Henry Townshend is a ghost magnet (room_302) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-10-14 16:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, cotton weary, henry townshend |
Who: Henry Townshend and Cotton Weary
What: Meeting at a gallery
When: Oct 6th, 2015
Where: A new gallery
Ratings/Warnings: Medium - Potential Trigger Warning: Talk of physical and sexual abuse of a prisoner
Status: Complete when posted
The gallery had only been open for roughly fifteen minutes when Henry arrived. He was early. He hadn’t meant to be. The cafe wouldn’t be open for another 20 minutes at the earliest. He’d have to wait to get a cup of coffee from the little cafe, but he made his way up to the second floor anyway.
The gallery itself was actually more like an indoor shopping plaza, smaller and cosier than a mall and with a distinct theme. Local artists and craftsmen rented small quaint little shops and displayed and sold their work. For the space and location the rent was reasonable. Henry had scoped out the place a few weeks ago when a few spaces were still vacant and up for rent to get an idea what he could look to pay to open up his own studio. He had found he had a long way to go yet.
Hopefully this meeting with Cotton would put him just that much closer to his goal.
Of course selling his photographs wasn’t the only reason Henry had reached out to the man he had met outside the library. There was something about Cotton that intrigued Henry. It could be his attitude, how open he was about himself while still being able to play certain things close to the chest. Henry envied that a little bit. He hoped talking with Cotton would give him a better idea to be more like that himself.
The patio cafe on the second floor was completely empty save for one or two cafe employees preparing to open. Henry found a table near the balcony. He set his camera bag on one of the other chairs and took a seat to wait.
~*~
Clothes said a lot about a man. Cotton tended to prefer suits these days now he was considered a legit businessman. He liked the way it felt to put on something tailored to his odd frame. A tailored suit could put a spring in his step and set his shoulders back farther than anything else. It was all about personal self-worth to him. Cotton rarely went out to meet someone wearing jeans and a t-shirt because people judged.
It wasn't as if he blamed them for it.
Cotton knew it was all in how the way life worked.
Pop culture taught the youth of America how to get along in life. He'd learned everything he needed to know about looking like a businessman from shows on television. Behind bars, the television was better than being outside during rec time. A fenced-in prison yard was still a prison yard while a TV show? Well, that could take a man anywhere from a post-apocalyptic world where he was fighting for survival to Wall Street where he was making millions.
It had been prison which had led Cotton to wanting to get his face on the screen.
Henry had been kind enough to make it him Cotton could thank for getting him out of his house in a worn pair of jeans and a plain tee. He had dressed it up only slightly with a blazer from last year's collection. Cotton wouldn't have dared to show up to a meeting with anyone from his own staff dressed so casually. He had a feeling the photographer wouldn't mind the way his publicist would since Henry seemed real in a way few people were in his life.
Raising a hand in greeting, Cotton made his way to where Henry was seated, pulling out a chair, "You mind if I sit or were you wanting to move somewhere else? I hope I haven't kept you waiting too long. I'm pretty good about being punctual. You could say I have experience with what happens if I don't pay attention to the time."
~*~
“Good morning,” Henry greeted Cotton when the other man had joined him. He stood up a little awkwardly to lean over the table and shake the man’s hand. A habit he’d picked up from time spent with his grandfather. Always stand to greet a guest. “Have a seat, make yourself comfortable.”
How comfortable Cotton could make himself on the wrought iron chairs was debatable. They weren’t exactly designed for people to sit and wile away the hours. But the cafe was secluded, out of the way of prying eyes with prying lenses. Not that anyone was up here at this particular hour.
“I haven’t been waiting long,” Henry said as he took his seat again. “Just a couple of minutes. I was hoping the cafe would actually be open by now, but,” he gestured towards the little outside stand where two employees were just now setting out some tasty looking pastries and writing on a chalkboard easel that morning’s specials, “no coffee right yet.”
“I appreciate you agreeing to meet with me,” Henry went on. “I wasn’t even sure you’d remember me from the other day.”
~*~
"I've got a good memory for faces. People tend to matter more than anyone thinks when all the cards are out on the table and someone is prepared to call the dealer's bluff."
Cotton had learned better than to snitch to the guards, but he'd also gotten very good at noticing who talked to who, when they talked to one another, and how they did it. Those things were the best way to recognize who was buttering whose bread. Gangs in prison weren't set up the way they were in the real world. People didn't fly their flags with all colors at full mast in a lockdown situation. That was the kind of thing which only led to getting shanked.
'Stabbed in Prison' had never been the way Cotton Weary wanted to go out. He'd worked hard to make certain it wasn't what landed on his check-out slip from prison. All he had been able to do had been keep his head down, run when it seemed as if he were going to get cornered by people associating with the wrong kinds of inmates, and stay close to walls. Hard to get stabbed in the back if a guy had his back against a wall all the time.
Situating himself in the chair, he sprawled loosely opposite Henry, shrugging as he offered an apologetic grin, "I don't sleep much so coffee isn't something I necessarily need in the mornings. I like it. I don't need it. When the cafe does finally get some brewed? I'll treat you to a cup so long as you look the other way when I buy one of those obscene looking danishes. They're not very health-conscious, but oh how good they taste."
~*~
Henry glanced up from the binder he had taken out of his bag. In it were various photo prints and page protectors for baseball cards containing the proofs he had mentioned to Cotton in their email exchange. His mellow amber eyes moved towards the cafe for a moment then back to Cotton.
Unlike Cotton, Henry slept like the dead. His roommate freshman year in college had learned early on that waking Henry out of a deep sleep suddenly could (and sometimes did) result in actual physical harm when Henry’s body jerked awake. Said roommate used to stand across the room and throw things at him to wake up. Pencils. Erasers. Empty soda cans kept at the ready. Perhaps it was because of this unnatural death-like sleep that Henry had such a hard time waking up in the morning and why coffee often times replaced an actual breakfast as Henry ran out the door to be sure he was on-time for his shift.
He wasn’t about to tell Cotton he had already had an entire travel thermos of coffee before arriving if it meant he could get more. He may be slightly addicted.
“I don’t care if you have a pastry or not,” he said as he turned his attention back to the binder in front of him. “But I’ll ignore it, if it makes you feel better.” He found the sheet containing the proofs and released them from the binder to hand to Cotton.
The pictures had all been taken over the course of the previous week. One was of a yellow dog (a yellow labrador to be exact) suspended in mid air caught in the act of catching a bright red frisbee. The red stood out sharp against the green backdrop of the dog park. There was another shot of that same dog racing towards the open and waiting arms of a young man. The angle to catch both the happy look on the master’s face and the big goofy grin on his dog’s.
As a general rule, Henry didn’t photograph people without their consent (in writing, if he could get it). The man in the photos with the dog was one of Henry’s co-workers who had graciously agreed to be Henry’s subject as he practised taking action shots. Capturing motion in a still photo could be a difficult task and was one skill Henry sometimes struggled with. He was pleased with the way these pictures had come out, however. Proud, actually.
The other proofs were mostly scenery shots. Some of the pier at sunset. Some of a park at dawn. Peaceful and serene for the most part. Except for that one moonlit photo Henry had taken off the pier of a seagull that for some reason had made him feel a little unsettled.
“How’s the book coming?” he asked after he had handed over the proofs. “Were you able to get anything more written?”
~*~
Photography was something Cotton could appreciate more than other forms of art. He wasn't anywhere near the stage in his life where he would pretend to know how to critique a painting, but a picture? Anyone could offer an opinion on a picture. Sure, Cotton might not be able to talk about camera angles or light or color or anything incredibly specific. That didn't mean his opinion wasn't worth hearing all the same.
Pictures were worth a thousand words after all.
His mug shot still had more views online than any of his promotional photos for his show Pure Cotton.
Taking the proofs, Cotton laid them gently down on the table while he pulled his wallet free, taking out a crisp fifty dollar bill to hand to Henry absently. Cash was something he carried on his person because he never knew when he'd need to get out of a situation without leaving a paper trail. His lawyer had taught him all about how to move through the world in stealth mode. Cotton was never without at least five hundred in cash at any point in time.
"Written? Yes. Is it readable? That's worth a lot of debate. I started at the beginning which was easy. It's pretty much all stuff people have heard before only from my perspective. Once I got to the arrest I just," he shrugged, broad shoulders rolling under his blazer, "Stopped. I don't know how many people will want to read the truth. I do know I don't want to lie. I'm tired of hiding. I'm tired of smiling and pretending they locked me up in a clean prison with white-collar criminals who treated me like a celebrity. I know what I want to say. I only wish I knew how people would react to reading it. Think the cafe is open. Go get me one of those danishes and grab yourself some fresh java. I'd hate to think you were getting too much blood in your coffee stream."
~*~
Henry stared at the crisp $50 bill in his hand. What was this for? Certainly not the proofs. They were just proofs, not the actual photos. Did Cotton expect to pay for coffee and pastries with a fifty? Sure coffee was overpriced, but not that much.
“Yeah, ok, thanks,” Henry said as he got to his feet. “Uhm...why don’t you hang on to this,” he said as he handed the money back. “At least until you decide on the photos. I don’t want to wipe out the cafe of their change first thing in the morning.” He slid out from the table. “I’ll be right back.”
The good thing about being the first customer of the day was that not only was the coffee fresh and piping hot, but he had his choice of danishes. Cotton hadn’t said what kind of danish he liked, which lead Henry to believe that any of them would probably do. He decided to go with blueberry. Blueberry was almost always a safe bet. He chose one of the larger ones (because he could) and made his way back to the table.
He set the danish down on the table next to Cotton before retaking his seat. He took a couple of sips before speaking. “It’s your story, you know,” he said after a moment or two of silence. “You have good reason for wanting to tell it.” He hesitated before continuing. He didn’t want to assume that he could tell Cotton what to do with his book. He had never been accused of a crime he didn’t commit and he’d never been to prison. He could hardly empathize with Cotton’s experience. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I wrote a couple of articles when I was doing traveling freelance work. An editor once told me to just write what was in my head. The whole thing and then once it was done to go back.” another sip of coffee to hide a hesitant pause.
“Maybe you’re second guessing what you’re writing because you actually went through it. Maybe talk to someone who hasn’t heard your story before?”
~*~
People always wanted to take his money. Cotton was absolutely baffled as Henry handed the bill back to him. He replaced it in his wallet with a frown, trying to figure out if he'd offended the guy or what. No one had ever refused to take money from him. That wasn't the way of the world they lived in. Money was everything no matter what anyone had to say about peace or love or inner beauty.
There had been a good damn reason Cotton had wanted to get himself as upwardly mobile as possible after he'd been released from prison. He hadn't wanted to wind up back struggling to get a job as some janitor, living in a trailer park, never making it anywhere with his life. That had been his father's fate. It was not going to be the life Cotton chose for himself. He absolutely would not let it be his legacy. His agent had helped him push and push until he'd hit the top of the food chain for television personalities.
Shaking his head, he gave a rusty chuckle, "Sorry, I was just trying to deal with the fact you refused to take my money. No one ever refuses money from me. I'm that guy who knows the value of a dollar. Thanks though, for the danish, it looks amazing."
Cotton busied himself with trying it out while he worked to regroup. Sugar was a welcome addition to any morning as far as he was concerned. His personal trainer? Did not think so, but that was why he took Cotton's money. That guy helped him work out enough to make up for the sugar he wanted to eat. What good was having money if he had to deprive himself of everything to keep making it?
"I love the photos of the dog and the park and his owner. Those are great. They'd be nice in my so-called writing room. It's supposed to be a 'home office' though really? It's pretty much designed to be a nice set for interviews at home when people want to come see how I 'really' live. I like the pier at sunset, too. That would be nice in my bedroom. How big can you blow these up?"
He knew he was avoiding talking about his book, but it was necessary for the moment. Cotton had limits.
~*~
Henry had grown up comfortably middle class. His father (now retired) worked hard and had put in long hours in order to keep the four bedroom home in Peoria, Arizona after the divorce. Henry’s mother too worked hard as a home healthcare nurse. Their work ethic was about the only thing they had in common. Despite being comfortable, Henry was taught the value of a dollar and how important it was to earn said dollar. Had they been able to hold a single conversation with each other without it devolving into a screaming match, they probably would have agreed on the parenting decision. It would have been the only parenting decision they’d agreed on.
Henry gave Cotton a small smile. “I haven’t really earned your money yet,” he said. “I would have taken those pictures anyway. It wasn’t as if you specifically told me to get a photo of a dog or a shot of the sunset.” Although, he’d had Cotton in mind when he’d looked at the pictures later.
He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes falling onto the binder still open in front of Cotton. He really was very proud of the pictures in the dog park and it pleased him greatly that Cotton liked them enough to want copies for his home-office, or whatever he wanted to call the space. He could sit up a little straighter and puff his chest out just a little more. At least in his mind. Sitting at the table, his posture hadn’t changed much.
His smile did grow though. “I’m glad you like them,” he said. He looked thoughtfully at the photos and ran through his mind the kind of high quality film he’d used, what kind of developer he’d need and how big he could get the shots without distorting them any. “Mmmm,” he started thoughtfully. “ten by twelve would probably be ok. I might be able to go bigger, but probably not by much. What were you thinking?”
He was fine for leaving talk about Cotton’s book alone if that was what the man wanted. As curious as he was about it since he hadn’t ever really heard Cotton’s story before, he was fine leaving the man alone.
~*~
"If I paid to have them professionally matted and framed, I think a 10-by-12 would be fine for an 11-by-14 frame. That looks good on the walls. Small pictures are usually more for photos of family. I think art pictures should be big enough to be appreciated from a distance."
Cotton had finished his danish while Henry talked. He could tell the man was running numbers in his head based on the way he focused on every image. There were plenty of reasons for him to like Henry. The guy had been a straight shooter with him from the beginning. It made sense he'd already had some ideas for photos in mind before Cotton had asked for happy images for his walls. The fact he told him as much spoke volumes about his character.
Reaching over, Cotton traced the edge of the eerie shot featuring a seagull. Something about it reminded him of the view of the prison yard at night from his cell. That view had been all he'd had to sustain him for months. Getting moved out of gen pop had been something to be dreamed about, not something Cotton had been able to manage. He'd stopped sleeping at night after the first few weeks. It was better to get two hours of sleep in the day when the guards were keeping watch than the alternative.
He didn't look up as he spoke, the words seemingly pulled out of him from the darkest recesses of his mind.
"This one makes me think of looking out on the yard at night. I stopped sleeping at night after the first few weeks inside. I would stand on the john, stare out at the yard, watch the moon move. If I was lucky? My cellmate would sleep through the whole phase. If I wasn't? I had the upper hand being on the high ground. Cut my hands more than once holding onto those bars on the window to kick the bastard off me. Worth it every time."
Without thinking on it, Cotton turned his hand over to show the fine scars on his palm from the worn bars.
"I was in gen pop until the last two weeks. They put me away because that girl swore I was the one who took her friend. I was the one who was always around her. I was the reason she'd disappeared. I'd probably raped her. I'd probably killed her. Probably. That was what got me sent to jail for rape and murder of an underage girl. I was on the sex offender registry when they let me out after I was exonerated on all charges. I had to fight like Hell to get off it. Everything I got? I earned. If you were reading my book and I told the whole truth, how long do you think you'd keep reading it after I described the first time I was beat down and I found out what happened to guys who got beat down?"
~*~
Henry’s heart was in his throat and his stomach was somewhere in his chest making it very hard to breathe as Cotton spoke. He sat very quietly and listened, leaning forward a little so to be sure to not inadvertently miss something. Sometimes people just needed to talk, just needed to get something occupying their mind out in the open without interruption, without comment or advice. That was completely alright. Henry wasn’t so great at the commenting or advice part.
As Cotton spoke about standing on his cell’s toilet seat and looking out into the prison yard, Henry’s eyes fell on the photograph that brought on such sudden candidness. He thought about what it must have been like trapped in a place like that. Small, vulnerable, scared. Henry’s chest ached just sitting there thinking about it. It was amazing the acts of utter brutality people could do to one another.
He kept his eyes trained on the picture after Cotton had finished and posed what was probably a rhetorical question about his book. He knew he should say something in response. It would have been the correct and polite thing to do. But, as they usually did, words did not readily come to Henry’s mouth.
His hands were wrapped tightly around his coffee cup. The silence over the table had gone from subdued to awkward. “I think…” Henry started a little haltingly, unsure if his words were warranted or correct, “I think I would read it.” He winced a little at how stupid his words sounded, but instead of stopping as he probably should have, he kept going. “I’d want to, because, it's someone’s story. Someone’s experience that they shared…” that wasn’t exactly right. Knowing the truth was probably more accurate. Henry fidgeted with his cup. “It’s important,” he said at last and left it at that.
He looked up finally. His face flushed over his bungled attempt to tell Cotton that, yes, he would indeed read his book. His own awkwardness embarrassed him further and he sank just a little lower in his seat. “I’m sorry…I don’t know why I brought that picture with me. Honestly, it kind of freaks me out.”
~*~
Looking up, Cotton gave a lopsided grin, "Honestly? It kind of freaks me out, too. I guess that's why I couldn't keep my mouth shut. My story isn't that special. The only thing that makes me special? I really was innocent. There's a reason the cliche exists where they say there are no guilty men in prison: no one pleads guilty unless they've cut a deal and even then they're still not guilty. It's all about playing the system."
Cotton had roomed with three different cellmates in the first few weeks. He'd been brutalized by the first one in the showers with his cronies in tow. That guy had been the leader of one of the inside gangs. He'd had pull. Cotton hadn't gotten anything from the guards except a walk to remember to the infirmary where he'd been humiliated beyond words with a rape kit, sutures in his ass, and a full STD panel.
His second roommate had killed himself.
The third had been a guy it was best to sleep as little as possible around. He was a murderer and one of the few to admit it with pride. Cotton had learned the definition of the word "familicide" from him since it turned out that was what they called the crime when someone systematically murdered their entire family. None of the guards had cared what had carried on in Cotton's cell by that stage. He was glad the only thing he'd landed from it had been some scars on his hands.
"Believe it or not? Before I got put inside, I had always thought those jokes about not dropping the soap in the shower were bullshit. Things to laugh about. I didn't know it was a real thing. You know, for a man. It seemed completely ridiculous. I didn't even know a man could---rape was never a word I thought could be used to describe something which happened to me. Sure. They convicted me of it, but she was a girl. It was different. Ignorance is bliss, man. That's why I'm still not sure if I got it in me to release this book. Talking about it with you? Not so hard. You're a listener. You're a watcher. You're a guy who isn't going to sell my story to a tabloid. What happens when I tell it like it is to the world? What kind of image do I have then?"
Cotton sold his image as much as his story. There were reasons he kept a staff of nutritionists, stylists, personal trainers, pilates instructors, a whole slew of people around whose sole job was to keep him looking good in front of the camera. Who was going to see him as any kind of real man after reading about how he'd begged to be left alone? Who was going to want to watch his show if they knew the whole truth of his prison sentence?
~*~
A watcher and listener were good ways to describe Henry. He watched the world around him, the people around him, trying to guess their motivations, their thoughts. And he listened often times because people couldn’t be bothered enough to know he was there.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The wrought iron bar was digging into his thighs threatening to cut of the circulation to the rest of his legs. These chairs really weren’t designed for sitting.
He looked down at his coffee cup, the coffee within having been forgotten over the course of their conversation. He took a sip trying to collect his thoughts again.
He lowered his cup back to the table, but did not take his hands from around it. His camera, his usual security blanket, was still tucked away safe in his bag and without it, Henry felt very exposed and vulnerable. He had nothing to fidget with as he thought, except for his styrofoam cup and if he did that anymore, he was going to put a hole in it and get coffee all over everything.
He looked at the photo of the seagull again and then back up at Cotton. “Why did you start writing it?”
~*~
Reasons ran through Cotton's mind as he thought on all the press conferences he'd held since announcing he was taking time away from his talk show to work on his autobiography. Most of the time he'd answered that question with a carefully constructed response designed mostly by marketing specialists rather than Cotton himself. The truth was a lot more ugly than the pretty lies his agents helped him spin.
"Honestly?"
Cotton grinned as he shrugged his shoulders, pulling his hands off the table to drop them into his lap.
"I wanted the chance to show I had a story. No one ever asks about what it was like inside. No one ever asks me what it felt like to be called a 'baby raper' or a 'kid killer' before having my tray knocked out of my hands. The first few times? I let it go. Everyone's gotta eat though and, man, let me tell you: you will eat off the floor if the other option is starvation."
Sid had been lucky. She'd gotten hate mail for a while. People had accused her of wanting the spotlight. There were magazines and cheap news reports which went out trying to cast her in the light of a young girl desperate for attention. Cotton had read a few, seen a few, gotten sick and walked away from plenty. No one had claimed Sid was completely without blame in his conviction yet no one had tried to crucify her for it either.
If it had been someone else, Cotton might have wanted to see a little persecution.
He had never wanted anything bad to happen to Sidney Prescott though, no matter how people wanted to paint him as a vengeful spirit. Cotton had seen Sidney with Tatum. She'd been her best friend. Sid had been so young. Her life was already a trainwreck before any of that had gone down. Cotton wouldn't have wished harm on her for the world. Mostly he'd felt hurt she could believe he was that kind of guy.
Cotton had never felt like that kind of guy.
"I don't know, Henry. I just wanted to put it down to say I could. I let it own me. More than I'd like. I guess I thought if I started writing it down? I could own the story instead of letting the story own me. I could make it my bitch or something. We'll see. Anyway. Get me a few big prints. I'm comfortable paying around $150 to $200 each. I figure it'll cost around the same to get them matted and framed properly. You need to come by my place to get a color idea for the frames and matts or do I need to arrange that with my interior decorator?"
~*~
Henry had nodded his head when Cotton asked him if he’d wanted an honest answer to his question. Of course he did, he wouldn’t have asked otherwise.
And Cotton’s Honest Answer seemed like a legitimate reason to him and he didn’t really understand why that couldn’t just be the answer. Why did Cotton feel the need to bullshit it? Of course Henry had no idea about Cotton’s publicist or agents and how it was their job to sell their client’s image.
Henry shrugged. “It sounds like a good enough reason to me,” he said simply. “Maybe instead of worrying about what people will think or how they may react, just keep in mind that you want to own this story when you write?” Easier said than done, Henry knew. He was constantly worrying about what people would think or how they would react. It pissed him off, actually. And it pissed him off that a concern of what a judgmental population may or may not think was holding Cotton back. It was like the man was still in prison. A prison Henry knew a little too well.
“Write for you and don’t worry about them,” Henry said after taking a pull from his coffee cup. “Fuck them. I’ll read it.”
He set his coffee cup down and looked back at the prints. Right. That was why they were there. “Big prints. Yeah ok, I can do that. I’ll take care of the matting and framing and whatever-” not every photographer did that, but if Cotton was willing to pay for it, Henry may as well. “I can come to your place, if you want,” Henry went on carefully. He knew Cotton was a little obsessed with his privacy and had every right to be. “Otherwise you can send me color samples or something and I can go from there. I’m not interior decorator, though,” he warned. “So, there’s that.”
~*~
"You've got a good eye. If I was worried about whether or not you could color coordinate, I wouldn't have shown up to look at your photos. Besides, in case you haven't noticed, I like you, Henry. It isn't just anyone I talk to about being raped and starved in prison."
Cotton winked as he stood from the table. He got his cell out of his pocket to text his address to Henry's number. There were few people who had his home address in Orange County. Sid happened to be one of them and his agent was another. His lawyer? That guy could meet him in his office. Cotton had no need for a home visit from a legal eagle. He had standards on who he chose to entertain in his private space.
"I texted you my address. Whenever you're ready to come over? Just message me. I'll let you know if I'm available. My schedule isn't always my own. I wish I could just tell them to go fuck themselves, but---gotta make a living."
He almost told Henry there wouldn't be anyone else at the place. Cotton didn't take women home with him. Fast fucks were what they invented hotels for in his estimation. Henry had already heard enough of his dirty laundry. The guy could get to see his space without knowing how few people had shared the privilege. Cotton thought it was only fair he keep some things to himself since there wasn't anyone he wanted to know his whole story. Not yet. Maybe someday.
"Talk soon, Henry. Thanks for showing me your work and the danish!"
Maybe.