Eternal Verities

Drug Skinny called me out of the blue. Said she wanted to shoot.  I have quit shooting, of course.  After spending all my money on 27" iMacs and hand-built cameras and after having gotten a brand new Canon 5D, I've closed up shop.  I have a thousand million images waiting to be processed and eager models harping at me.  So I've retired.  I'm done.  I don't ever want to shoot again.

But it was Drug Skinny, after all, she who is walking, talking volumes of would-be-literature.  This would not be photography.  This would be research.

She said she wanted to bring a friend.

"I've got enough friends," I told her.  "I don't need any more."

"My friend, silly."

I love it when they don't say "stupid."

Still, I worried all day.  I hadn't been in the studio since. . . I couldn't remember.  It was a wreck.  I didn't want to make any more pictures.  My bowels were tight.  What was wrong with me I wondered again.  I meant particularly.

They showed up on time.  The friend was a charmer.  They had their own ideas about what we would do.  I told them no.  No, this wouldn't be right.  It goes against everything I believe in, I said.  I've reformed.  Q has chastised me for the sins I committed in my last post.  I'm a liar, he says.  I should just admit that I am a deviant of the ordinary kind, an Old Man with Camera.  I'm looking, I told them, for something more age appropriate.  Please, please. . . please, please.

They simply laughed at me seductively.  What is wrong with the world, I wondered.  I meant particularly.

When we finished the shoot, they told me they loved me.

"Let's get married," I said.  "We can live in my house.  I'm a good cook.  And in a few years you can leave and get the house and half the money."

They thought that was a brilliant idea.  Don't tell me young women today aren't sharp.

And of course the night ended as nights always do, the two of them hurrying to meet up with some friends downtown, me going for late sushi alone.  There are eternal verities for sure.

They began texting by the time I got back from dinner.  "Send us some pictures."

"What do you think I am, some old man who sits at home alone on a Friday night looking at pictures of naked women?  You insult me."

"But you are," Drug Skinny texted back.  "We love you.  Send us pictures."

I had just finished this one and sent it, "old man or nearly so myself" (sort of Steinbeck).  Foolishly, I worked on a couple more and didn't get to bed until way past my preferred bedtime.  So I am late and woozy today.  They probably got home a few hours ago.  Q, you can have it your way.  It doesn't matter.  There comes a point when you don't get to choose any longer.  Everything gets chosen for you.  Sort of.  All we are left with in the end is our ability to say, "I prefer not to."  But that's about it.  I'll keep telling my stories the way I want.  Trust me.  Nobody believes them anyway.