| there is a school portrait from fourth grade and i have on a red yellow and green big striped shirt and the shirt had this big pocket across the front not one little pocket over the left breast but a bigger pocket more front and center and the problem with the picture and the thing you don't realize the first time you look at it the thing that takes glance two three or four to realize is that inside that front pocket sticking out about a quarter of an inch is the little black comb they would give you to brush your hair on picture day and they would have a plastic bag full of these little black combs and teacher would ask someone to go around the room and hand them out no we couldn't all choose our own combs twenty seven hands in one bag of combs was entirely unsanitary and we had these combs and we had no concept of self we had no fashion sense no understanding of which direction or how straight our part should be and we would stare at each other and look into each others eyes trying to find mirrors and watch and decide that if jamie parted her hair that way and jamie was popular than my hair must go that way to and no mind that my hair had been parted on the other side for the last six years this picture day for prosperity and it might be able to change things this was after all going to be one for the records this was it there were no retakes and for a year this would be it on fathers desk at his office in mothers wallet on grandmas nightstand and more than anything most important of all in the yearbook because this was when things mattered and it must be things like what side you parted your hair on which made you popular because i had never been able to figure out any other dividing lines and these were the years that things mattered and i was standing three people behind you in the portrait line and you had a blue button down oxford on i would look at you and i would have a crush on you but we were in fourth grade and in fourth grade girls are taller faster and smarter than all of the boys and i would have tried to punch you in the arm or beaten you in relay races to make you notice me but you weren't suppose to like girls and someone had seen me staring at you during the library tour and they came in the next day told everyone that i liked you and i tried to shake my head and then i tried to laugh and then i turned red and all you did the whole time was stare at the lines on the floor and you would have been embarrassed and you would have gotten scared but you had no idea what to do so you did nothing and i was thinking that it was fall and you had done nothing and we still had a whole year to go and it was going to be such a long year as i stared at the back of your neck in line as i watched your name being called as i saw the relief in your shoulders once the picture was done and it seemed as though nothing in the world could take that moment except that suddenly they were calling my name and it was my turn and i was behind the black curtain and i had anything but white on and i realized i still had this comb in my hand and mother would be furious if i had a picture with a comb in my hand but with brilliance i realized i had a pocket a pocket on the front of my shirt into which this comb would fit perfectly and there it went and there it stayed and the pictures came back and my mother fought back horror and then laughter and she wondered what i had been thinking and she looked at my face and wanted to decern what could possibly be going on behind those nine year old eyes because it seemed there were things which mattered things which never for one moment went unnoticed like the playground and whose picture was next to yours in the yearbook and who rode your bus and things about best friends and passing notes during reading group and your nine year old head could keep straight the entire class roster and architectural plan of the cafeteria and the rotation of seven different outfits ms. underwood wore but there was a huge pocket on the front of your shirt and a black comb sticking out and you had no idea no vision that that was going to be in the picture your hand you do realize would have been in you lap if you had just kept the comb in your hand no one would have ever known |