Bellocq's Girl

The model calls, says she'll be an hour late.  But she calls.  Going back into the studio after a longish absence.  But I'd been waiting on the new camera too long.  It keeps not getting worked on, not getting done.  There is nothing I can do to hurry it.  I've tried.  I've paid almost all the money, gone to the camera man's home, taken him to dinner, given more money.  But now I'm afraid I've pissed him off with a flippant email.  I have almost given up hope.

So back to the studio it is.  All nerves, as always, I pour a whiskey.  Too early in the day, I know, but there it is.  The studio is a mess, long ignored.  I clean up a bit, cut some pictures I'd printed the day before (oh my oh my they are wonderful), and wait.

She calls.  She is a bit lost.  I talk her in.  "That's me," I say, "standing in the middle of the street waving my glass of whiskey at you."  She is there.

As always, I'm shy.  I never know what I'm getting into.

"Can I carry anything for you?"

"Well. . . I didn't really have any of the things you said to bring."

"That's O.K.  I have a few things.  This isn't really a costume shoot."

We go in, sit down.  I begin to explain things to her, show her my works.

"Wow," she says.

"Yea, I think so.  Come back and I'll show you what we are going to do."

I show her where we'll shoot, and then I pose for her a little, going through what I want in a general way, talking out the directions I'll give, watching myself in the mirror thinking it is too bad I am not pretty because I'm really learning how to move.  She begins putting on her makeup and I pick up my digital camera and begin to shoot.  We chat.  I always ask about family first.

Two kids, young.  No husband.  Got pregnant at sixteen and again at nineteen.  Her mother raises them, she says.  You had grandkids, I say.  Yes.

She has to be to work in a little while.  Oh, what do you do?  I just got a new job doing body scrubs.  Really!  What's that?  She looks at me as if I might be kidding.  I am a bit.  I want to hear about it.  She gives me the rundown, what they do, how much it is.  It is a rub n' tug place.  She also dances at a club, she tells me.  All of this is interesting, of course, and as we shoot, I keep asking questions, so much so that I forget some things I want to do.  We shoot and talk and drink wine.

I ask about her boyfriends.  She doesn't have any.  No kidding, I say, you couldn't like men very much seeing them the way you do.  Do you like girls?  I had a girlfriend once, she says.  Never again.  Why's that?  Too much drama.  No boys.  No girls.  I take a chance and ask because I'm curious and because she doesn't seem to mind talking about it.  I want to know if she's ever had sex for money.  When she repeats the question, I already know the answer.  Her eyes dance for a moment, then level off again.

"Yes.  I have clients."

"Have you made movies?"

"Sure."

We could be talking about how to buy a used car.  I think about how pretty a day it was, think about the Christmas parade and the lighting of the tree.  I think about her making money for all those things and ask her why she decided to shoot with me.  I guess I'm searching for a compliment, no, I know.  She just liked my work.

She wants to settle down, she tells me.  She thinks about the future now.  She wants all the things everybody wants, a house and a car and a yard.  She's only twenty-two and she knows that, she says.  She doesn't want to waste any more time.  I think of Wallace Stevens' poem, "The Emperor of Ice Cream," the lines about how ordinary the brothel madame's life was:

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once. . . . 

Here is one of Bellocq's girls in the flesh.  Authentic.  The real deal. The culmination in some ways, I guess, of the project.  I want to hear more, know more.  It is time for her to go.

"Will you come back and shoot again?"

"Sure I will."

"I owe you dinner."

"O.K.  Next time."