

  Havens used to be considered an unexceptional photographer—even his mother didn’t keep the issues in which his photographs were published—but Orphan Boy changed everything. Overnight, he became reputed. People credited him for distilling the public’s plight in what became known as the Face of the Depression, and those same people keep expecting him to produce more of that ilk, not what Pomeroy refers to as his “fussily composed pictures of weedy fields.” Somehow, having made a name for himself, Havens now drags it around everywhere like a cadaver.