top of page

Textured Paper Surface

Part V

PART V

Chapters 37–39

Blankness, Fog, and the Walk Home

It didn't happen all at once. It happened in moments so small they slipped by unnoticed: a heart torn beneath a desk, a laugh I swallowed, a story I reshaped, a silence chosen over truth. My climb eventually brought me to the rooftop grate of a freight elevator.

Too many of the old places are gone now. The mountain and the hill in the park remain. I return to them when I can. Memories still move through that landscape. The clouds keep billowing, dismantling, and lifting me home. So does Murray.

Brandon hanging by both hands from an overhead girder beam in a dim ZCMI storage room, surrounded by stacked merchandise boxes.

Brandon in Cottonwood Mall storage

Photographed 1996

Brandon looking down through the metal mesh grate above the ZCMI freight elevator.

Brandon above the ZCMI freight elevator

Photographed 1996

Former ZCMI building at Cottonwood Mall, later a Macy’s, seen across the parking lot with the loading dock at left.

Cottonwood Mall has been torn down and redeveloped

The ZCMI building still stands but has been repurposed

Loading dock visible at lower left

Photograph by the author

25 November 2014

Round edge ZCMI employee name badge with a black sticker reading “Brandon.”

White, sharp edged ZCMI employee name badge with "Brandon D.” engraved in black.

Photos from the Tetons trip

Low sun breaking beneath dark clouds, with scattered bright clouds across the sky on the evening of the Tetons trip.

Sunset at departure

Photograph by the author

13 September 1996

Emma Matilda Lake viewed from a wooded slope, with bare tree branches silhouetted against the calm water.

Emma Matilda Lake

Photograph by the author

14 September 1996

John at Gros Ventre campground

Photograph by the author

14 September 1996

John standing beside a picnic table and camp lantern among trees at Gros Ventre Campground at dusk.

Fog lifting from jagged Teton peaks above a dark evergreen forest.

Fog clearing over the Tetons

Photograph by the author

15 September 1996

Brandon on hike to Inspiration Point

Photograph by John

15 September 1996

Brandon standing beside aspens and looking across a mountain meadow during the hike to Inspiration Point.

John and Brandon standing at a wooden railing in front of Hidden Falls, surrounded by evergreen forest.

John and Brandon at Hidden Falls

Cleaned up version of original image

Photograph 15 September 1996

Journal Entry

Recounting the trip to the Tetons

15 September 1996

Handwritten journal entry dated September 15, 1996, recounting Brandon’s Tetons trip with John.

Retracing my walk home

Parkside Elementary

Photograph by the author

23 December 2010

Parkside Elementary viewed across its empty parking lot, with the flagpole centered on the walkway to the school entrance.

Dark, billowing clouds breaking around patches of blue sky above Parkside Elementary and its empty parking lot.

Clouds above Parkside

Photograph by the author

6 March 2004

Parkside flagpole

Photograph by the author

6 March 2004

Parkside Elementary flagpole photographed from directly below against dark clouds and patches of blue sky.

Broad grassy hill in Murray Park, heavy clouds opening to blue above, with pine trees along its crest.

The hill at Murray Park

Photograph by the author

6 March 2004

Massive white clouds hanging over snow-dusted Mount Olympus, with the green grounds near Parkside in the foreground.

Clouds over Olympus

Photograph by the author

24 November 2014

Long shadows stretching across the field, with the photographer’s small shadow in the foreground and Mount Olympus rising.

The boy on the hill

Photograph by the author

26 November 2013

Two Murray smelter smokestacks rising at the end of a quiet, tree-lined Hillside street at sunset.

Murray smoke stacks from Hillside

Photograph by the author

October 1996

Red Shag Carpet.png

The Red Basement Room

Closet doors in Brandon’s basement bedroom covered with Star Wars posters and a vertical strip of trading cards taped up.

Decorations on door & closet

Photograph by the author

October 1996

Pencil comic character sketches taped in a loose grid to the wall beside Brandon’s bed.

Sketches taped beside the bed

Photograph by the author

October 1996

Bedroom wall above the mirror covered with pencil character sketches, a Halley’s Comet poster, and other posters and artwork.

Sketches above the mirror

Photograph by the author

October 1996

Red upholstered club chair beside a dresser topped with a cedar chest, with open drawers, framed art, and the bed nearby.

The red club chair

Cedar chest above dresser with journal pages

Photograph by the author

October 1996

Gold barrel-back chair at Brandon’s desk, illuminated by a green banker’s lamp in the dark basement bedroom.

Gold barrel-back chair

Photograph by the author

October 1996

Clarified view of Brandon’s desk with gold barrel-back chair, green banker’s lamp, stereo and speakers, and Mahler picture.

Image clarified

Second page of Brandon’s 1996 poem “Summer Caprice,” ending with its final words progressively narrowing down the page.

First page of Brandon’s 1996 poem “Summer Caprice,” with stanzas exploring childhood, swinging, stars, gravity, and longing.

"Summer Caprice"

Archival poem by Brandon DeWitt

1996

Cedar chest that stood above the dresser in Brandon’s basement bedroom.

bottom of page