Let Me Show You Some Pictures By Jason Sepac

They are my dad. They are pictures of my dad. Some are pictures that he took. They are stiff and warped, and some are glossy. Many are muted, as if they’ve been through the too many times. One has no color. And they smell like mothballs and the kind of dust you only find in places you imagine family secrets are buried. I was in elementary school when I discovered the family photo albums in our attic. Like a history book without text. Evidence without argument. An account of a time when I was not born. For Roland Barthes, history can only be looked at from the outside. And in my case, I felt like an outsider, a living person looking at people who had died long ago. But some people, like my parents, they were still alive. They are still alive. How can I make history of people who are still here, still shape their past, still remember and misremember, still create - even if they resemble only strangers and characters in movies?The people in these photos: they were not doing things my parents did, and they didn’t the way my parents dressed. These were different. I look closer and the faces blur, and now I recognize the slope of a nose, the gesture of a hand, the curve of a smile - angles and lines connecting different bodies in time. I pull back and I hear stories, and I wonder if they are theirs or if they are mine. 1 My dad started telling stories law, wanted to get to know my parents. We already knew my mom’s stories “That’s not true,” my mom says, listening to my dad tell - a treasure, secret passages and tunnels, when I was a teenager. Until of growing up the daughter of a pipefitter in Pittsburgh, stories told with his story. “I think you’re making things up.” maybe a dragon. Old enough to know it’s then, he hadn’t shared much Jimmy Stewart levels of charm and nostalgia, but we were scared to ask fantasy, but young enough to hope it’s not, about his background, where about my dad. So we followed my mom’s coded rule. “It’s true! Why would I make it up ?” he asks. they set out to go to the castle. he came from and what he’d We’ve heard the row boat story twenty times before. done. I’d always known one He tells it a little differently now. thing: He grew up somewhere THIS WAS PROBABLY WHEN I WAS else, but still, I frequently got ABOUT TEN, ELEVEN, TWELVE YEARS OLD. this wrong. It was Yugoslavia MY FRIENDS - ABOUT THREE OTHER when he was there. And it was FRIENDS AND MYSELF - WOULD GET becoming Croatia in the nine- TOGETHER AND JUST HIKE AND GO ON ties. Sometimes he mentioned ADVENTURES. SO WE DECIDED TO GO TO another country, Slovenia, across THIS RIVER, THE KUPA RIVER. RIGHT the river from his farm. This DOWN THE HILL FROM OUR VILLAGE. IT was everything I knew. WASN’T OUR ORIGINAL PLAN BUT AS WE HIKED DOWN THE GORGE, WE SAW THE “Your dad had a hard life,” CASTLE, AND THEN WE DECIDED THAT my mom would say, which my WAS OUR GOAL. siblings and I thought was code for don’t ask . I imagine this photo when I hear the story. But in 2001 this changed. My It’s one of the few we have of my dad sister, Jenny started dating Kostel Castle before age fifteen. See that he’s this guy, Joe. They hit it off wearing? He wasn’t trying to get dressed and for the first time, we up for this photo. His second cousin, Dominic, had someone from the outside Donji Sehovac who had moved to New York years earli- spending a lot of time with us. er, would send Joe, being a good future in- them clothes from the

United States. Despite looking like a perfect shepherd boy here, my dad says it wasn’t the look he was going for. Sure, these were dress clothes or school clothes, but it was just a jacket for my dad - something Joe didn’t know this rule, so he asked. Ten miles from his village there’s an abandoned castle, where to keep him warm, something he wore for all And it turns out, there was no rule. an old king lived - that one up there. One day dad and a occasions. few of his friends hike down the gorge to the Kupa River I expected pain, maybe abuse. That’s what “a hard life” below. They walk, according to my dad, about ten miles. So here’s this kid. He’s supposed to be meant, right? But the stories we heard were magic. Cinematic. They spot a castle across the rapid springtime water. My working on the farm. But today he’s taken Fantasy. dad and his friends think there may be something there off with his friends. He tells the story. I 2 try to see through his eyes. 3 My image of Croatia came from the photos my WATER WAS PRETTY HIGH AND PRETTY FAST. WAS FUNNELING DOWN. I WAS LUCKY. I JUST HIKE. ALMOST RUNNING, IT WAS LATE IN THE parents took during their honeymoon there in 1969. HUNG ON THE BOAT. I HUNG ON FOR MY LIFE DAY. THE SUN WAS GOING DOWN. TEN MILES TO AS WE STARTED ROWING THE BOAT WE DIDN’T Images that existed only on slides. My dad would AND WE MADE IT ACROSS THE DAMN AND I WAS GET BACK HOME. WE WERE RUNNING. WE WERE REALIZE THE CURRENT WAS CARRYING US DOWN pull out the slide projector every few years, and STILL HANGING ON TO THE SIDE. THE WATER SOAKING WET. AND WE CAME HOME. IT WAS THE RIVER INSTEAD OF JUST GOING ACROSS. we’d listen to him recount stories. With the country- GOT A LITTLE SHALLOWER AND WE WERE ABLE GETTING DARK. WE PRETENDED THAT WE WERE WE WERE GOING DOWN TOWARDS A DAMN. side illuminated bright on our living room wall, just like TO TOUCH THE BOTTOM AND WE WERE GONNA PLAYING IN THE BACKYARD ALL DAY. WE WERE this here, he recalled his childhood. In the old version of the story it was a waterfall. TAKE OFF IN PANIC. BUT TO OUR SURPRISE, PLAYING THERE ALL ALONG. THAT’S WHAT WE It was definitely a waterfall. THE OWNER OF THE BOAT - HE MUST HAVE WANTED MY MOTHER TO THINK. IT WAS STILL THERE: THIS CASTLE, ALONG SEEN WHAT THE HECK WE WERE UP TO - HE THE RIVER. THERE WERE STORIES THAT THERE WE WERE ALL TRYING TO PADDLE REAL FAST. AND WAS THERE ON THE SHORE WITH A SHOTGUN, WHAT WE DIDN’T KNOW WAS THAT THIS GUY WAS A TUNNEL THAT TOOK YOU FROM THE CAS- NOT KNOWING WHAT THE HECK WE WERE DOING, POINTING IT AT US. WE STOLE THE BOAT FROM WAS A PAINTER AND TLE ALL THE WAY TO THE WALLS AROUND IT. HE WAS SCHEDULED TO PAINT OUR NEIGHBORS I TRIED TO PUT THE PADDLE OUT IN THE “ IN CASE THEY WERE ATTACKED THEY HAD AN FRONT OF THE BOAT TO STOP IT. BUT GUESS YOU BETTER GET THIS BOAT BACK WHERE YOU HOUSE THE NEXT DAY. ONCE HE GOT THERE, UNDERGROUND TUNNEL ALL THE WAY DOWN TO WHAT HAPPENED. AS SOON AS I PUT THIS GOT IT FROM.” I WAS ALREADY AT SCHOOL AND HE STARTED THE RIVER WHERE THEY COULD ESCAPE. THAT PADDLE DOWN, IT GOT PULLED DOWN UNDERNEATH TELLING MY NEIGHBORS ABOUT THESE KIDS WAS THE CLOSEST CASTLE FROM WHERE WE USED SO WE GOT ALL SCARED OF THIS GUY WITH WHO STOLE HIS BOAT. THEY ALL FOUND OUT IT THE WATER. I KEPT HANGING ON, AND I GOT THE SHOTGUN. WE ALL PICKED UP THIS BOAT TO LIVE. I FORGET WHAT IT WAS CALLED. IF PULLED RIGHT OUT OF THE BOAT INTO THE WAS US. YOU GO ON A CROATIAN MAP YOU CAN PROBABLY AND TOOK IT BACK TO WHERE WE GOT IT, RIVER. WHICH WAS PROBABLY - UPPER SIDE OF THE FIND IT. My grandma immediately panicked, my dad recalls, THE WATER WAS PRETTY DEEP - TEN FEET DEEP. DAMN, WE WERE DOWN THE BOTTOM - SO A not because he stole a row boat, but because she No king. No dragon. But the tunnel is still there in COUPLE HUNDRED FEET. THE GUY SAID ONCE WE thought, for some reason, he went to school wearing COULD HAVE DROWNED, BUT FORTUNATELY I “ this retelling. It’s called Kostel Castle. See it back GRABBED THE SIDE OF THE BOAT AND I HUNG GOT THE BOAT BACK, I BETTER NOT SEE YOU wet clothes. there? ON AND WE WERE JUST ABOVE THE DAMN JUST KIDS HERE AGAIN.” SO THE ONLY PROBLEM WAS WE HAD TO GET ABOUT READY TO GO ACROSS. AT LEAST HE DIDN’T SHOOT ANYBODY, BUT HE TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER. WE ASKED I WOULD SAY IT WAS PROBABLY TEN FEET SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF US. WE NEVER SAW THIS LOCAL FARMER WHO HAD A ROW BOAT IF HIGH. THE CASTLE. HE’D TAKE US ACROSS, BUT HE SAID HE WAS BUSY. HE SAID IF WE WAITED A LITTLE WHILE In the old version of the story it was twenty. WE ALL TOOK OFF AND WE HAD A PRETTY GOOD HE’D TAKE US. BUT WE WERE KIDS. WE WAITED IT TOOK US DOWN ONE OF THE PLACES WHERE AND HE DIDN’T SHOW UP SO WE DECIDED TO THE DAMN WAS BROKEN AND THE WATER TAKE THE ROWBOAT OURSELVES AND TRY TO GO “So, was that based on a true story?” My ACROSS. THIS WAS IN THE SPRING, SO THE dad asks this after almost every movie we together, regardless of how outrageous it might seem. The question infuriates me. “What does it matter?” I ask. “It was a movie. It’s about the story.” He’s concerned with the truth, with reality. His own tales, though, are suspiciously tall.

4 5 My dad wears short sleeved button-down and wide striped ties, with a set in the chest pocket. He has a mustache and carries a briefcase. His salt and pepper hair is full and naturally falls into a kind of mop- . He sports wire frame aviator style eye- . This is what my dad looks like in 1989. I am five, but this is the image I carry in my Hair mind through most of my childhood . It is captured in a photo my grandmother had framed on Glasses her coffee table. It was his Bell Atlantic ID picture. When she passed away we cleaned out her Mustache apartment, and we laughed at that picture. “Can you believe those glasses? And that mustache! John, you were so nerdy!” My mom jokes. “That was the style,” my dad says with a chuckle. This is his response to most of his faux- pas of decade’s past - the kind of styles that you can really only see in hindsight were objectively unflattering. Eighties IT geek chic. NASA operator vogue. This picture is from 1989 too. The hair, the mustache, the glasses: they’re all the same. He’s just missing the and tie. I can see it. Dads at little league were different. They experimented with facial hair, grew goatees. They drove cool cars - pre-owned Camaros, at least. They were young. My parents were forty when they had me, so other parents of kids my age were often ten, even twenty years younger. Sometimes I wish I was born sooner, wish that I could have known them when they were younger and going through a little league dad mid-life crisis . I wish I’d been a part of their early history, rather than an historian . He put the nerdy IT picture in a box in their attic, along with the rest of the archives. It’s lost, possibly gone. But I can see it. It’s my dad . The fake silky feel of the polyester tie. The itchy brown pants he wore. The feeling of his mustache on my cheek when he’d give me a kiss when he got home from work. The bear hug. His arms wrapped around me. Lifting me up high. Higher!]

Our pop-up camper 6 7 I found this picture in my parents’ attic For two weeks he and Dick traveled to Lady when I was a teenager. It was the Evelyn Lake in Ontario.[ It’s hard to make first photo in a white letter envelope out any defining features in the photos, but I with “Canoe Trip” written across it in always imagined Dick kind of looking like Steve blue felt-tip pen. The handwriting was my McQueen, ever since my dad told me he always dad’s, but that was the only thing that liked the movie Bullitt. I imagine them driv- looked familiar. ing fast. Fighting off an aggressive black 1968 Dodge Charger. But I imagine this part. As A canoe strapped to the roof of a ’67 a teenager, I imagine following my dad’s real Volvo, the windows down, his friend, the footsteps. And as a twenty-something, I do, woodsman Dick Wallace at his side, head- taking cross-country road trips and camping ed to the middle of nowhere in Canada, trips, and trying at times to make the imag- off on a classic American Road Trip, ined parts real. young men in their 20s in the summer of 1968. This is the story I tell, the story I don’t think Dick really looked like Steve I want my dad to tell. McQueen. My dad had just moved to Columbus to By most measures, the trip looks just like that begin working at Bell Labs after finishing picture you have in your head, the one in my trade school at Penn Technical Institute. head - the one that Thoreau, and Emerson, He knew Dick through a friend at work. and John Muir, and John Krakauer put there. Dick was looking for someone to travel They stumbled upon a cabin ravaged by a bear, with him to a remote part of Cana- walked through a swamp, climbed a mountain, da. to hike one of the tallest peaks in lived off the land. Ontario, Ishpatina Ridge. For reasons he can’t recall, my dad said OK. But what my dad remembers most about the trip was the night. While his telling changes a little each time, this part stays the same. Like the writers who shaped my imagined wilderness, he recalls the dark, dark sky dotted with stars and the still silence. “It reminded me of the farm in Croatia. It was so quiet, and I always liked it. That’s probably why I took you guys camping so much when you were little,” he said, “I wanted you to experience that.” My dad, by most accounts, is a realist. The photos in that envelope document rather than represent his experience]. But Barthes describes himself as a realist too: “. . .the realists do not take the photograph for a copy’ of reality, but for an emanation of past reality: a magic, not an art.” Magic as reality. 8 9 Here’s a picture of my dad at sixteen. He looks perfect cover for first generation college students, Let me explain. One day this old man shows up to the farm while American here. Thick glasses, stiff haircut, and looking like we stepped right out of New England prep my grandma is picking apples. He’s visiting family in that duffel . You may have seen it in Dead school. As teenagers desperately trying to fit in, maybe My dad came to America when he was fifteen, fresh a nearby village that he’d left a coupe decades Poets Society, a J.Crew catalog, or on Padding- my siblings and I were eager to tell that story. Maybe off the boat from Sehovac, Yugoslavia - a small village earlier. His family knows he’s looking for a wife and ton Bear. They were originally worn by the British that’s the one we wanted to tell. We had photographic in the middle of fucking nowhere. It was so small, they tell him about a widow a few miles down the Royal Navy in the early to mid twentieth century proof. Look at this picture. This is our American father: in fact, that calling it a village is a stretch - four road. That’s my grandma. He charms the pants and were then popularized by college students John. We call him father. We sail. We wear duffel . families and a lot of farm land, really. His dad died in off her and before you know it, they’re moving to who picked them up at Army Surpluss stores WWII - well, went MIA, technically, but you know, he Pittsburgh with the old fart. He was much older after WWII. You might think my dad was one and kind of looked like Raymond Burr in Rear of those kids, maybe an Ivy leaguer. You might Window (Perry Mason before he was Perry Mason) even think he was kind of stylish. [kind of like this, but that doesn’t matter - my grandma wants to get the hell out of Yugoslavia. When I first saw this picture, I was in high It’s an easy decision. school, probably just before my dad started tell- ing stories. I’d been looking through photo albums The old man has some money from the properties in our attic again, performing what had become he owns in Pittsburgh. Not much. He does OK for an annual ritual of unearthing our family, our himself, but it seems like a fortune to my grandma. family heirlooms. The coat was a living relic. Every My dad and my grandma move in to his house on time we’d pull it from the closet, my dad smiled. 45th street. That’s where this picture was taken. We knew there was a story. We just didn’t know what it was. My dad doesn’t know a lick of English yet, so he starts taking classes at Peabody High School in We’d seen rich people wearing the coat in cata- the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He can logs and in movies. In high school and in college, take a street car and transfer to a bus, but we each took our turn wearing it. It was the most of the time he walks. He’s used to walking everywhere in Croatia. Pittsburgh winters are just short of brutal. Cold one day, and even colder the next, and snow on top of it all. But the winters Bathroom Tile are worse in Croatia, so he’s used to it. Just before the cold moves in during the fall of ’60, the old man decides it’s time my dad get a proper winter coat. So one day they go down to Harry’s Big and Tall downtown. Dad is neither big nor tall, but the place is cheap. So there’s this duffel coat there. It’s two sizes too big, even for a duffel coat. The thing fits like a tent. You can’t see it in this picture, but it’s big. My grandma could sew, so she fixes up the sleeves. Some of that was true. Definitely not the was never heard from again. My dad never knew him, The stitches in the sleeve are rough. She can’t part about sailing. Or that part about grew up on the big farm, just him, his mom, and his old- keep a straight line because the fabric is so thick. calling him father. The part about his er sister, Nada. They got by selling brinovitza (some jet She finishes it up, my dad tries it on. Here we name, though, is more complicated. fuel hunky moonshine), timber, crops, and the occasional are. This picture. The beginning of his first year of 10 farm animal. Dirt poor by most measures. high school. 11 A teacher asks my dad his name. “Ivan Sepac,” he where he’d worked for all of his adult life. The of the plant cast their shadow throughout Lawrencev- his finger, sending a surge through his arm. In- says, pronouncing it with proper Croatian accent (Ee-wan same plant that sits across the street from ille. My dad, however, wants something else. He never trigued, he’d climb to that spot again and again Shepahtz). The teacher asks how it’s spelled. Dad spells their brick row house, the same plant that forgot the rush of being shocked for the first time just to feel the current. it. spews dust and soot all over the cars lining shortly after his village got electricity. He was about Hatfield Steet and into their open windows in ten years old. A piece of loose conduit hanging from After high school he wore the coat on his walk “That’s not how you pronounce that,” the teacher says. the summertime. The big orange letters on top the ceiling near the stairway to their attic caught to Penn Technical Institute on Penn Avenue in “Here, we would say 'eye-vin Seh-pick.’” Garfield. The old man wanted him to work at Heppenstall, wanted him to be like him. My dad, My dad is here. He says “eye-vin seh-pick” from now on though, scared of what his reaction might be, never and he removes the little check above the S. told him of his plans until after the day he gradu- So he’s still Ivan at that point. Not until the end of his ated high school. freshman year when his citizenship papers arrive does this With only the money he’s made working at a car change. He goes to fill in his name and starts writing wash over the summer, my dad doesn’t have Ivan.] The old man is helping him, looking over his shoulder. enough to pay for school. The Dean makes him an “You could change it, you know? Ivan is basically like offer: come in every morning at 6AM to open the John. It’s more American. It’s a common name here.” school, clean the floors, the bathrooms, shovel the sidewalk in winter, and we’ll call it even. Be the My dad is here, in America. He writes John. Middle janitor. Dad agrees. name: Ivan. The old man’s way of coping is to ignore my dad, Everyone who knows my dad, calls him John. I’ve always but as time goes on he starts getting para- known him as John. My grandma never stopped calling him noid. He wonders how my dad can afford to go Ivo, his Croatian nickname. He looks more like John in to school. He accuses him of stealing money. My that coat. You can’t see those hemmed sleeves in that grandma defends my dad. The old man’s paranoia picture though. The coat actually appears to fit him spirals and within a year he files for a divorce. pretty well. But it doesn’t. The jacket adds about ten Through it all, my dad stays at the house, not pounds, but at least it’s warm. saying a word to the old man, the old man not saying a word to him. He wants my dad and my My grandmother directs him in Croatian. He’s in the grandma out of the house. But when his attorney bathroom, getting a look at himself in the mirror. (See tells him my grandma will get half of his proper- the bathroom tile back there?). He’s looking more Ameri- ties in the divorce, he’s not interested any more. can now. They stay together in silence for another year Years later as my dad’s graduating high school, the old until my dad graduates and moves to Columbus, man sets up a job for him at the Heppenstall Plant Ohio for his first job designing circuits at Bell Labs.

12 13 My dad hadn’t been back to Croatia since 1969 when like Zagreb and superhighways were constructed across I rolled my eyes and turned right. Would I trust a taught us. Mom spoke English and so did everyone he and my mom visited during their honeymoon (when the country, the village became overgrown, the land complex system of maps and satellites or my dad’s else around us. I suppose that’s a good reason. But this picture was taken). He was eager to see it neglected by those friends and relatives left to take fuzzy, sometimes fantastical memory? it would have come in handy here, on this trip. Dad’s again, now long after the days of communism he re- care of it. Croatian was not only a bit rusty but he had grown We’d only been in Croatia for a few days, but I was membered so vividly. In 2013, my dad and I went up speaking a backwoods dialect of Croatian that is “Turn right in ninety feet,” the polite British GPS already getting snippy with my dad. I’d been given together. After years of saying, “we should go,” we difficult to understand even for other Croatians. robot told us. It illuminated our path in bright purple]. driving duty in a country whose language I’d only heard finally went. spoken at holiday and birthday parties. My dad never Before we left, I had this idea that he would “No, I don’t think you turn here,” my dad said, A week of our trip was dedicated to seeing the taught us or even spoke it at home - only with my effortlessly navigate us through the cultural and looking off to the side of the road. “We’ve got a few area in and around his village, enough time to see aunt and grandmother. He’s not sure why he never more miles.” the landscape of his tall tales and to find evidence of truth in those tales. “Well, the GPS says we should turn, so I’m gonna turn. I’m sure it’ll get us there,” I While the rest of Croatia grew and modernized, replied. the village remained the same. But slowly, families left, moved to cities, moved to America, to other “I really don’t think so.” growing European cities. And those who stayed were the last. While glass skyscrapers rose in cities

14 15 linguistic challenges of the land. It was, perhaps, unrealistic given he’d been away for almost forty-five years. So I followed our GPS. Technology could lead the way. Our orange Pujot struggled up through winding switchbacks of a hillside village. And then Loose wires. back down, and then back up again. I imagined my parents in that white Beetle they rented in in another photo lost in someone’s attic. At the 1969. See it down there in the corner? foot of the hill, a set of railroad tracks cut across the road. And next to the track was a We passed families gardening and tending to small station, big enough for about five people and their yards. They looked at us, probably con- some luggage. This is where my grandmother and fused seeing an unfamiliar car in their remote my father waited for their train to the airport, corner of the countryside. They may have grown for their flight to America. suspicious as we passed a second and then a third time, just as we realized our navigator I’d seen the photo before but only knew it as was taking us in circles. the train station near his village. I only learned that last piece of information as we drove by it, “I think we should just get back on the main just then, in the car. road for a while. I think I remember how to get there,” my dad said. We climbed the hill till we reached a small moun- tain top village that overlooked rolling hills and I was convinced we wouldn’t find my dad’s a valley below. We passed the church my father village. We could either continue to follow the attended as a child and the single room school GPS or follow my dad’s memory. house where he’d completed eight grades of education. We got back on the main road. And neither of us said a word for the next two miles. “So your house is somewhere around here?” I asked. “I really think we went too far. This is way past where the GPS was telling us to turn.” “No, no. This is where I went to school. My village is another five kilometers or so from here.” “No, I think it’s coming up here on the right,” my dad replied. It was a little like seeing the set of a movie, sites built for stories but never actually meant “Please make a U-turn,” our GPS insisted. for use in real life. But there it was, right there I followed my dad’s directions this time, even in front of us. though I feared we might never see this vil- Our GPS seemed to understand where we were, lage, this house that exists only in slides, photos, but insisted we ought to turn around. and memory. I was just beginning to trust my dad when the But there was something familiar about the road began to shrink. A two lane paved road intersection - a familiar site in a place I’d became a single lane, which became a dirt road, never been before. I’d seen it in a picture, which became a dirt path not intended for cars. 16 17 Tree branches slapped the windshield and bushes one up there]. I stopped the car. There was his name carved into the base. I’d dressed for a picnic - , t-shirt, boat scraped the side of the car. The GPS had gone no one around, maybe a deer walking through . I didn’t expect to be doing any hiking quiet and our signal became intermittent. We the woods. I took a picture - my “look, I was We made our way through some of the old and neither did my dad, who was dressed sim- were beyond help. Our cartoon car at the center here”photo. farmland, which somebody had evidently been ilarly but was smart enough to wear . I’d of the GPS was no longer on a road but in the using, as the grass was kept short. come to see the village, the river, the waterfall. middle of a large green patch. We turned down the path, passing abandoned Or was it just a damn? And the castle off in homes of stucco and stone with ivy growing up “We should be able to see the Kupa River if we walk up the hill here.” the distance. Fuck it, I’m going in. I stepped The search for my dad’s past had lead us off the sides and into their half collapsed roofs. We back into the brush, performing a high-step tip- the map. And we were on a road that, accord- arrived at a home in the worst shape of all. I We walked through the open pasture until we toe to minimize contact with the weeds. ing to the image in front of us, did not exist, recognized it from all the old photos, despite reached an overgrown section of woods 20-30 except for in my dad’s memory. But there we the overgrown weeds up to our waists and the feet from the tree-lined ridge overlooking the I stopped at a small clearing before the were, on an imaginary road. big hole in the roof. river. trees and turned around to see my dad hadn’t followed me. “I think it should be coming up. We’ll need to “It’s smaller than I remember,” he said. I started walking into the brush, but stopped turn off this road,” my dad said. when I felt a bite and then another and anoth- “Come back, Jay. You’re going to get all bit up. We walked around the village as if it were an It’s overgrown. You can’t see.” Just as we descended a short steep hill, I saw archeological site. It was. We tried to spot the er. I remembered the multi-legged critter I’d a yellow sign at an intersection ahead - that old barn, which had mostly collapsed. We spotted seen earlier in the day and I stepped back. 18 the well that my great grandfather had built, 19 I took a step into the woods, just far enough to see beyond the ridge. It was dense with walnut, cher- ry, and oak trees. Between branches I could make out ripples in the river below but little else. No house with a row boat outside. That was further downstream . I likely wouldn’t make it down the hillside without a broken limb. “You can’t see it, Jay.” The woods were quiet. And in the distance I heard a waterfall.

20 21 Notes

P. 1-17, 20: Personal photo collection of John Sepac, used with his permission. Print and slides. P. 1-3, 6-13: Photos of photos, taken by Jason Sepac. P. 2-3: Illustration based on Google Maps satellite image. P. 3-5: Personal interview with John Sepac. Edited for brevity and clarity. P. 5: Illustration based on memory of TV in the living room. P. 9: Illustration based on film poster for Bullitt. Yates. 1968. P. 11: Illustration based on film still from Rear Window. Hitchcock. 1954. P. 12-13: “Heppenstall”image cropped from personal photo. P. 18-19: Photo of map found being used as a bookmark in a guide to Plitvice Lakes, used on my parents’ honeymoon. Geokarta Belgrade. SFR Jugoslavija. 1968. p. 18: “Gornji Sehovac. . .”image cropped from personal photo.

Primary font: Custom, based on handwriting. Secondary font: Custom, based on handwirting of John Sepac.

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