YESTERDAY, I PROCESSED what is Likely the last roll of 35mm film in Northern Nevada in the basement of a converted bungalow called FotoQuick. The city wants to build a park where our store sits, and the owner (and my old Cub Scouts leader), Marcus, decided to take the buyout at the last minute. The final roll belonged to man named Thomas Yang. He was a regular—came in with a new roll of 35mm nearly every other week. Always 24 count, always wanted doubles, no border, no CD. All those photos, all mundane as hell. Tulips in the garden; a gerbil in a cage; his skinny husband on the porch of their modest house; a cataract-eyed golden retriever in the sun; his new daughter doing anything. Some people document their lives in such a meticulous and tiresome way that it is almost endearing.
“How much are these?” Mr. Yang had asked the morning he dropped off that final roll. He was squatting in front of the display case of dusty digital cameras, his face inches from the glass, trying to get a good look through the scratched surface. I had been meaning to dust them off for weeks.
I knew that he wasn’t going to buy a digital camera, dusty or not. He was one of those men that would shoot film until he died. Or until the final place to develop his film shuttered up, which was happening much sooner than he knew. Marcus had made the decision to not let our customers know the shop was closing. He said that he didn’t think our shop could handle the rush of people trying to get their film developed before the store closed. I couldn’t look at him when he said it because we both knew there would be no such rush.
“Depends on which one,” I said looking down at Mr. Yang’s sweaty bald head.
“Suppose it would,” he said, though it was obvious that he had already lost whatever fleeting interest there had been. Then he dug around in the pocket of his Carhartt and handed me
