A Christmas for Tara #1

"Tara and Charlie on Rock Boulevard", Rockaways, Queens, NYC, 2002. Juliana Beasley.

I wrote this piece or actually, began to write this story about my Christmas Eve out in the Rockaways in 2010 and what led up to the events in the story last year. I never finished it, got stuck in my writing and hence, never posted it. I began to look over it today and felt the need to post it. It's needs a good edit but who cares about perfection. I miss writing so, I have come back to this piece about Tara who passed away over two years ago before she ever turned 40. She was my first friend out in Rockaway Park and oddly, I have very few photographs of her since she shunned my lens. Here goes.

“Hey Bobby”

I heard a man’s voice on the other end but I wasn’t sure if it was Bobby. Almost, several months had passed since we had last spoken on the phone.

Past noon and I was still lying in bed, tangled in-between sheets and a comforter, I was dressed in the same pair of pajamas that had become my standard indoor outfit. The Jersey City parlor level apartment, filled with inescapable natural light, original fixtures and looming sixteen-foot ceilings, rented at a price well beyond my means was littered with cardboard boxes, stacked against the walls. Six months after the movers had deposited my belongings, I was still daunted and paralyzed at the prospect of opening and dismantling the colossal disorder that doesn’t compile over several months or a year but over a lifetime.  For safety and sanity purposes, all misplaced DVDs, obsolete files, and family photographs would remain under house arrest, securely and neatly sealed away in cartons, marked “Miscellaneous” with a thick black Sharpe.

My head was propped up on a pillow, turned toward and close to the window facing the street. I had discovered the precise angle, location, and position to hold my cell for perfect reception.

 “Yeah, is this Juliana?” Bobby responded. “How have you been?”

Bobby is probably one of the few people I know in the Rockaway’s who hasn't changed his phone number or lost his service in the seven years since I had begun photographing a personal project out there in 2002.  I could rely on him. He is probably as predictable and stable as it can get in a place where human encounters and relationships are often fleeting and short-lived. Upon my return after a couple of months break, I had become accustomed to hearing about another acquaintance or friend who had died or got up and left.

"I want to come out to the Rockaway’s for Christmas. Do you have any plans yet?"

"I think you should come out on Christmas Eve instead,” he said. We’re thinking of going over to the Kerry Hill. They’re having a free buffet. Would you like to come?”

Everything from our basic fashion sense, our interests, our back rounds, our economic class and our politics, Bobby and I were the most unlikely pair to spend time together let alone the Christmas holiday. We did have one thing in common, namely Tara That had kept us connected over the years.

Tara the shimmering enigma. Tara the bleached blonde waif.  Tara who disappeared and reappeared into our of our lives with no warning. Tara who never drank enough to quench her relentless addiction. Tara who lived a life that would have broken the spirit of most people. Tara who smiled and laughed more than she ever complained. Tara who had the charisma to appeal to the benevolence of those around her.

Years would pass when I couldn’t find Tara anywhere. I’d hope to find her walking up and down Rockaway Boulevard or standing at the bar of a local pub that hadn’t 86’d her yet, but no luck. She didn’t have a phone. And she was prone to losing anything that anyone had ever given her so, I was sure that she had already lost the last piece of paper with my number written on it.

“Oh, Tara?” someone would say from the neighborhood. “Haven’t seen her around much lately.” Other man sitting at the pub, “I think I saw her last week. The last time I heard she was living with that ex-cop out in Masbeth (another neighborhood in Queens),” I always missed her by less than a week.

Then on one visit someone at Kerry Hill told me she had moved back to the neighborhood. She was staying at Bobby’s. He was letting her stay in the room he rented in a boarding house on 119th.  The house had a bad reputation—whether true or not—as a den for crack addicts. I already knew several people living there or who had lived there. The place was a dump. The few renters who still remained kept heavy-duty padlocks on doors, marked with the holes and bruises of angry punching and kicking limbs.

His claustrophobic room was decorated with celebrity magazine tear sheets of Madonna at various times of her career. Now, I saw paparazzi shots of Lady Gaga. The moustache above Bobby’ lip, the mullet hairdo and his middle age appearance did not evoke an aura of top popular dance music, but instead the acid worn out hits of bands from the 70’s like the Altman Brothers.

Whenever, I was at his place, I noticed that the Venetian blinds were closed and imagined they stayed that way only because the slats were covered in a layer of dust. Beneath, Irish lucky clovers and smiling leprechaun stickers covered the windows. The tight living quarters made me curious about the exact nature of Bobby and Tara’s relationship. I assumed they shared the same fold out futon, but I never dared to ask either one of them about it.

“Can I have your phone number?, I asked him once when he called me. Finally, I could scribble down a real phone number to reach her and cross her name off the “missing persons” list in my notebook. From that point on, I could depend on Bobby to let me know where to find her.

My only commitment this year for Christmas was to make sure my dogs, Howard and Moishe got their mandatory three walks in Jersey City. According to my tradition of recent Christmas day’s past, I felt my rightful place was in the Rockaway’s with my camera.

The day before the day before Christmas arrived, I wanted to call Bobby and cancel. The thought of a two-hour trip each way on public transportation from Jersey felt nearly impossible considering that as the winter season progressed and temperatures fell, my growing lack of motivation grew and I spent more time secluded behind close doors.

I couldn’t cancel. I had to go for Bobby’s sake. I knew the last couple of months had been difficult for him. I could still hear his mournful words over the phone.

“I kiss her photos on my wall every morning and every night before going sleep. I have pictures of her all over my walls. You have to see it. Ya’ know she died on my birthday on October 1^st? How I’m going to live with that for the rest of my life?” he said during our last conversation.

I called him around 8:00.

“Bobby? It’s Juliana.”

“Are you going to cancel on me?”

“No, Bobby”, I said. “I can’t stay for long. I haven’t been feeling well and I can’t leave my dogs alone longer than 6 hours, but I am coming.”

“Are you sure now you’re coming? Are you sure?” He sounded desperate.

“Bobby, I promise. I told you I was coming out, didn’t I? I have something for you anyway.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he said. I could hear the guilt in his voice.

“It’s just a photo of Tara. You’ll like it. Oh, and don’t bother buying me a bottle of Jameson’s. Just two cans of Diet Coke. I don’t want to drink.”

“Sure a can or a bottle of Diet Coke?” he asked.

“Whatever’s easier? I’ll call you when I get to Broad Channel.”

I had a plan: stay for 2 hours, 3 hours max, give my good wishes to those that I had gotten to know over the years and leave. I had a purpose: deliver a gift to Bobby. Packed safely away in my camera bag, I had a photograph of Tara, adhered to foam core and wrapped in plastic. She was smiling and standing at the water’s edge. I wrote under the photo, “Tara at the Beach”, Summer 2006.