The Leisure Seeker: A Novel by Michael Zadoorian

slide is just that, the bouquet of leaves on the table, and I realize that this is the problem with photographs. After a while, you can’t remember if you’re recalling the actual memory or the memory of the photograph. Or perhaps the photograph is the only reason you remember that moment. (No, I refuse to believe that.)
    I click the remote again. There’s a picture of us all around the campfire that John must have taken with the self-timer. The images of all of us are dim, blurry from the long exposure, while the fire glows bright and harsh. This last slide disturbs me, especially with Jim and Dawn gone, so I pull out the tray. A retina-searing whiteness is projected on the sheet hanging from the side of the cabin, but I can’t turn it off or it’ll be even harder to get in the next tray.

    “Damn it, that’s bright,” John says.
    I push in a new tray, yet it doesn’t want to catch. “Just a second,” I say. John used to handle the projector, now he’s left it to me. He watches me fiddle with it for a while, then walks over to the table, gives the new tray a push until it clicks into place. He smirks.
    “Don’t be so pleased with yourself,” I say. Sometimes I think his disease is more laziness than anything else.
    The first slide of the tray is projected onto the sheet and around us I hear hushed chattering. I turn to see that we’ve attracted a crowd, gathered near a streetlight about twenty feet away. At first glance, I gasp— hoodlums! Then I see that they are not like the hoods of today with their baggy clothes and stocking caps and stone faces. These kids look like what we used to call juvenile delinquents. The boys wear tight white T-shirts with packs of cigarettes wedged in the sleeves, dungarees rolled at the bottom, and motorcycle boots. Their hair is greased back into carefully sculpted waterfalls and duck’s asses. One of the girls is dressed in jeans and a tight blue bowling shirt and clunky black shoes. Another one wears a long felt skirt and Mary Janes, with Fire and Ice lips and an ink-black flip with bangs.
    They’re all covered with tattoos—arms and legs emblazoned with flames and hearts and naked ladies and skulls. Now that I focus on them a little more closely, I see that they are not really kids at all, but well into their thirties and standing there in the streetlight like walking, inky advertisements. I soon realize that they pose no threat to us. When they see me looking, acouple of them wave timidly at us and smile. They’re also very fascinated with our slide show, so they can’t be all bad.
    Up on the screen now is a shot from our trip to Montreal for the Expo 67, yet another vacation with the Jillettes. Behind us, the sight of the Geodesic Dome has them all oohing and aahing. They’re really enjoying themselves. I click to the next slide. It’s one of the exhibits, I can’t remember which, but the main reason John took the shot was because of the young woman in the foreground wearing a miniskirt. She has stopped to adjust something and John caught the shot as a little joke. All those mod styles had just come out and were causing quite the stir. The men certainly didn’t mind. John and Jim were just about getting whiplash that trip from all the short skirts flitting around. Dawn and I put up with a lot that week.
    From the Peanut Gallery behind me, I hear hoots and hollers and wolf whistles from the boys at the sight of the Canadian girl. Which proves to me that nothing has really changed. I also hear one of the girls say “cute skirt.” I turn around and smile at them all.
    One of the boys yells out, “Is that you, ma’am?”
    “Hardly,” I say back to him.
    Another one steps forward. He’s got the same getup on as the others, but he’s the only one with a jacket on. Even though it’s just a gas station grease monkey jacket, he’s obviously the only one with a lick of sense. It’s nippy out here tonight. He keeps walking toward us. John stands up. I look at him