#39 - Ivy League Nude Posture Photos

“All the presidents have been over six feet tall.” Scott said. He was flipping the pages of a Sports illustrated, looking at the pictures and reading the captions.

“That can’t be true.” Chris said. He was playing Medal of Honor and didn’t look away from the TV.  

“It is. I read it.” Scott said.

“In there?” Chris said, motioning with his chin toward the magazine in Scott’s hands.

“No. I don’t remember where. But think about it. Obama’s tall, right? And Bush was a pilot, and you have to be tall for that.” Scott said. He dropped the magazine and stretched out with his head hanging upside down over the back of the bean bag chair, so he was looking at the wall behind them. “Abraham Lincoln.” He said conclusively.

Chris continued staring at the screen.

“Name one job – one good job – that doesn’t require you to be more than six feet tall.” Scott said.

He didn’t think Chris was listening, but Chris said, “Doctor, lawyer, zoo keeper, movie star, rock star, porn star. I can't think of any job that does require you to be more than six feet tall.”

“The NBA.” Scott said. “And, I think, astronauts.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Space shuttles are tiny – there’s no way they require people to be more than six feet tall. And the NBA doesn’t require players to be over six feet tall – it just helps if you are.” Chris said. He slid off the edge of the bed and sat cross-legged on the floor, resting his back against the box springs. His eyes were still focused on the video game, the controller in his hands.

Scott stood up. “Can I have a Coke?” He asked.

Chris nodded. “Just don’t drink the Mountain Dew, that’s my sister’s.”

Scott wandered down the hallway, past Chris’ sister’s room. The door was open a few inches. He glanced in as he passed, but could only see the edge of her bed and part of the corkboard on her wall, where she pinned snapshots and notes from her friends.

In the kitchen, Scott opened the refrigerator. It was mostly empty, except for the shelves inside the door, which were crammed with half-filled bottles of condiments. Ranch dressing. Heinz Ketchup. Honey mustard. There was a drawer at the bottom where they kept soft drinks. He pulled out a Cherry Coke and closed the fridge.

Scott opened the can, took a drink, and then went to the cupboard, hoping to find something to eat. He found a bag of baked potato chips, but they had been opened. Only a bunch of crumbs remained. He closed the cupboard and was about to leave the kitchen when he spotted an old, duct-taped shoebox sitting on the table. The lid was off, and it was filled with black and white photos. Scott walked over and picked up a stack of the photos and shuffled through them. Most of them were in rough shape; creases, frayed edges, water marks, some had been torn or had corners missing. They looked very old. The majority were portraits, with the subjects posed stiffly for the camera. None of the faces were familiar.

Back in Chris’ room, Scott asked, “What are those pictures in the kitchen?”

Chris’s eyes darted to the doorway, where Scott stood, and said, “The old pictures?” He returned his attention to the TV.

“Yeah. They’re cool.”

“My mom bought ‘em at a flea market. I have no idea why, but whatever.” He said. Suddenly his avatar on the TV shouted in pain and the screen turned red. He hit the continue button.

Scott took a drink of his Coke. “Can I look at them?”

Chris shrugged. “I guess so.”

Scott disappeared down the hallway and then returned to the room a minute later with the shoebox under his arm. He plopped down on the bean bag chair with the pictures in his lap. He tossed the ragged lid onto the floor and pulled a handful of photos out.

“Does your mom know who these people are?” He said.

Chris grunted, no.

“It’s weird she bought a bunch of pictures of people she doesn’t know, right?” Scott said.

“I hate that guy. Such a piece of –“ Chris was talking to the TV. The screen was red again.

Scott was looking at a family portrait. The dad was wearing a military uniform, his hair buzzed short. The wife was blonde and wearing a dress that went to her knees. She was wearing lipstick, and in the photo her lips were such a dark shade of gray they almost looked black. They had a little boy, and he was straddling a tricycle, wearing a collared white shirt under a pair of overalls. They were all standing on the lawn with a home in the background. Scott flipped the photograph over and found 1954 written on the back in blue ink.

He did the math in his head and said, “This one’s fifty-eight years old.”

“Wow.” Chris said. He had tried to make it sound sincere, but Scott could tell he wasn’t very interested.

For some reason though, Scott was interested. Something about the photo made him curious about this family he had never met. He didn’t know their names, but he suddenly found himself wondering which of the family members, if any, were still alive. The father in the picture looked to be about thirty, maybe. The wife was possibly a bit younger, but still, he imagined both of them were nearly ninety years old by now. He set the photograph of the family to the side.

The next picture in the stack could have been a yearbook photo. It was a teenage girl with thick-rimmed glasses and long dark hair that was parted perfectly in the middle of her head. Scott immediately considered that she might have been his age when the photo was taken. He turned it over, hoping for a name or date, but the back of the photo was blank. He was about to return it to the box, but he halted, and instead placed it with the photo of the family. There was something about the girl’s smile that he liked. He guessed that she had not been one of the popular kids – her glasses were bulky and her complexion wasn’t great - but there was something pretty about her.

He moved steadily through the photos, and as he did, the small stack that had begun with the picture of the family and the teenage girl, grew. He added to it a wedding photo, husband and wife at the front of a church holding hands, a minister looking very serious in the background. More yearbook photos, mostly girls, their hairstyles reflecting the era they belonged to. There was a young guy in a tight white t-shirt, looking very James Dean-ish, posing in front of a giant old Chevy sports car. And other women, children, families, soldiers, pets, grandparents, teenage girls, men sleeping in chairs, kids playing in the sprinkler, couples on the beach, and more, until his separate stack of photos was nearly an inch thick.

The more photos he looked at, the more the shoebox troubled Scott. There were no repeats in the whole box. Not a single face appeared in more than one photo. This wasn’t one particular family’s collection of old photos that had somehow ended up in a flea market; this was a collection of hundreds of photos that, over the years, had been discarded, abandoned, tossed out, ignored, lost, forgotten.

But they were worth more. He knew, as he looked at the faces in each photo, that these people deserved better than to be stuffed into a shoebox and sold alongside broken lamps and stained furniture. He thought of the photos of his own family hanging on the walls at home, and envisioned a future in which they might find their way into a shoebox somewhere.

Scott scooped up the pile of photos he had separated from the collection. Holding them in his hand, he stood up, slid the lid back onto the shoebox, and walked out of the room. At the end of the hallway, he stuffed the small stack of his selected photographs into the front pocket of his blue jeans, and then continued to the kitchen where he placed the box on the table.

When he returned to Chris’ room, he dropped down into the bean bag chair again. He rested his hand on the pocket containing the photos. There was a slight bulge, but nothing noticeable.

“Are you looking for a job or something?” Chris said.

Scott was confused. “What? Why?”

“Just wondering why you’re worried about not being six feet tall.” Chris said. He paused the game long enough to move from the floor to the bed, where he sat on the edge again.

“It just sucks being short.” Scott said.

“It just sucks being you.” Chris said. He kicked the side of the bean bag chair and laughed.

“Sometimes, it does.” Scott said.

*     *     *     *     *

To learn more about the Ivy League Nude Posture Photos, read the original Wikipedia article HERE.