CAMERA SHY
Slowly, you rise from your armchair and slide to the seat next to me on the couch, our knees
touching. I let you ease the yearbook from my
hands, surprised by your eagerness to hunt out
the face of The King. Until now, I never knew
you to care. To you, he was always a punk, a
delinquent and unworthy of your time.
The details you recall help us to narrow the search:
which hour English class; who his friends were;
who your friends were and why your paths never crossed.
We pause over the photo of the yearbook staff
long enough to find you standing in the last row,
smiling wide, your arms draped warmly over the shoulders
of your friends beside you. A photo you were certain
you had missed because you never showed your face
on picture day. On the very next page, we find
you again, posing with the speech team, again
standing in the back, again smiling wide. Because
I was always tall you say with pride as if this mattered
more to you than did being a part of the team.
It is no great surprise when, a few pages later,
we also find you as president of the drama club.
It does not surprise me, yet it is strange to see.I have searched countless times through our family albums,
and have never found a picture with your arms around me
or your lips pressed against my cheek in a fatherly kiss.
I often wonder if you can still picture the day you left--I held
the door as you stormed out of the house, shoulders shrugged,
hands raised in defeat and bare as winter trees as if we
had robbed you of your leaves. Maybe this is what you
mean when you say that you are camera shy, that you wish
to remain unknown, unrecognized for the things you have done.
At last the search has come to an end. I am the one who
finds him in the Glee Club photo. We have searched the
entire book. This is the only place we find him. The King,
Elvis Presley, like you, is standing in the back row, smiling
a big southern smile, half a head taller than the others. You
can’t believe we have found him at all, that we have found
him on a page opposite you, both your heads just above the crowd,
your bodies hidden and completely out of view
