Week Forty Nine

The Mad Bomber

The photos were pinned to the large board hanging in Henley Whippenscoot’s office - creating a mosaic of hyper-saturated dresses, glinting jewels, and smiles that had been perfected by either years of walking red carpets or by the hands and knives of the best plastic surgeons in Beverly Hills.

Henley fell back into her chair with a breath, and took in the collection. Each photo had been culled down from the nearly 3,000 taken at the annual Marks Museum Fundraiser for Underprivileged Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Puppies. A showcase for the Hollywood, Washington, and, lately, North Dakotan elite, the gala was the place to see and be seen, and, of course, raise a few thousand dollars for the poor - both literally and figuratively - show dogs.

As fashion editor for Touched, the definitive magazine for bored housewives who wanted to stare at millionaires’ cleavage while also learning 101 ways to please their men, Henley Whippenscoot needed to select the photo to grace the cover of the December issue. She let her eyes blur and glazed over the patches of Ibizan chartreuse, broken fender platinum grey, and Fiji Water label cyan.

Almost instinctively, she grabbed one image of Madison Light, recent star of the romantic comedy, Why Not? Let’s Have a Baby!, and Jasmine Portnoy who never did anything of note, other than having been recorded in the midst of various sexual acts and sending those recordings to various news outlets.

Henley placed both photos on her desk and took in every detail. Her red sharpie would indicate where retouching would need to go back and remove birthmarks, underboobs, overboobs, whispy hairs, too many minorities, and, of course, unsightly wrinkles. Casually, she circled a man just beyond Jasmine’s right buttcheek giving the tell-tale “Home Alone” two-hands on the cheeks surprised look.

Moving on to Madison, she circled Madison’s shoulder freckles, a strange shadow on her upper lip, and an item in her purse that was, without a doubt, cocaine. Then she noticed him, the same man giving the Home Alone look. Same guy. Same expression. Henley circled him again, and muttered, “photobombing son of a bitch” under her breath.

She placed both photos into an envelope and handed them to her assistant to send to retouching. She went back to the wall and began removing the other photos from the board, and that’s when she noticed him: the same guy. In every single photo. Making the same exact face. She laughed at the man’s simple effort. But then she saw that this was no small feat.

The man moved. He was in different locations. He had strategically placed himself behind these celebrities just as they had their photos taken. And because Henley had four different photographers working the event in four different areas, this man was incredibly dedicated to, dare she say it, his craft.

She circled another photo of the man, this time as he stood shocked and barely visible behind the gargantuan and ostentatious violet peacock hat worn by Desdemona Beatrice, a long faded actress whose decades of cigarette smoking made the lines around her lips look like the indentations on the bottom of baccarat tumblers.

Henley squinted to get a better look at this strange person who put the effort into such a random task and questioned out loud, “Who are you, man?”

———

“Ha! Look at this one,” Sam said, turning the iPad around so his wife, Karen, could see the digital photo more clearly, “Mark is photobombing us.”

“That’s too bad,” Karen said, shrugging her nose, “It’s probably the best one we have.”

Sam looked closer at the picture, scrutinized it, used his hands to figure out a way to crop Mark out. Finally, he laughed, “Let’s use it. It’ll be funny, and I’m sure Mark would get a kick out of it.”

“Fine. But I get to pick the photo for next year’s holiday card.”

———

Across town, Herb Fieldspar could just make out the illuminated spire of the Meridian Publishing building, the same multinational media company that published Touched. He wondered what Henley was going to choose for the cover of her December issue. He’d settled on an Eastern European model posing in a barely there swimsuit amidst the ruined walls overlooking the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. If anything said merry and festive for the holiday season, this image was it, and it was destined for the cover of Drop In magazine’s Christmas issue.

Herb, being old-school, held his magnifying glass over the picture in an attempt to find any flaws. He made a few notes about pumping up the lighting in certain areas, removing wayward trees, and having the model’s eyes changed from brown to blue.

Giving the photo a final pass, he noticed him. Small. Barely noticeable with the naked eye. A man holding his hands to his face like that Culkin kid in that one movie. Herb grabbed other photos from the same shoot and recognized the guy time and time again.

Jesus this guy was persistent.

The photo, along with a request to airbrush out the man, was sent to retouching. Herb sat at his desk and called Henley. It was common courtesy for the two rivals to call each other once they’d decided on who would be gracing each issue’s cover. As main rivals, they never wanted to feature the same person. And, if Herb were being honest, he liked hearing Henley’s voice.

“It’s between Madison Light and Jasmine Portnoy,” said Henley into the phone. “We’ll probably go with Madison because she said she’d attend our Free Alaska charity event in February.”

“Great choice,” Herb said. “Yeah, we’ve got some up and coming girl from Hungary or Lithuania or some shit on ours.”

“Oh, so get this. I’ve got some asshole in the back of every single one of my photos making the Home Alone face.”

“What?”

“Seriously. Every single photo has this guy making the same photo. It’s unbelievable.”

“Uh… are you serious? Because I had the same exact problem.”

“Herb, don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m not fucking with you, Henley. Hold on, I’ll text you an image.”

Herb snapped the image quickly with his phone and sent it to Henley.

“Herb. This is the same goddamn guy.”

“No way. Not possible.”

“I’m sure of it. Same guy. Same expression.”

“Are you saying that this guy just goes around town - hell, the world, and photobombs?”

“Unless you’re playing a trick on me.”

“Henley, I promise on all that is holy, I’m not playing a trick on you.”

Henley snapped the work-in-progress photo for Touched and sent it to Herb.

“What? The? Hell?”

———

The Butcher’s holiday card sat on top of catalogs, bills, and books of coupons promising end of the year savings. Mark grabbed the stack of mail from the mailbox and threw it into the passenger seat of his car. He noticed the Butcher’s home address and quickly pulled the car over to see if he’d made the cut.

There, behind the smiling faces of the Butcher clan and a note about wishes and holidays, was Mark’s unmistakable shocked expression. Mark smiled an almost evil smirk - one filled with happiness, deceitfulness, and knowing.

———

A basketball star going for a game-winning slam dunk in the finals? There was the guy with the shocked expression sitting in the seats.

A guitarist mid-solo and illuminated by a point of stage light, and yet somehow the guy with the shocked expression made his way into the frame.

A magazine photo accompanying an article about the dangers of slip fishing, and on a boat hundreds of miles off of shore stood the guy with the shocked expression.

No one knew who he was. But a small team of both amateur and professional detectives, AI-fueled programmers, and devoted journalists were determined to find out.

———

The following year, the Butchers asked Mark to be in their holiday card again. Same guy. Same expression. Mark turned them down.

Few people recognize their talents. Fewer still recognize the importance of not exploiting their talents. Mark was no sellout. He realized what he had, and he’d decided early on that each photobomb would be special. Unforced. Crafted. Perfect.

———

As the limos carrying the A-listers lined up outside the theater, the technicians went to work. Facial recognition software was humming from a server-truck just offsite. Panoramic cameras saw every zit, scar, and facial hair of every single person in a three-block radius. Every photographer at the event had their cameras outfitted with software that would recognize him instantly in their view finder. If the Mad Bomber were to strike, they’d know before he ever set foot on the property.

The Mad Bomber appeared in so many photos that they knew exactly what he looked like. A team of psychologists assembled a dossier on his personality. And everyone agreed, were he to strike, the Narcissus Awards were the absolute ideal place to do his dirty work.

None of the stars were aware of the threat. No security teams were alerted. The increase in surveillance was claimed to be a by-the-book terrorist threat. The analysts feared if the Mad Bomber caught wind of the increase in security, he’d back out of his plan.

The team watched the monitors diligently. Fingers tapped on desks. Other fingers had their nails gnawed by nervous magazine editors. This sting operation was better funded, and more detailed than the night they killed Bin Laden.

“Nothing,” said Gragson hunched toward his monitor. “No hits.”

“He’s here. I can feel it,” replied Wilkes-Barre grabbing Gragson’s joystick and moving the security camera around the property. To herself, almost inaudibly, she said, “Where the hell are you?”

“I think I’ve got something!” One of the technicians whose name Wilkes-Barre had purposefully forgotten raised his hand. Wilkes-Barre rushed to him.

“Show me.”

“I got a hit. At least I thought I did,” he said nervously, feeling Wilkes-Barre’s breath on the back of his neck.

“How sure are you?”

“80… 90 percent,” he stuttered nervously.

“Out!” Wilkes-Barre moved his seat back and launched him out of the chair. She quickly scanned the monitor’s image, squinting into each shadow and corner. But she saw nothing. She picked up her radio, “Blue 5, can you do a sweep of area x-2 to area y-9? We need confirmation on a potential spotting.”

“Roger,” came the static-filled voice of Blue 5.

Wilkes-Barre changed her view to Blue 5’s body cam, and followed as he ran through the area, scanning in a Z formation.

“Status, Blue 5?”

“Uh… that’s a negative. I’ve got nothing.”

“He’s there. He’s somewhere!” Wilkes-Barre was at her wit’s end.

Half a mile away, celebrities were smiling as they leisurely walked the red carpet. Dresses were picked apart. Comments were made under breaths. And a man stood behind all of them with his hands pressed to his cheeks and his mouth agape.

And no one saw.

———

Mark’s face was on every major newspaper. He was in the background for entertainment television packages. He even managed to look up with the same expression just as a blimp was broadcasting overhead.

The public caught wind of Mark’s endeavors and quickly turned him into a folk hero. Websites were set up in an attempt to identify him. Others claimed he was their brother, their cousin, their boyfriend. But despite all of this, no one knew who he was, and the Mad Bomber lived on.

———

While families of other eleven year old kids took them to Florida or California, Mark’s family took him to Oslo, Norway. Walking around the city’s harbor, they hopped from landmark to landmark, museum to museum. Bored, and tired, Mark purposefully dragged his feet as his family slowly walked the queue to enter the National Gallery. Once inside, he saw hundred of paintings of long dead people, unrealistic landscapes, and out-of-proportion statues that left him seething with jealousy about his best friend, whose parents had taken him to the just-opened Walt Disney World.

“This next painting is very special,” Mark’s mom said pointing toward a swirl of colors with a skeletal-like man screaming in the foreground. “It was painted by a man named Edvard Munch.”

Mark’s eyes slowly lifted through the veil of malaise and half-heartedly looked at the painting. He felt his pupils widen and a rush of heat ran through his body and electrified the ends of of his hair.

This painting was something else. He walked up to The Scream and attempted to take in every single part of it. The twisted body and sky. The deep colors of sunset. And the pained expression of man. He wanted nothing more than to be this man, releasing his anger, his boredom, and his confusion. And deep in the back of his mind, a fire was lit. Small but not insignificant. He determined right then and there that, throughout his life, he’d bring the scream to people whose lives had been leveled with boredom. He’d provide an outlet, some joy, and a way of reaching through the madness to allow people to laugh at the absurd.

He became the Mad Bomber.