WICKED GRIM STORIES · EPISODE SIX
The Parade in Three Pieces
By Esi Noire
The first problem with Marlowe’s famous Bicentennial photograph was that Talia Trent’s grandmother appeared in it three times.
The second problem was that the city wanted to enlarge the photograph to forty feet and display it beneath the words:
A TOWN UNITED.
The third problem was that her grandmother had spent the rest of her life insisting she had never marched in that parade.
Talia had always believed her.
Mostly because Mavis Trent had not been a woman who enjoyed parades.
She disliked crowds, marching bands, politicians, and people who threw candy at children from moving vehicles.
She considered the last practice evidence that civilization had lost its direction.
Yet there she was.
July 4, 1976.
Marlowe, Ohio.
A photograph stretching across the entire length of Main Street.
And three separate appearances by one woman wearing a bright yellow raincoat.
At the beginning of the procession, Mavis stood beside a hardware store.
In the middle, she appeared near the courthouse.
At the far end, she stood outside a drugstore.
Same coat.
Same handbag.
Same white shoes.
Talia enlarged the image until the individual grains of photographic paper became visible.
Even the crooked hem of the raincoat was identical.
Her grandmother had been a capable woman, but teleportation had not been among her known accomplishments.
Which meant something was wrong with the photograph.
And unfortunately for the City of Marlowe, Talia had been hired to restore it.
The photograph had hung in the municipal building for nearly fifty years.
It was a panoramic image, almost six feet long, showing Marlowe’s Bicentennial parade.
Children waved flags.
Veterans marched behind the high school band.
A float carried a replica of the Liberty Bell.
The mayor rode in a convertible that looked expensive enough to require its own tax assessment.
The photograph was considered one of Marlowe’s most treasured historical images.
Every few years, someone reproduced it for a calendar, anniversary booklet, or municipal newsletter.
Nobody had ever questioned it.
At least nobody whose objections had made it into the official records.
Now, with the nation’s 250th anniversary approaching, the city wanted a restored enlargement for the newly renovated public square.
Talia operated a small photographic restoration business from the back of her mother’s former beauty salon.
She repaired damaged prints, digitized negatives, and occasionally removed unwanted relatives from wedding photographs.
She charged extra for the relatives.
The city had given her three weeks to complete the Bicentennial restoration.
She had spent the first two days removing scratches.
On the third, she found her grandmother.
Three times.
She telephoned her mother.
“Do you remember Grandma’s yellow raincoat?”
Renée Trent answered immediately.
“Which one?”
“How many yellow raincoats did she own?”
“One. Why?”
“Because I’m looking at a picture of her wearing it in three different places.”
“Sounds like Mama.”
“At the same time.”
“That sounds even more like Mama.”
Talia explained the photograph.
Her mother grew quiet.
“That parade,” Renée said.
“What about it?”
“Your grandmother hated that parade.”
“I know.”
“No, baby. I mean she really hated it.”
In 1976, Marlowe was preparing to build the South Connector.
The proposed road would link the eastern neighborhoods to the county hospital and the industrial district.
Supporters argued that it would shorten emergency response times, improve traffic, and attract businesses.
Opponents argued that the route would destroy part of Juniper Row, a neighborhood of modest houses, rented duplexes, and small businesses.
Both sides had legitimate concerns.
The county hospital needed better access.
Juniper Row needed to remain a neighborhood.
Unfortunately, the city had designed a road that could accomplish the first goal only by eliminating much of the second.
Nineteen households would eventually be displaced.
Some homeowners received compensation.
Several renters struggled to find affordable replacement housing.
A grocery store closed.
A church relocated.
And the house where Mavis Trent’s mother had grown roses disappeared beneath a strip of asphalt.
The city called the project progress.
Mavis called it a road.
She had never believed in allowing an object to name its own virtues.
“Did Grandma protest?” Talia asked.
“She certainly did.”
“Then why is she in the parade?”
“She wasn’t in it.”
“She’s standing beside it.”
“Exactly.”
Renée paused.
“Your grandmother and some of the neighbors walked along the parade route carrying signs.”
“What did the signs say?”
“I don’t remember all of them.”
“Did you go with her?”
“I was sixteen. I went everywhere she made me go.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I remember being embarrassed.”
“By Grandma?”
“Naturally.”
Renée sighed.
“I also remember people shouting at us. Some thought we were ruining the celebration. Others thought we were right.”
“What happened to the signs?”
“What do you mean?”
“They aren’t in the photograph.”
Her mother was silent.
Then she said, “Well, that’s interesting.”
Talia returned to the photograph.
The city had supplied a high-resolution scan of the original panoramic print.
It showed the parade beneath a cloudless summer sky.
At first glance, everything appeared ordinary.
But once Talia stopped looking at the people and started examining the buildings, the photograph became considerably less convincing.
A flag outside the courthouse leaned east.
Farther along the image, the same flag leaned west.
A delivery truck appeared behind the marching band, then reappeared near the drugstore.
And the shadow of the courthouse clock changed direction.
Talia magnified the section containing the clock.
Its hands read 10:04.
In another section, the clock appeared again.
10:18.
The third section showed 10:36.
Thirty-two minutes.
The photograph did not capture a single moment.
It captured at least three.
Someone had joined the images together to create the appearance of one continuous parade.
That explained why Mavis appeared three times.
It did not explain why the protest signs had disappeared.
Talia examined her grandmother’s hands.
In the first section, Mavis’s left arm was raised.
In the second, she appeared to be gripping something with both hands.
In the third, her fingers curled around an invisible object.
Her hands made no sense.
Unless something had been removed.
Talia leaned back.
“Well, Grandma,” she said to the photograph, “somebody has been editing your behavior.”
The original photographer was Harold Finch.
He had owned Finch Portrait Studio from 1959 until his retirement in 1992.
Harold photographed weddings, graduations, civic ceremonies, and anyone willing to sit still long enough to pay him.
He died in 1998.
His daughter, June Finch, still lived above the old studio.
Talia telephoned her.
“Do you remember your father’s Bicentennial panorama?”
June laughed.
“Unfortunately.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“Because I helped make the thing.”
Talia arranged to visit that afternoon.
June was sixty-seven, wore her silver hair in a braid, and maintained a collection of cameras that could have supplied a modest museum.
The studio downstairs smelled of old paper, furniture polish, and chemicals that had probably been illegal for several decades.
June led Talia to a worktable.
“My father took photographs from the roof of Miller’s Hardware,” she explained. “He wanted the whole parade in one picture.”
“That’s impossible with a single exposure.”
“Yes. He knew that.”
“So he combined several.”
“Three main negatives. A few smaller pieces. We used enlargements, a cutting knife, adhesive, and a copy camera.”
“You helped?”
“I was seventeen.”
June opened a cabinet.
Inside were boxes of negatives, envelopes, and contact sheets.
“My father could make a photograph look like something it never was. Not because he was dishonest by nature. Because people paid him to make things look good.”
“Did the city pay him to remove the protest signs?”
June stopped searching.
She looked at Talia.
“How did you know about those?”
“My grandmother was carrying one.”
“Who was your grandmother?”
“Mavis Trent.”
June closed her eyes.
“Oh, Lord.”
“That bad?”
“No. Just a name I haven’t heard in years.”
She pulled out a cardboard box.
On its side, in faded pencil, someone had written:
BICENTENNIAL — ORIGINAL CONTACTS
June placed it on the table.
“Before you look,” she said, “you should understand something.”
“What?”
“My father didn’t invent the parade.”
“I know.”
“And the people in the photograph really were there.”
“I know that too.”
June opened the box.
“Then remember that when you see what we did.”
The contact sheets contained dozens of small photographs.
Talia recognized the courthouse, the drugstore, the marching band, and the convertible carrying the mayor.
Then she found Mavis.
In the first photograph, her grandmother stood outside Miller’s Hardware wearing the yellow raincoat.
She held a cardboard sign.
WHERE WILL WE LIVE?
Talia stared.
There it was.
The object her grandmother’s fingers had been gripping.
The sign had been removed from the published panorama.
In the second photograph, Mavis stood near the courthouse.
This time, two women walked beside her.
One carried a sign reading:
PUT THE PROMISE IN WRITING.
The other held a smaller sign.
RENTERS LIVE HERE TOO.
In the third photograph, Mavis appeared outside the drugstore.
A teenage girl stood beside her.
The girl wore red knee socks and held one corner of a sign.
WE LIVE HERE.
Talia recognized the girl immediately.
“That’s my mother.”
June leaned closer.
“Renée?”
“Yes.”
“Goodness. She was a pretty little thing.”
“She still is. She’ll be delighted you noticed.”
June smiled.
Then Talia placed the published panorama beside the contact sheets.
The difference was unmistakable.
The women remained in the final image.
Their signs did not.
Where Mavis had held WHERE WILL WE LIVE?, the published photograph showed her apparently waving.
Where the second sign had been, a strip of patriotic bunting covered the space.
The third sign had vanished completely.
The teenage Renée appeared to be applauding the parade.
Talia felt something tighten in her chest.
“They didn’t remove the protesters,” she said.
June shook her head.
“No.”
“They removed what they were protesting.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
June looked toward the old darkroom.
“The city wanted a commemorative photograph. A celebration. They said the signs distracted from the spirit of the occasion.”
“And your father agreed?”
“He needed the contract.”
“Did you agree?”
June considered the question.
“I was seventeen. My father told me where to cut.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” June said. “It isn’t.”
She touched the edge of the contact sheet.
“I remember cutting around those women. I remember being relieved that we didn’t have to remove their faces.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought that meant we weren’t doing anything wrong.”
June looked directly at Talia.
“We left the people in the picture and took away their words.”
Talia brought the contact sheets home.
Her mother examined them at the kitchen table.
For several minutes, Renée said nothing.
Then she pointed to the girl in the red socks.
“I thought I was taller.”
Talia laughed.
“That’s your first observation?”
“I was sixteen. Height mattered.”
Renée traced the edge of the photograph without touching the paper.
“I remember those socks.”
“Really?”
“Your grandmother bought them on clearance. They were supposed to be maroon.”
“They look red.”
“They were red. Mama insisted the store had mislabeled them.”
Renée smiled.
Then her expression changed.
“I remember that sign.”
“WE LIVE HERE?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make it?”
“Your grandmother did. She gave me the job of holding it.”
“Did you understand what was happening?”
“Some of it.”
Renée leaned back.
“The city was going to take Grandma’s house. We knew that. But Mama kept asking about the renters.”
“Why?”
“Because homeowners were being offered money. Renters were being told they’d have to move. Some had lived there longer than the owners.”
“Did the city eventually help them?”
“Some. Not enough.”
Renée looked at the photograph again.
“Your grandmother wasn’t against the hospital getting a better road.”
“I thought she was.”
“No. Your Uncle Leon drove an ambulance. He supported the connector.”
“Didn’t they argue about it?”
“Constantly.”
“What did Leon say?”
“That a faster road could save lives.”
“And Grandma?”
“That people shouldn’t have to lose their homes without knowing where they were going.”
“Who was right?”
Renée shrugged.
“Both of them. That’s what made the arguments so miserable.”
She studied the picture of Mavis.
“Your grandmother wanted the city to put its promises in writing before construction started.”
“Did they?”
“Eventually. But not before people had already begun moving.”
Talia turned the photograph over.
“Did Grandma ever see the published version?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What did she say?”
Renée smiled without amusement.
“She said they made her look like she was enjoying herself.”
The following morning, Talia telephoned the Marlowe Historical Society.
The curator, Claudia Voss, had been coordinating the anniversary exhibit.
Talia explained what she had discovered.
Claudia listened carefully.
Then she said, “That complicates things.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“The city has already approved the design.”
“The design contains an altered photograph.”
“Most panoramic photographs from that period were assembled.”
“This one had protest signs deliberately removed.”
There was a pause.
“Can you prove that?”
“Yes.”
“Then bring everything.”
Talia arrived with the contact sheets, the published panorama, and June Finch.
Claudia examined the evidence.
She was a careful woman who preferred dates, names, and documents to dramatic declarations.
After twenty minutes, she removed her glasses.
“This changes the caption.”
“It should change more than the caption,” Talia said.
“What do you propose?”
“Show the original photographs.”
“All three?”
“Yes.”
“And the composite?”
“That too.”
Claudia frowned.
“People may think we’re accusing the entire city of deliberately falsifying its history.”
“Someone deliberately altered the picture.”
“That doesn’t mean everyone who later displayed it knew.”
“I agree.”
Claudia looked surprised.
Talia continued.
“That’s why the explanation matters. The photograph was created for a celebration. The signs were removed. Later generations treated the result as a complete historical record.”
June spoke.
“My father made the composite. I helped him. You can put our names on the label.”
Claudia turned toward her.
“You’re willing to have that included?”
June nodded.
“It happened.”
“People may criticize your father.”
“They’re welcome to. He’s been dead twenty-eight years. I doubt he’ll take it personally.”
Claudia almost smiled.
Then she said, “There’s something else we need.”
“What?”
“Someone who was there.”
Bernice Vaughn lived in an apartment overlooking the river.
She was ninety-one and had recently stopped driving.
She considered this an unreasonable development.
“I’ve been driving since 1952,” she told Talia. “Now everybody’s decided the roads are too dangerous for me. Have you seen how these young people drive?”
Talia had.
She chose not to argue.
Bernice had lived on Juniper Row for thirty-seven years.
Her husband worked at the water department.
She cleaned offices in the evenings and helped organize neighborhood meetings when the South Connector was announced.
Talia showed her the contact sheets.
Bernice laughed.
“There’s Mavis.”
“Do you remember the parade?”
“I remember the heat.”
“Grandma wore a raincoat.”
“That woman would rather suffer than admit she’d dressed wrong.”
“Why yellow?”
“So people could see her.”
Bernice pointed to the photograph.
“She said if the mayor wanted to ignore us, he could at least have to look around us.”
“Did he?”
“Oh, he saw us.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing that day.”
Bernice folded her hands.
“That’s the part people don’t like hearing. We marched. We wrote letters. We went to meetings. Some things changed. Some didn’t.”
“Did you save the neighborhood?”
“No.”
“Then what did you accomplish?”
Bernice looked offended.
“We weren’t trying to save a postcard, honey. We were trying to make sure people had somewhere to go.”
She described neighbors who received better relocation arrangements after organizing.
Others moved in with relatives.
A few left Marlowe entirely.
Her family found another apartment, but her mother never adjusted.
“She missed the porch,” Bernice said.
“Just the porch?”
“The porch was where everybody came to see her. When we moved, people stopped dropping by. They had to telephone first.”
Bernice shook her head.
“People think losing a house means losing four walls. Sometimes it’s the way people found you.”
Talia asked whether Bernice had opposed the connector itself.
“I opposed the way they went about it.”
“Did the road help the hospital?”
“Of course it did.”
“Then wasn’t there some benefit?”
Bernice gave her a sharp look.
“Child, two things can be true without canceling each other out.”
She pointed toward the river.
“My neighbor’s grandson got to the hospital faster because of that road. I’m grateful.”
Then she tapped the photograph.
“But my mother never sat on her porch again.”
Back at the studio, Talia examined the original materials one last time.
June had allowed her to borrow the box for proper scanning.
At the bottom was a thin envelope containing a carbon copy of an old request form.
The paper had yellowed.
Across the top, someone had typed:
PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS — DUPLICATE REQUEST
Below it:
Marlowe Bicentennial Parade
Original negatives and contact sheets
April 1977
In the lower corner was a red stamp.
R.E.C.
Beneath the initials, someone had written:
Unaltered originals required.
Talia telephoned June.
“Did somebody request copies of these photographs in 1977?”
“I remember my father mailing something.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was R.E.C. a city department?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Did anyone ever explain why they wanted the originals?”
“No.”
June paused.
“Why?”
“Because someone knew the published photograph wasn’t the whole story.”
“Maybe.”
Talia looked at the red stamp.
She had no reason to assume the request had been official.
The initials were unexplained.
The form had no department address.
And a request for original photographs could have served any number of purposes.
Still, someone had asked for the unaltered evidence less than a year after the parade.
Talia placed the form in a protective sleeve.
She had learned enough from restoring photographs to know that an unexplained mark was not an invitation to invent an explanation.
It was a reason to keep looking.
The anniversary exhibit opened in October.
The city retained the large panoramic photograph, but the original caption was removed.
In its place was a new title:
THE PARADE IN THREE PIECES
Below it, the historical society displayed the three original photographs.
Each carried its actual time.
10:04 A.M.
10:18 A.M.
10:36 A.M.
The signs were visible.
So were the faces.
A written explanation described how the commemorative panorama had been assembled and how the protest signs had been removed during production.
The display also explained the South Connector project, the arguments surrounding it, and the displacement of Juniper Row residents.
June Finch contributed a statement about her role in preparing the original composite.
Bernice Vaughn recorded an interview.
Several former residents supplied photographs of their homes.
One man brought a picture of his grandmother’s kitchen.
Another contributed a photograph of the church before it moved.
A woman arrived carrying a small wooden house number.
18.
It had hung beside her front door until the demolition crew arrived.
She asked whether the museum wanted it.
Claudia accepted it.
The number became part of the exhibit.
Not because it was valuable.
Because somebody had once used it to tell visitors where they belonged.
Renée attended the opening with Talia.
She stood before the three original photographs for a long time.
Visitors moved around them.
Some remembered the parade.
Others remembered the road.
A retired ambulance driver told Bernice that the connector had saved lives.
Bernice agreed.
Then she told him about the families who had been displaced.
He listened.
Neither changed the other’s mind about the road.
But they stopped arguing long enough to examine a photograph of Juniper Row before construction.
Talia watched her mother study the teenage girl in red socks.
“That’s you,” she said.
“I know.”
“You look angry.”
“I was.”
“At the city?”
“At Mama. She made me carry the sign.”
Renée smiled.
“She said I was old enough to understand what was happening.”
“Were you?”
“Not then.”
She stepped closer.
“Do you know what I remember most about that day?”
“What?”
“The parade went right past us. The bands kept playing. People waved. Some laughed at our signs. Some looked away.”
She pointed to the photograph.
“And Mama kept walking.”
Talia looked at Mavis’s yellow coat.
In the first photograph, her grandmother held the sign above her head.
In the second, she had moved farther down the street.
In the third, she stood beside her daughter.
“She wanted to be seen,” Talia said.
Renée nodded.
“She wanted the city to answer.”
“Did she ever get the answer she wanted?”
“No.”
Talia waited.
Her mother looked toward the display.
“But she made them put some things in writing.”
Before leaving, Renée asked Claudia whether the historical society could make a copy of the third photograph.
“The one with Mama and me.”
“Of course.”
“Not the whole panorama.”
“No?”
“Just that one.”
Claudia promised to have it printed.
A week later, Talia delivered the photograph to her mother’s house.
Renée placed it on the mantel beside an older portrait of Mavis.
In the portrait, Mavis wore a formal dress and an expression suggesting that the photographer had been given exactly three minutes.
In the parade photograph, she wore the yellow raincoat.
Her hair had escaped its pins.
Her mouth was open.
She was clearly shouting something.
Renée studied the picture.
“I wonder what she was saying.”
Talia looked at the sign.
WE LIVE HERE.
“Probably something the mayor didn’t want to hear.”
Renée laughed.
“That narrows it down considerably.”
She adjusted the frame.
Then she stood back.
For fifty years, Marlowe had displayed a photograph that made her mother appear to be celebrating a decision she had challenged.
The photograph had not been entirely fabricated.
The parade was real.
The people were real.
The buildings were real.
Even the woman in the yellow coat was real.
But the message had been changed.
The city had not needed to remove Mavis Trent from history.
It had only needed to remove what she was holding.
And once the sign was gone, the woman who had walked the length of Main Street demanding an answer looked remarkably like someone enjoying the parade.
Renée glanced at the picture one final time.
“Well, Mama,” she said, “they finally printed the whole thing.”
Then she turned toward the kitchen.
“Now somebody needs to put the kettle on. All this history has made me thirsty.”
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