Kim Mason, Dead

Kim

Kim Mason died of an overdose of anti-depressants. She danced with death many times trying to rid her body of evil spirits. Always loving and kind. People couldn’t help her enough, though Howard and others tried. The demons were just too scary. In and out of places. Always adjusting her meds. They needed an exorcism.

Mark_and_Kim

I knew her. Met her in Rutland, years ago, or maybe it was Bennington. Don’t remember. But we were friends for ten years or more. She’d hug and kiss me when she saw me on the street. Sometimes when I’d ask how she was doing, she’d put her head on my shoulder and cry, leaving her makeup and her tears all over my face.

Mark

A long time ago, I introduced Sharon to her. Kim would ask how Sharon was doing, even if I hadn’t seen her for a long time. She and Mark were together for 35 years. How does he go on? How do any of us?

Skippy Makes A Bail Application

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In Court to see one of the guys I follow on the Street. To me, he’s Skippy, a light hearted alcoholic who has a certain joie to vie, singing, laughing and carrying on. In Court, he’s He’s Phillip Searles, charged with an aggravated domestic assault. Held on no bail due to the nature of the act and maybe his record. The State alleges that he is a habitual offender, but they haven’t filed all the paper work. As for the charge, the complaining witness, his wife, died, but whether he did it probably cannot be proven. So, they charged him with the assault based on the fact that he made an admission, gave some contradictory answers to the investigating officer and some other evidence.

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He’s asking for bail, not that he could make $25 were it to be set. He lives in the woods, when he’s free, a residence courts don’t usually recognize in determining whether he will return to face the charges. No bail package has been submitted as an alternative to jail. But the lawyer’s obligation is to assert his rights, here his right to bail. In addition to have probable cause for the charges, the State has to allege that he poses a threat to the community. The best they could allege, without statutory or case support, was that as a person charged with domestic abuse, he may well injure another woman were he to come into contact one upon his release.

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In a hallway interview after the hearing concluded with the Judge taking the matter into chambers to decide, Bill Norful, his attorney, talked about how difficult it would be to investigate the case due to the lifestyle of his client. He suggested that others could have injured her. Could have been another person whom she was seeing.

Winter Creatures In Ulster County

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So, I went to Woodstock, Center of Photography, for a landscape workshop with Greg Miller. No sharp light. No long shadows. Almost no color.

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The frogs and caterpillars hadn’t left, but they were cold.

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The snakes still slunk around.

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And, the birds were everready.

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Don’t really care about perfect weather. There’s always something to shoot.

Johnny Vegas

Had never seen the guy before. He sat with a traditionally messaged sign on the wrong side of the street, on the heavily trafficked corner across from Ben and Jerry’s where no one sits. Bright shoes. Big camp back pack. Hardly someone who doesn’t want to be noticed.

With the wind, snow and cold, I couldn’t go out. We must have emerged at the same time after two weeks in hibernation. First guy I saw after stepping out of my car into long missed but not forgotten sun. He stood behind the fence at Rite Aid, one of the City’s dingiest spots. Had to ask about the tattoo. “Got it in Las Vegas. It’s a coverup. Lost a bet that three girls that I was running could make more money in a night than another guys. The payoff was the tattoo: Lost in Vegas. And a telephone number. My girls took the money, bought drugs and spent the night getting high. Couldn’t get them to work. So, I lost. Got the tattoo and left. Then I got it covered up.”

Richard North – Lost on Main

So, Richard North has given up. But, who knows? He disappeared for a few days. Skippy told me he went to the hospital. Richard said they advised him to stop drinking and to take his heart medicine. I offered to take him to pick up the medicine. “Not now.”

Two kids passed, telling me to pay Richard for the priviledge of taking his picture. “Like, who the fuck are you? Will you help me?” They kept walking. Richard: “…, they are kids, leave them alone.”

Larkin Forney Lived a Life

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Ten years ago I worked as a Public Defender in Middlebury. People in custody were kept in a basement holding area that allowed for safe transfers from cars to the jail, but unhealthy and borderline unconstitutionally improper cells. There was plenty of room for counsel visits, with no privacy, no windows and claustrophobic pens. When a prisoner arrived financially unable to afford counsel, a lawyer would be assigned to the case. Almost no one, except for the DUI, out-of-towners, had retained lawyers, most of whom could plead out a drunk but not try a case. The Deputy Sheriff would find the on-duty PD or call out the name of the defendant. One day, I heard, “whose got Larkin Forney?” Frankly, I thought it was a sandwich or a condition. I said, “what’s a Larkin Forney?” “You’re client, you idiot. He’s downstairs, with a pile of papers and he wants to talk with you.”

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Larkin had papers, all right. He had motions he had written which he wanted to file and he had a full statement of facts, his version, and he had pages of a book he was writing. And he was pissed that I hadn’t familiarized myself with all the nuances of the case before we met. I had to excuse his vituperativeness, given the fact I would leave the cell and he would stay. He may not have known I only just got the papers and barely had looked at them as I walked down the stairs. And, poor communication between offices of the Public Defender and the general malaise of some of the attorneys prevented me from knowing he had fired his previous PD after writing a complaint to the disciplinary committee accusing the lawyer who is now a judge or magistrate or something or all sorts of unethical conduct, asserting that the representation was less than adequate and unconstitutionally defective.

[MORE To Come]

Butter or Beer


Sharon and I volunteer at the Burlington Emergency Food Shelf. If you have stuff which people can use, I will pick it up and distribute it. Call me. Someone will use it.

A lot of people I have photographed on the street come for breakfast and then, if eligible, pick up food and supplies. Today, Rich Fish came in. He has a place to live, though not one where he feels he has enough safety and structure. But he has a place to cook and a place to store food. The last time I shot his image, he was cooking franks down by the Coast Guard Station on a grill. I found him, delivered a print, which he lost when someone stole his backpack, or maybe he left it somewhere.

He couldn’t find butter in the cooler. He needed to cook noodles/pasta, which will stick together without it. Previously, I had given him a dollar which he had designated for a beer. Now he has a problem: he needs another dollar, some butter or he can settle for sticky noodles. He thanked me for the dollar and headed off with his groceries. No longer homeless, he can only come every two weeks and what he gets ain’t much. But, in this weather, he’s a lot better off than he was and not as good as he will be now that he is off the streets.

Earlier in the morning, I had given a dollor to a person who didn’t want it. The guy, whom I have seen on the street, said to give it to someone more worthy. I don’t know his name and he hasn’t let me take his photo. But he always says hello, sometimes calling me Dick, instead of Duck. I told him he could give it to someone worthy and refused to take it back.

 Socks

As the morning shift wore on to its end, I saw the guy give the dollar to a woman who was picking up for herself and family. She accepted it, graciously, walked over to me and handed me the dollar. “You deserve this for helping us.”