A Simple Idea

It was a simple idea.  I would photograph people where they lived.  I don't want to make an "artist's statement" here, but I would show people in their places.  Documentary style  It would be fun.  I would break out of what I've been doing for so long and begin to do what I used to do again.  With strangers.

Monday morning, early, I packed my cameras into the car with a ton of film.  35mm, 120mm.  I had about an hour's drive, I guessed.  I said I would be there at eight. The sun was just coming up.  The world looked strange from the interstate to me.  I'm not usually driving about this time of day.  There was dew.  The air was hollow.  Crossing the bridge over the big river, looking out into the giant lake it formed, the palms and scrub shining.  I don't want to do this, I thought.  I was getting nervous.  I wanted to be at home, drinking coffee, reading the news.  I was going to photograph someone in her place.  It was taking me out of mine.  Where was I going? I wondered.  No place.

Off the interstate, traffic slowed.  People going to work.  Lots of them.  I was driving through an old, beat up part of town.  1950's, sort of.  I crossed some railroad tracks and found her apartment complex.  It looked O.K.

The door opened.  Hello.  Hello.  She was skinny.  Really skinny.  And she had tattoos all over.  Short hair, sleepy.  "Is this too early."  She went back to bed.  I followed.

The first minutes were awful.  I shot with medium format rangefinder.  After a few minutes, I realized the lens cap was on.  I switched to a Leica.  I thought that it was loaded with film.  I was wrong.  I picked up another medium format camera, an old Bronica.  The film advance broke.  I said nothing to her about any of it.  This was a disaster.

Finally, I got film into working cameras.  Now what?  She sat up in bed, opened the blinds.  Not much light.

"I thought you were from east Europe," I said.

"Lots of people think that.  It is my cheekbones."

"No, no, I read it somewhere."

"Nope.  I was born and grew up here."

I looked around. The place was a mess.  It looked like a boys dorm room.  There was a littered desk with a picture of Anais Nin, a typewriter, an open journal, some photographs.

"Who's this?" I asked pointing to a photo.

"That's my girlfriend.  She just left for work.  This is her place.  I just moved in two weeks ago."

"Girlfriend girlfriend?'

"Yea. There's another girl living here in the other bedroom."  I could hear a little dog barking behind the door.

She sat at the desk.  She sat on the floor.  We went down to the kitchen to make coffee.

"I can't smoke in the house.  I'm going out for a second."

The day had turned warm.  The apartment was getting stuffy.  I asked her to tell me her story while she smoked.

"I used to weigh over two hundred pounds. When I was in high school.  The first time I had sex, I was fourteen.  With a boy.  It wasn't much fun.  When I was fifteen, an older girl seduced me at a party one night.  She was eighteen.  I liked that.  One night, I was staying with my best friend and I kissed her.  I was the aggressor.  We made love, but we never talked about it after that.  We never did it again.

"I kept dating boys through high school.  I quit eating and got a tattoo.  My parents were mad, hated it.  Boys were easy.  I could get them any time.  I was going with girls, but I didn't tell anyone for a long time.  When I came out to my parents, they were appalled.  But they got used to it and my tattoos.  My mother is going to get one now.

"I still go out with guys once in a while, but I prefer girls.  I don't like big things, hairy things.  I like delicate things.  I like the way girls smell, the way they kiss.  They don't stick their tongues down your throat and drool all over.  Boys are predictable.  They kiss you, then they stick their tongue in your ear, then they mall your breast and pinch and bite your nipples.  They're on top of you and they are big and heavy.

"My favorite thing is turning girls.  I like to go out to clubs and pick up straight girls and turn them.  I like to take them out and pay for dinners and drinks.  I like being in control."

The apartment was small.  There were not many places to go.  I realized I was listening more than shooting.  I'd been there two hours.  There is a natural rhythm to things, a beginning, a middle, and an end.  We had run our course.  We were finished.  It was time for me to go.