Chapter 3: These Eyes are Watching

* the story continues in present tense after this chapter*

My body is a mountain full of twists, turns, cracks, hills, bumps, and lumps. The water droplets scatter all over my body, tumbling down my skin and running off to places unseen.

I step out of the shower, walking over to the mirror. My reflection is not like it used to be, so much had changed about me on the inside and the outside. I reach for my shaver and stare at the stubble peering out of my chin and jawline.

"Damn, I look like a little niño (kid)" I mumble as my eyes grimace at my shaver and put it back down, beside the sink.

My smooth, damp, and moistly wrinkled fingertips graze against my chin, rubbing my beard that had disappeared over the years.

Having a beard was like a symbol of manhood, and I missed having it. I can't even remember why I started shaving it in the first place. 

As I am standing there, gazing at my mirror image I am interrupted when the sound of my phone makes it's way into the bathroom.

It must be that time again, I was getting tired of this.

My feet trudge against the silky soft carpet despite how leisurely I walk towards my bedroom, not in a hurry at all.

Vrmmmm Vrmmmm! I sigh as I look down at my phone, watching it vibrate against the bed before I pick it up.

"Hello?" I say effortlessly.

There's nothing to be heard on the other end of the line, but the only thing that can be heard is silence.

It's like I'm standing on a tightrope as I hold the phone closer to my ear, trying to hear something- anything.

Emptiness. Empty air. An empty voice. Nothing, only dead space. 

My eyes drift around the room and land on the clock that's beside my bed. It reads '9:13 am'.  Of course it's 9am, whoever this was loved calling me at 9am every Saturday. 

It's like I'm a mad scientist, keeping my deepest most powerful creation hidden from the rest of the world, in this case it was my anger. My anger resided in a tightly sealed jar but that still didn't stop it from poking around in there. The jar was always tapping and rocking back and forth on the table I put it on, there's only so much you can hold something back, eventually it's going to come out and shock the world-for better or for worse.

"Listen- Look! Whoever this is you better stop calling me! Do you hear me?! I'm getting tired of you calling here every fucking Saturday and not saying a word. Do you even know who I am?! Don't call here anymore unless you want me to trace your number back and find out where you live...I can do many things...Many,many things-horrible, painful, disgusting-"

I stop talking- intrigued as a gentle and timorous voice vibrates inside my ear. I can tell it is a woman, she's whimpering wildly. Her sniffles are clues as to who she might be, but not clues that are good enough. Her vocal chords are vibrating, but they're not vibrating strongly enough. I need more- I need to hear her voice.

"Who is this?" I ask, in a way that sounds more like a demand than a simple question.

Click. She hangs up the phone, leaving me feeling more defeated and impeded. She hangs up the phone and silence still surrounds me even though I'm not on the phone.

There's a sinister feeling that circles around the room and encloses around me. It feels like a rope is being tied around my neck as I stand there staring down at my phone, the number was not visible-they called me from a blocked i.d. and I just couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching me.

I turn around, facing the picture I have hanging on my wall that rests above my dresser that is adorned with my collection of guns. A golden revolver is resting next to the Holy Bible my mother gave me when I was 22, she always wanted me to read it, hoping it would somehow change me. I always told her there's no place for a guy like me in heaven.

The photograph of Ebele reminded me of the Mona Lisa every time I looked at it, like right now. She always seemed to be staring at me and stalking my every move. I still remember the day I took that picture of her, she was wearing my yellow shirt that I despised but she loved wearing it, especially after we had sex. She always said it made her feel more vibrant and alive like the sun, she even suggested that I wore it some days, but she was already a vibrant person to begin with.

I can still feel that gripping feeling in my chest, that deep and never ending void I would probably always have because of her. It was like one day the wind just came and blew her away from me, far away. 

Every relationship has its ups and downs, and then they will recover, my relationship with Ebele was much different though. Every time we reached a downfall it seemed like it took us forever to get back up, and once we got back up we quickly dived straight back down to the bottom again. Our relationship felt like an ocean, with its never ending depth, and I always knew that one day we would just sink, and sink, and sink, and we wouldn't make it back up to the surface. Well... That day came and it was one of the worst days of my life despite all that I had already been through. 

I shake those memories from my mind and open the top drawer of my dresser, pulling out my clothes so I can get dressed.

I slip my arms through a white button-down shirt, my legs are covered by my grey shorts and my feet are exposed in the sandals I'm wearing. My eyes are hidden beneath the dark shades cascading over them. 

Dark shades were always one of my favorite things to put on my face, they were like barricades in a war zone- hiding me away from all the other enemies.

The time seems to stop as I pull out my camera, the only little thing left in my life that actually brings me some sort of felicity. 

***

Wooosh, woooshhh, the sound of the waves striking against the shore make me feel at ease. 

As I stand here along the shoreline the tiny grains of dark sand run between my toes, making them feel damp and soggy but in a nice way.

New York is a funny place, the city is divine and and full of life. The street lights act like spot lights on a stage. Driving through New York city is like being in a movie, everything is so bright and artistic yet when you get to more quiet and natural places like the beach, the city still overpowers them and makes them seem dull.

These beaches are nothing like the ones back in my home town. There's no life here, everything is just toned down and boring, even the water seems lifeless and it has this dark tinge to it, making the water look contaminated and nasty. It doesn't smell like a beach either, it smells more like a factory and a fast food joint mixed together.

There's absolutely nothing special about this beach, which kind of explains why there's barely anyone here besides me and some lady who is playing in the ocean with her daughter.  I only come here to take pictures sometimes. 

Sploosh Splosh Sploosh!   "Ma-ma! Wa-wa!" The little girl murmurs to her mother as her mother bounces her up and down in the water like a trampoline.

"Yes Paige! Waaaa-t-errr." The mother says in a slow and exaggerated way, trying to emphasize the 't' in the word water.

I walk away from the shore and head up towards the beach chair I had been resting in. I grab my camera that has been laying on my towel that I laid over  the filthy looking beach chair that was covered in sand when I first got here. 

As I get up and walk further away from them, I take off my shades and hide somewhere near a bush. I'm bending my knees as I hold my camera tightly in my hands, zooming in as I try to keep it nice and focused. No one is ever satisfied with a blurry picture, especially me. 

The mother and her daughter are far too immersed in each others company to even notice me hiding in the bushes, taking pictures of them.

Water droplets shoot up into the air as the girl smacks the water with her little chubby hands. I can tell she is intrigued by this because she decides to beat the water harder, and some water sprinkles into her hair, resembling the color of an apricot. "Wa-er! Wa-er! Mommy!" She squeals with her high pitched voice.

Her mother's tan skin looks warm and delicate as the sun's bright beams trace over her back that is half-way covered by her long brown hair. "Aww sweety, you're so smart...You're getting closer!" She says before she starts to try and enunciate the word again. "Wa-T, Wa-T, Wa-T" She says, leaving off the 'er' in the word water as she pops the 't' in the word instead, hoping her daughter will catch on.

The branches from these bushes are prickling up against my skin like 1,000 needles. I push my finger down on the shutter button, taking several more pictures of them in action.

As if on que, the mother grabs her daughter and lifts her out of the ocean "Come on baby, it's time to go" She says as she grabs the towel on the ground that's lying beside some little toy that is shaped like a duck, and starts using it to dry off her daughter. Her lips pucker outward as she plants a kiss on her daughters forehead "Mmmuah! Mommy loves you..."   

I notice that as she walks across the beach near her bag and set of beach towels, she puts her daughter down and looks over at the chair I had been sitting in and raises her eyebrow a little but she keeps moving along, putting all her stuff away as she gets ready to leave.

There's a warmness in the air that wasn't here when I first arrived. I feel pretty sweaty and crouching in these bushes definitely isn't helping with that. I should leave but I must look at my photos first, I want to make sure they're worthy. 

A sense of confusion washes over me as  my fingers press the buttons of my camera and I navigate through the photos I've just taken. I've never really been sure what to call my 'style' of photography, I just look at people around the city and take pictures of them. It's been my little 'niche' ever since I came here, the city was so interesting and people were always doing different things, so why not take pictures of them?

Everyday is like an adventure. Sometimes I go to the most grittiest areas of the city. There are times when I take pictures of drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes, anything dark and gloomy.  Sometimes I go to the most reputable places in the city and take pictures of people drinking wine and winsome women striding down the streets  in red bottoms.

It really doesn't matter what I take pictures of because I can always distort them and make the image what I want it to be despite how cheerful or how somber the image may appear to be.

When I first got here it always felt like I was running away from someone or something and it still does, all the time. I always felt like I was being watched by the city but it doesn't really matter because I'm watching them and everything they do. The city may be stalking me but I'm stalking it too.