not disfiguring, in the way some scars can be, ruining a face so that you no longer want to look at it; instead, Thomas’s scar seems to follow the planes of his face — as though a brush had made a quick stroke, a perfect curve. It is almost impossible not to want to touch that scar, to run a fingertip along its bumpy ridge. But it is not the scar that makes Thomas turn his face away from the camera; it is, I think, that he cannot bear to be examined too closely by a lens. Just as he is not able to meet his eyes for any length of time in a mirror.
I have one photograph of Thomas in which he is not turned away. I took it on the morning after we met. He is standing in front of his apartment building in Cambridge, and he has his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He has on a wrinkled white shirt with a button-down collar. Even in this picture, the viewer can see that Thomas wants to pull away, and that it is with the greatest of effort that he has kept his eyes focused on the camera. He looks ageless in the photograph, and it is only because I happen to know that he is thirty-two that I would not think he was forty-seven or twenty-five. In the picture, one can see that Thomas’s hair, which is naturally thin and of no distinct color, has recently been cut short. I took the picture about nine o’clock in the morning. He looks that morning like someone I have known a long time — possibly since childhood.
We met for the first time, appropriately, in a bar in Cambridge. I was twenty-four, and worked for a Boston paper, assigned recently to Local Sports. I was on my way home from a shoot in Somerville of a high school girls’ basketball team, but I needed a bathroom and a pay phone.
I heard his voice before I saw his face. It was low and measured, authoritative and without noticeable accent.
When he finished the reading, he turned slightly to acknowledge a nod, and I could see Thomas’s face then in the light. I was struck by his mouth — he had a loose and generous mouth, the only extravagance in a spare face. Later, when I was sitting with him, I saw that his eyes were set closely together, so that I did not think he was classically handsome. His irises, however, were navy and flecked with gold, and he had large pupils, dark circles that seemed to have no protection.
I went to the bar and ordered a Rolling Rock. I was lightheaded and hollow-stomached from not having eaten anything. It seemed that every time I had thought of eating that day, I had been called to yet another assignment. I leaned against the bar and studied the menu. I was aware that Thomas was standing next to me.
“I liked your reading,” I said.
He glanced briefly at me. “Thank you,” he said quickly, in the way of a man who has no skill with compliments.
“The poem you read. It was very strong.”
His eyes flickered over my face. “It’s old work,” he said.
The barman brought my Rolling Rock, and I paid for the beer. Thomas picked up his glass, leaving a wet circle on the highly varnished surface of the bar. He took a long swallow and set the glass back down.
“This is a reading?” I asked.
“Tuesday night. Poet’s night.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You’re not alone.”
I tried to signal to the barman, so that I could order a snack.
“Thomas Janes,” he said, holding out his hand. I noticed the fingers, long and strong and pale.
He must have seen the confusion on my face.
He smiled. “No, you’ve never heard of me,” he said.
“I don’t know poetry very well,” I said lamely.
“No apologies.”
He had on a white shirt and a complicated cable-knit sweater. Dress slacks. Gray. A pair of boots. I told him my name and that I was a photographer for the Globe.
“How did you become a photographer?”
“I saw a show of AP photos once. I left the show and went out and bought a camera.”
“The baby falling from the third-story window.”
“Something like that.”
“And you’ve been taking pictures ever since.”
“It helped to put me through school.”
“You’ve seen a lot of terrible things.”
“Some. But I’ve seen wonderful things, too. I once caught the moment that a father lay down on the ice and pulled his son