The next skier was halfway up the run in the snowmobile before I realized that it was the mechanic who had challenged me initially. When he took off, I did not want to watch him, yet I could not shut out the sound of his skis rattling on the snow. After a moment, I heard the crash, followed by a scream. Everyone watching raced toward the stairs. From a distance I saw the mechanic fall; his head smashed against the edge of the balcony, his skis lodged between the top two steps. He was unconscious. His companions lifted him gently and put him into a car, which slowly made its way down the road.
The girl and the other judge told me they had decided to end the jumps but that I would be paid what I had won. When I asked if the girl would walk back to the town with me, she looked at me coldly and refused.
For the last few years, I have frequented a bar in the theater district. Its barman is a retired police officer, and his bar is a quiet place without much late-night business. I often drop by twice the same evening and, while I sip my drink, I chat with the barman. He seems to enjoy my stories and I leave a big tip.
Whenever I assume a new disguise, I always test it on him. On one such occasion, I came in earlier than usual, disguised as a laborer. There were five or six men sitting at the bar and a few couples at tables in the rear. The barman came over but did not recognize me. I ordered a drink. When he brought it, I insisted the glass was dirty. He glared at me but took it back, spilled the contents into the sink, made a point of washing the glass and poured a fresh drink. As he pushed it toward me, I knocked it over with my elbow. Loudly blaming him for the accident, I demanded another replacement. After he ignored my request, I made fun of the photographs of him in his police uniform and insulted his medals and insignia, which hung on the wall above the bar.
Trying to contain his rage, he suggested I leave. I replied that, until I was served the drink I had ordered, I would not go. He came out from behind the bar, and hissed that if I wouldn’t leave on my own he would be glad to help me.
I challenged him to do it. Prompted by the other customers, he grabbed me by the shoulders, dragged me to the door and propelled me onto the sidewalk. I hailed a taxi and went to my apartment. Three-quarters of an hour later I was back, this time without the disguise. The barman was pleased to see me and said he needed me to cheer him up because he’d just had a bad time with a customer. He insisted I have a drink on the house, and I amused him and the other patrons with a few anecdotes as I drank. When I finished, I tipped him heavily, bade them all good night and left.
I returned to the apartment and donned a second disguise. In half an hour, I was inside the bar again. It was late, and there were only four customers left. Once more, the barman did not know me. In a deep Southern accent, I ordered an imported beer. He told me he did not carry it, and I started swearing. Soon, he was fuming and gesturing toward the door.
On my way out, I heard him explaining to a customer who had witnessed the previous incident that this was the first time in his fifteen years behind the bar that he had had trouble twice in one night from perfect strangers. He blamed it on the fact that so many weirdos were coming to the city now to get drugs.
About that same time, I began to review the photos I have always kept of myself. There are snapshots of me with my parents, with the university ski team, with my army unit and with friends.
And there are shots of myself making love to various women. These photos were taken by cameras equipped with a delayed action mechanism. When I think about the energy expended during the past decades in picking up these women, and in taking, developing and enlarging these photographs, I am overcome by its pointlessness.
All that time and trouble, and still the record is a superficial one: I see only how I looked in the fraction of a second when the shutter was open. But there’s no trace of the thoughts and emotions which surrounded that moment. When I die and my memories die with me, all that will remain will be thousands of yellowing photographs and 35 mm. negatives locked in my filing cabinets.
I spent an entire day sorting and enlarging negatives and didn’t go out until late that evening. On my way out, I saw an attractive young prostitute get out of a taxi and walk in a leisurely way past a corner bar. I accosted her and told her I wanted her to come with me. Her only reaction was to name a price. I hailed a taxi and gave the driver one of my addresses. During the ride the girl said nothing except that she had clients in my neighborhood.
As soon as we got to the apartment, I offered her a drink, which she refused. I paid her, then pointed out all the spotlights and the cameras attached to tripods. I told her I had picked her up, not only because she was attractive, but also because I was sure she would photograph well. I handed her an album of center-fold-size photographs of women, both clothed and nude. As she flipped through it, she mentioned that the only pictures she had of herself were a few Polaroid shots taken by her brother.
Among the subjects in the book, she recognized another prostitute, a girl she had met once in the city jail. She asked why I would choose a hooker over a professional model. I answered that prostitutes were much more at ease in front of a man than models were.
By this time, she appeared quite relaxed, and I suggested we begin our session. I assured her that she should not feel obliged to pose naked, as I was equally interested in photographing her clothed. She said she didn’t mind my taking pictures of her nude. If the photos turned out well, I said, I would bring them by her beat the next night so she could look through them. I promised her that she could keep some if she liked. She went to freshen her make-up while I arranged the spotlights and prepared the cameras.
At first, she posed self-consciously, and I kept changing the lighting and the angle, attempting to capture her when she was least aware of it. I photographed her dressed and naked. I caught her unbuttoning her blouse, removing her bra, pulling her skirt down, peeling off her stockings. At the end of the session, she was astonished when I told her how many rolls of film I had used. I asked for her phone number or address, but she refused to give them to me. On her way out, she mentioned that, unless she got arrested, I could find her on the same beat every night.
As soon as she was gone, I began developing the negatives. I selected only the most glamorous poses, each of which revealed a startlingly different aspect of her beauty. By dawn, I had printed them to resemble professional fashion photographs and cropped them to tabloid size.
I waited impatiently for evening to come. At dusk, I carried a portfolio full of the photographs to the street corner where I had first met her. The other girls were already lined up along the block, but my model hadn’t arrived. I opened the portfolio, took out one of her photographs and showed it to another girl, asking if she knew where my model was. She told me I would have to be patient because my friend usually arrived last. The prostitute was very impressed with the photograph and asked if she could see the rest of them. I told her I never showed photos without the subject’s permission. She remarked that discretion was important in her line of work, too, and drifted off to talk to another man.
After waiting over two hours, I saw my model get out of a taxi. She had completely altered her hairstyle, dress style, and make-up, but was just as alluring as she had been the day before. Afraid I would lose her to another customer, I dashed across the street. At first, she did not recognize me. But when she saw the portfolio, she smiled and asked if I had brought her pictures. I said they had turned out better than I’d hoped and invited her to have a drink while she looked at them.
We sat in a corner booth in a bar, and, once we’d ordered, I began pulling photos from the portfolio. The bartender, who must have seen her cruising many times, whispered something to his customers, who stared at us. I laid the photographs on the table, on the empty seats and on the floor around us. The girl was amazed. She said she had not really expected any pictures because she was used to clients photographing her, but they’d never show up with the pictures they promised. After hesitating for a moment, she asked if she could buy all the
photographs I’d taken of her, and possibly commission more.
She could not afford my prices, I said. I was paid more for one photograph than she made in a week. I confessed that I had chosen to photograph her only because I wanted her, and suggested that she earn her pictures by making love to me. I promised that each time she brought me to a climax, I would pay her three photographs. I told her that even if she didn’t accept my offer she could keep any four shots.
She quickly gathered the pictures into a neat stack and flipped through them; then she went through them a second time, placing the pictures she liked in a pile. She re-examined the photos she preferred and eventually narrowed the stack down to four.
She was eager, she said, to work for more photographs. Her only stipulation was that she visit me in the late afternoons; since she worked all night, she had to sleep during the day.
The next afternoon, she arrived wearing a fashionable suede suit, and told me excitedly that she had shown the photographs to some of the other girls. They had urged her to collect a portfolio for modeling or acting interviews. A legitimate job would offer protection when the cops tried to arrest her.
Accepting the drink I offered, she changed into the clothes she had brought for the session and I photographed her. After we made love, she chose nine more stills that I’d taken two days before.
She came to my apartment every day on her way to work, always wearing a different outfit, wig, shade of nail polish or lipstick. I was careful to compliment her looks because I could see how much it pleased her. She complained half-seriously that, not only did my spotlights tire her eyes, but the means I used to induce her orgasms exhausted her before she went to work at night. Only then did I remember that she would be spending her night embraced by one man after another.
One evening, after she had left, I was restless. I put on a disguise and walked to her beat, where I watched her from across the street. When a squad car approached, I saw her and the other girls scatter, and return after the police had driven off. Later, I watched her talking with a middle-aged man. His face remained rigid and expressionless, while his head shook constantly. His elbows and wrists flexed in regular, involuntary spasms and his right hand seemed paralyzed into a permanent, immobile claw.
I assumed the girl would reject this cripple, but she did not. The two of them got into a taxi and went off. I stood on the street, missing her, wondering what he would ask of her and how she would accommodate him.
During our next encounter, I asked her about the spastic man. At first, she admitted, the cripple had been repugnant to her. When I asked her to repeat with me exactly what she had done with him, she appeared shocked by my request.
Gradually, the more of my sexual demands she fulfilled without disgust, the more persistent became my fantasies of what she must have done with other men. More and more often, she claimed, I involved her in things none of her other clients had even hinted at, yet she was willing to meet my every demand. When I asked her why she obeyed, she replied that thinking of the photographs I would take kept her going. My pictures, she said, proved that, regardless of how debased she was, I really saw her as clean and beautiful, and my demanding her return meant that I really wanted her.
As I became more experienced in photographing her, I discovered that, at certain times, she appeared refined and delicate, while at others she looked hard and vulgar. The photographs I took of her became increasingly diverse and, as her desire for them grew, choosing only a few each day became more and more difficult for her.
To earn as many as possible, she began probing for what would bring me to orgasm, with a passion that few of my past lovers have displayed. Just as I focused on every potential of her features, she examined my needs, looking for new ways to excite me.
One day, she asked if I would meet her at her corner, instead of waiting for her at my apartment. She was late, as usual, and I was chatting with another girl when she arrived. She apologized, explaining that the owner of a bar downtown had paid her extra to stay longer. Later, she told me it had upset her to see me talking with the girl and added that, if I liked the girl I had been talking to, she would gladly arrange for the two of them to come to my apartment or, if I did not want both, the other girl could come alone. All she wanted, she said, was my word that I would not photograph the other girls. She assured me that, from now on, she would come to my place any time I wanted her. From then on, we began meeting in the evenings. She would usually arrive late. It was unavoidable, she said, because she could not tell in advance how long an encounter would last. Some clients got aroused slowly, and those who paid for special services insisted on additional time. Since I worried that she had been arrested or had left me, to find she had been delayed merely by another man’s love-making was a relief.
As I was locking the door one morning, a man holding a revolver stepped into the corridor from the stairwell. He motioned me out to the landing, kicking the door shut behind us. When he announced that he was my model’s brother, I told him there was no reason for the gun. I assured him I was merely a photographer who had agreed to shoot her portfolio pictures so she could get a legitimate cover job. Aiming the gun at my stomach, he muttered that his sister supported him and his girl friend. Since she’d been seeing me, he said, his sister was bringing home less money every night.
He said he had destroyed every single photograph I had taken of his sister. If he ever found out she was trying to start a career as a model, he would sell her to a black pimp, who would mess her up so badly that no one would ever want to photograph her again. I quickly promised not to see her again and mentioned that I had to leave town on the following day. He backed down one flight of stairs with his gun trained on me, then tucked the weapon in his pocket, and raced down the rest of the stairs. That night, instead of meeting my model, I moved to another of my apartments.
Sometimes, I would return to her beat in disguise and mix with the watchers, penniless old men who, in exchange for occasional sex, maintain tabs on an unsuspecting girl for her pimp. A watcher will note every time the whore turns down a potential client, how many coffee breaks she takes, how long she stays with a customer and how often she is harassed by the police or the vice squad. He keeps in contact with the pimp from a public telephone booth.
I once witnessed an episode involving a watcher and a girl who insisted on working alone. He waited until she had gone off with a customer before summoning a pimp. The girl came back, wearing a low-cut, thigh-length dress. All at once, a band of ghetto boys, paid by the pimp, converged on her with ink bottles and sharp-edged rulers.
As the pimp looked on from his limousine, the boys splashed the girl with ink and slashed her with the rulers until her breasts, arms and thighs were red and indelible blue. While she cried and swore and fought, passersby looked on, fascinated by the spectacle. No one moved to help her.
The attack ended quickly. Before the last boy fled, he punched the girl in the pelvis and snatched her purse. The pimp stepped out of his car, went over to the girl and, whispering to her, tenderly embraced her. He must have convinced her to accept his protection because, after a few minutes, they both got into his limousine and drove off.
A few nights later, I noticed this pimp’s limousine discharge another woman. She was my model.
I watched her walk, her form-fitting clothes advertising her supple body. Many potential customers looked at her but hesitated to approach. Only when she glanced at a man encouragingly would he speak to her. When I approached her, she recognized me but waved me away. Her eyes were glassy and vacant. Before I could move off, her pimp came up behind me and knocked me to the ground. I got up and left.
I began keeping track of the pimp’s movements. One night, I saw him park in front of a local restaurant and go inside with some friends. I strolled past the car, and slipped a glassine bag of white talcum powder through a half-opened rear window. Next, I made an anonymous call to the police, telling them that the steel gray luxury sedan parked in front of the restaura
nt contained a stash of heroin and that the car’s owner, a pimp, was heavily armed.
As soon as I spotted a police car approaching, I went inside the restaurant and asked for the pimp. I was escorted upstairs to a private room, where he and his friends were eating. I ran to him and whispered that I had seen a man throw a bag of white powder into his car. Before I could finish, the pimp dashed outside to the car and I followed him out to the street. As soon as he peered into the back seat and saw the bag, the police came up and announced themselves. The pimp panicked, jumped behind the wheel, started the motor and hit the gas. The car swung out sharply. The police opened fire and the car veered up over the curb, plunging straight into a wall. I checked my watch while they were dragging the body out of the wreckage; fifteen minutes had passed since I dumped the bag in the car.
During that experience with the prostitute I continued my review of old photographs. I spent days organizing the prints chronologically, although there is one period in my catalogues which seems out of place; directly after photos which show me as a young man, there is a series in which I look much older.
The reason is that I once devised a photographic process that reveals the gradual aging of the human face. When I first perfected this technique, I fitted an industrial camera with special filters and loaded it with film coated with an emulsion I myself prepared. I posed under powerful industrial lights and let each exposure focus on a different part of my face. I processed the negative in several chemical baths that highlighted those parts of the face and neck that age most rapidly. Then I made enlargements, rephotographed them, and copied them again through various filters. The finished photographs showed my face years older than it was.