Ziesk explores consequences of violent act

• By GREG LANGLEY
• books editor
• Published: Oct 5, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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THE TRESPASSER
By Edra Ziesk
SMU Press, $22.50

When Sebastian Bryant, a New York photographer, travels to an isolated Kentucky hamlet in search of images for a book about America, he is unconsciously intruding into a culture and society that he has no concept of. He is simply in search of pretty settings and evocative scenes to record. That includes local people.

When he visits the diner in town to get directions to any memorable scenery, the locals intentionally direct him to an isolated place up in the hills where a man named Hesketh Day — Heke — owns a home and three rental cabins. Bryant takes the bait and heads mindlessly off. It’s not an easy trip. He gets to the top of the mountain after nearly getting lost.

“And then he saw what must be the county road — a two-way blacktop. The mountain road ended and there it was, running perpendicular, and Bryant edged up to it and stopped, looking in one direction, then the other. No cars passed. The roadway stretched out, a chalky black, deeply pocked and rutted and empty. A melting tar smell thickened the air.

“Bryant turned onto the road and headed slowly west. He was looking for a place to turn around when he saw the cabins.”

Better that he had turned back. Once there, Bryant encountered the only residents of the “small and listing” cabins, the Pomfrets, Cass and Sylvie and their young son, a toddler named Christopher. The Pomfrets are a young couple struggling with poverty. Cass is out of work — in fact he has never really been able to find steady employment. When Byrant sees them standing on their sagging porch, the Pomfrets strike his eye. He offers them $50 to pose for him. Before he can shoot the picture, Heke shows up demanding to know what Bryant wants.

“I don’t want anything. Take a few photographs, that’s all.” Bryant tells Heke.

“Well, see, that may be wanting nothing to you, but to me that might not be nothing,” the mountain man tells the photographer.

“If you’re takin’ pictures on my place, and you’re takin’ pictures of my place, the way I see it, that’s wanting something that’s mine.”
Bryant tells Heke that he’s traveling around the country shooting photos for a book for the bicentennial. “I have been for some time. Photographing all different parts of the country. For my book.”

Heke is unimpressed. “And which part of the country would this be? In your book. Wouldn’t be the sorry part, would it?”

Bryant denies this, but Heke is unmoving. “Don’t like photographers up to in here. We had them other times — after a coal bump, other times, they all find their way up to here. The sorry part. Show everybody how sorry it is.”

Heke ties Bryant up so long with his objections that the light fades, and the photographer is forced to give up the shoot. He leaves, but unbeknownst to Heke, he doesn’t go far. He returns to the motel where he has stayed the night before. Early the next day, Bryant is back at the cabins before the morning mist has burned off. He wants that photo. The Pomfrets are happy to oblige. They want that $50.

As Bryant sets up his equipment, Heke shows up toting a shotgun. In a Deliverance-style confrontation, Heke tells Bryant to leave, and as Bryant argues his point, Heke raises the shotgun and shoots Bryant.