Shutter Speed
10
Family
I HAD NO APPOINTMENTS after school during Thanksgiving week, but I was scheduled to have Amy from Chicago in the studio Sunday afternoon. We were still in school Monday and Tuesday and had a half-day on Wednesday. I didn’t rush right home. I went to the studio and worked on Patricia’s Playboy photos and printed a bunch of photos I’d been slow at getting done. Proof sheets were being returned to Anna for orders of senior photos and Attic Allure photos from the past few weeks. I was going to try to get them all delivered before Christmas break.
I was printing a lot of second copies of my classmates for my private portfolio. I couldn’t display or sell their prints unless they were my models, but I could certainly have a collection of my own. I imagined that in ten years, when it was time for a class reunion, I’d personally have the best yearbook of photos of my classmates in existence. There were only six girls in my class I’d not seen naked. Four were engaged, and two were very religious. That last category included Anna.
I looked over my gallery wall that included pictures that I had releases for. I needed to find new space for Patricia’s birthday photos and for Pris’s birthday photos. I understood Pris was making a display of her photos and planned to give me a copy of it. I’d supplied her with two sets in 10x17 size. But I had a set of normal 8x10s, too. I spread those and Patricia’s photos on the table so I could judge where to put them.
Before I got things all arranged Wednesday afternoon, I heard a knock at my studio door and ran to see if Chris was coming for a visit. It wasn’t Chris. It was my sisters. Kat had brought Deborah and her daughter Cameron to see me since I hadn’t come straight home from school. I hadn’t realized Deborah had arrived already. There were a few hugs and I had my baby niece pushed into my arms while Deborah went to look around my studio.
Oh, yeah. Family visiting the studio without having been prepared for what little brother was taking pictures of.
“These are beautiful!” Deborah said. “Oh, my! Kat, you shouldn’t be looking at these. You run home and I’ll discuss it with our brother.”
“Deb, the human body figures prominently in artwork of every medium,” Kat lectured our older sister. “I expect I will be in classes where I’m painting nude models, just as Nate photographs them. What you are looking at is not pictures of naked girls, but artwork that features the human figure.”
I could almost have quoted that from what Mom and Uncle Nate told Kat the first time she saw my pictures. She’d refined the statement somewhat and Deb was flabbergasted.
“Oh. I see,” Deb said. “And Mom and Dad know about all this?”
“Dad helped build the darkroom. Mom stops by occasionally to see my new work. That picture is hanging in our living room,” I said pointing at Avery under the streetlamp.
“I saw that, but didn’t look closely at it. I thought it was a painting of some angel or saint. It’s truly artwork,” Deb breathed. “And you do all these photos here?”
“Well, obviously that picture was taken outdoors as were a few of the others. My section of village leaders was all taken onsite. Or mostly. I actually coaxed Mom into a studio shot,” I laughed.
Deborah looked around at the props and backdrops while I danced with Cameron across the floor. When I turned around, she was sitting at the table with the selection of Patricia’s and Pris’s photos. She didn’t say anything, but opened my album of personal favorites, including my classmates.
“Are these girls of age?” Deborah asked.
“Not all of them. That album is kind of my record book and is not for public display. It seems a lot of my classmates wanted to have an Attic Allure photo for their senior memory book.”
“You mean you have seventeen-year-old high school classmates who come to the studio and undress for you to take their photos??? Nate, how many girls have come here to have photos like these?”
“Um… Well… I have photos of twenty-one of the girls in my class. I had a few seniors last year who posed. And I had ten models who came out from Chicago this summer for portfolio photos. Most of them are private and not for public display. The picture with all the ribbons over there is one of the models, though. She’s given me special permission to display that one photo of her. She’s coming for another sitting on Sunday.”
“Thirty-five or forty? Why? Why would they come here to get this… Attic Allure photo you take?”
I walked over to the gallery and looked at the photos. I pointed at Patricia’s photo on the motorcycle. Janice’s calendar picture. The girls on the porch smoking. Lori’s picture as she looked at her breast and her picture on the truck. Avery’s picture under the streetlight. Amy’s picture as a strung-out girl in despair. Kat on the rocking horse.
“They all come hoping that I’ll capture them like these photos. They want to reveal their inner selves, and to do that, they reveal their bodies. For some of them, the photo session is a kind of counseling session. They leave here feeling better about themselves.”
“You don’t just do it to see a bunch of naked teens?” Deb persisted. I grinned at her.
“That’s a side benefit,” I said.
We were all home for dinner and Dad was computing the time for the Thanksgiving turkey and whether we’d want him to bake pies. Kat and Deb both volunteered to help bake pies and said they’d get at it right after dinner. We were sitting around and just letting the meal settle before we started cleaning up when there was a knock on the door. I jumped up to go answer it and was bowled over by my other sister.
“Naomi! You came home for Thanksgiving! How did you get here?” I yelled as I danced around with her.
“I’ve been on a bus for twenty-two hours. Where’s the bathroom?”
I pointed her to the stairs and she ran up before she even greeted anyone else. We were all waiting at the foot of the stairs and applauded when she came back down. She did look sharp in her Air Force blues with a white shirt and dark blue tabs. Her hair was short and under her blue and white hat.
Everyone greeted her and we shuffled around the table to put another chair there and get her fed.
“So, the bus dropped me with my duffle in front of this odd-looking grocery store that advertises men’s suits and shoes. I had no idea where you lived, but I saw the Methodist Church as the bus came into town. Then a police car rolled up beside me and he was really nice. He asked if he could help me find anyone. I told him I was looking for you and he got really friendly and said to please let him deliver me. Which was nice because it’s getting really cold out. He said he was Constable Stoney and knew my brother pretty well. What kind of trouble have you been in, Nate?”
“No trouble, really. I just gave him some photos.”
“Really?”
“Your brother took pictures, first of our former constable that helped me get him canned,” Dad said. “Then he discovered he had photos that led to the solution of a lot of petty thefts and vandalism in town. Stoney was a godsend when it came to dealing with the situation.”
“So, it’s your pictures that get you in trouble?” Naomi said as she winked at me.
“You have no idea,” Deborah said. “Our little brother is a professional photographer. For real.”
It was fun to get caught up with my sisters, even though they had declined to help me with my CO references. Sleeping arrangements were a little stressed. Deborah and Cameron got my room. Naomi got to sleep with Kat. I got my sleeping bag out and slept on the couch in the living room. I was thinking maybe I should make up the bed in the studio and spend the night there the next day.
That would be strange and a big temptation to have Chris stay with me. It would definitely violate the principle of no sex in the studio. I couldn’t help but imagine Chris and me in that bed for a night together. It was a little uncomfortable. There were no springs and the mattress was really just a piece of foam rubber over the plywood. But I was sure it was better than the back of the Belvedere or the couch in our living room.
Dad was up at five to get the turkey stuffed and in the oven. Fortunately, some people slept longer than others. Getting six and a half people through our one bathroom could have been a task. As it was, I got in and out of the shower fast, just in time for Deborah to take little Miss Cameron in and get her cleaned up after her night. She came down and sat at the kitchen table with her robe open and almost two-year-old Cameron attached to her right breast.
I guess I kind of stared for a minute. It was something I’d never seen. I don’t mean just my sister’s boob, but I’d never seen a baby being nursed. I thought everyone used bottles and formula.
“You might as well take a picture. It will last longer,” Deborah said, scowling at me.
“That was what I was just thinking. It’s… such a beautiful thing. Would you do that in the studio later so I can take a really good picture?”
“You want to take a picture of your sister’s boob?” she growled.
“No! I want to take a picture of… Well, I guess your boob would kind of be in it, but I meant of feeding Cameron. She looks so content and happy,” I said.
“She’s always happy when I’m feeding her. I guess. If it’s not too explicit. John loved watching me feed her. I’m sure he’d like a picture. I don’t know about sending it to a photo lab, though.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. I do all my own photo processing and printing. Nobody else needs to see it.”
“You mean like the album of cute high school girls that no one is supposed to see?” she giggled.
“You caught me with that open because I was transferring photos to it from my album that Uncle Nate will want to see when he gets here,” I said.
“Uncle Nate and Aunt Grace are coming today?” Naomi asked, coming into the room. “Oy. How does a little girl like Kat take up so much room in the bed? Maybe I should sleep on the sofa tonight.”
“I take up more room than Kat does,” I said shaking my head.
The family kept gathering. Kat was last down, looking daggers at Naomi.
“You kept elbowing me all night,” she growled. I put a tray of bacon and eggs on the table and everyone started digging in. We didn’t have enough chairs in the kitchen, so we spread out to the dining room, too.
“We’ll need the other two leaves in the table in order to seat thirteen,” Mom said. “Nate, you need to run out to Dad’s storage unit and find the high chair. We’ll need the folding chairs, too.”
“Why do we need thirteen places?” Naomi asked while counting on her fingers.
“Oh, Nate’s girlfriend and Kat’s boyfriend are brother and sister, so we invited them and their parents and sister to share Thanksgiving with us,” Mom said. I think that was the first time I’d heard that bit of information and wondered if Chris knew they were coming here for dinner. For that matter, I wondered if Julie would be upset they weren’t spending the day with Danny and Ronda.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Kat said adamantly. “I told Brian he couldn’t be my boyfriend until we were sixteen. He’s just a friend.”
“You tell ’em, girl,” Naomi said.
“So, which girlfriend is this?” Deborah asked, giving me a smirk.
“Don’t tell me he has more than one!” Naomi said. “You cad!”
“There are three lovely photos on his desk upstairs. One of Nate in a nice-looking suit, and two of girls in formals on either side of him.”
“Chris is on the left. Ronda is on the right,” I said. “It was our pictures from the Valentine’s dance. If you looked at all the pictures on my desk, you’ll find our prom picture, too. It has all three of us. But it’s Chris who’ll be coming for dinner if Mom invited the Evanses.”
“I think it might be time for a sisterly intervention,” Naomi said.
“Oh, don’t get carried away,” Deborah admonished. “At least wait until you see his studio. And you should take Kat with you when you go, so she can explain it to you.”
“Explain it? I loved the picture of Kat on the hobby horse. Did you know it’s in her room? I mean the horse? She let me sit on it this morning. It’s so cool,” Naomi said.
“Nate gave it to me for my birthday,” Kat said. “I love it. You should see my painting of it.”
“Yes! Show us!” Deborah said. Kat ran upstairs and came back soon after with her stack of watercolors.
“I’m going to learn oil paints next summer,” she said. “It’s too hard to pick up a new medium when I have to focus on school.”
She laid her paintings on the table. There was a really nice rendering of the horse. Her art was really coming along. But then there was a series of paintings that we all gaped at. They were self-portraits of Kat on the horse. The first two were in dresses. The third, she was dressed in her summer shorts and was barefoot. In the last painting, Kat was nude. Oh, it was not explicit. She’d made her hair long enough to cover her budding breasts, and her position on the horse hid her privates. But it was still identifiable as a naked Kat.
We were all speechless.
“I need to put these away now. I don’t want them out where Brian could see them. He wouldn’t understand,” she said. She gathered up the paintings and ran back upstairs.
“Um… I guess I should go out to Henry’s and get the high chair,” I said into the silence. Dad tossed me the keys to the Falcon and I left in a hurry.
Thanksgiving dinner was at 2:00 and it was really fun. Uncle Nate and Aunt Grace were thrilled that Deborah and Naomi had come home for the holiday. Uncle Nate was extremely happy to meet Chris and told her to take good care of me. I think he also mentioned seeing her photograph and she blushed.
“I don’t model for Nate anymore. We decided the studio had to be kept pure and have no… um… you know… relationship stuff. Ronda and Anna and I all help out in the studio, but we don’t model,” Chris said. I almost choked when she was trying to figure out what to say instead of ‘no sex.’
“Hey, Julie,” I said to Chris’s fourteen-year-old sister, “I’m glad you came to join us today. I’m sure you’d rather have been at Danny’s house, but we’re really glad you came here.”
“Oh, yeah. No biggie. Danny’s becoming such a Ken Doll. I mean, he’s good looking—for a boy—but if he’s going to be a doll, he needs to let me dress him up. He wants to do it all himself,” Julie said.
“Gosh,” Chris said. “I was thinking of going to visit Ronda this evening and inviting you to go along.”
“Oh, I’d go and hang out, but I’m not tripping on the idea.”
“Kat? You’ll tell me if I start to turn into a Ken Doll, won’t you?” Brian whispered to my sister.
“Oh, there’s not much chance of that. I mean, really, Danny’s a centerfold. You’re just a nice guy,” my sister said. I wasn’t sure that was a compliment, but Brian seemed okay with it.
“Well, I’m ready for our after-dinner trek to the studio,” Uncle Nate said. “I’m sure his sisters would like to see the studio. How about you, Ray? Have you seen the studio?” he asked Chris’s father. I shot a panicked look at Chris and saw her gulp.
“No. I’ve heard so much about it. Darlene and I would love to find out where our daughter hangs out all the time.”
“Why don’t you guys go ahead,” Deborah said. “I saw the studio yesterday. How about Julie, Brian, and Kat stay here with me and we start clearing the table and getting the dishes done?”
“Um… I’ll help, too,” Chris said. “Like Dad says, I’m hanging out there all the time.”
I think Brian was about to protest but Kat cut him off.
“There is mature content in the studio and it’s not appropriate for us kids,” she told him. “Let’s get the dishes done up and I’ll show you and Julie my horse and my paintings.” That settled things pretty quickly.
I ended up leading a pretty good procession the three blocks to the studio. It included my sister Naomi and Chris’s parents. Grace and Mom ended up staying back to help with the dishes.
It hadn’t quite made it above freezing and there was a pretty good wind, so we bundled up. At least there was not much snow on the ground. I’d been keeping the steps cleared because of all the kids who had been coming for pictures. Everyone took their shoes off once they were inside when they saw me do it. I started in on the guided tour, telling everyone that Dad and Mr. Kowalski had built my new darkroom for me, but I also still used the old darkroom that Dad and I built upstairs where the bulk of the props were stored. Of course, there were two things that drew everyone’s attention—especially Mr. and Mrs. Evans. That was the gallery and the prominently positioned bed where we’d last photographed Patricia on Sunday.
Mrs. Evans went to the bed and tested it. She seemed satisfied that it was too uncomfortable to get into much trouble on.
Uncle Nate glanced at the gallery and went directly to the two series of photos that I’d laid out for him while Chris’s parents looked over the gallery with Naomi. Dad sort of stood back and watched the action.
“That’s Tor Berg’s daughter, isn’t it?” Mr. Evans exclaimed.
“Yes, sir,” I said calmly. “Patricia is sending an application to Playboy Magazine to be a featured model. I was privileged to photograph her portfolio. Chris wrote the storyline for it. She’s a great help in staging photos and managing the scenes. She often does makeup for the models as well. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“Now, Chris isn’t your business manager, is she?” Uncle Nate asked. “I recall her name is Anna.”
“Yes, sir. Anna Marx. With all the senior photos and orders for photos we’ve had this fall, I couldn’t possibly have kept up without her. As it is, I’ll be printing photos for the orders pretty much every day until Christmas.”
“I know this one, too,” Mrs. Evans said. “It’s Lila Anson’s daughter Priscilla.”
“Pris came up with the entire concept for her eighteenth birthday set,” I explained. “All the photos are being made up into book covers. It was her idea to use mannequins as her partners because she didn’t want to work with an actual boy. I think she settled on the title To Kill a Mannequin for that one.”
“Very clever,” Mrs. Evans said. I thought she was warming to the whole idea of my photography—as long as it wasn’t her daughter in the picture. I didn’t think she’d noticed the one of Chris in her lingerie.
“I was really prepared to give you an earful,” Naomi said, coming up to me. “Respect for women and all that. These… After seeing what an artist Kat has become, I see it somehow skipped over me and hit my younger siblings. This is art. It’s… They are all so beautiful.” My sister gave me a hug.
“We’d like him to take a good portrait of you in uniform,” Dad said. “Did you see the one he did of your mother over there?”
“That one and the picture of Kat on the hobby horse are my favorites,” Naomi said. “Yes, we can do a portrait session tomorrow.”
“So, you mentioned wanting to get a car,” Uncle Nate said. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well, when I did all the senior yearbook photos at the school, I had to talk Chris into borrowing her family’s station wagon in order to get my equipment from the studio to the school. And I didn’t really take that many things with me. But the backdrops and frame are ten feet wide, so even when they are all rolled up, they still need a ten-foot space to put them in. So, I’m thinking a van of some sort. Right now, it looks like the best bet is a VW Transport Microbus. I just haven’t found one yet. I’d be open to one of the Chevy, Dodge, GMC, or Ford vans, but they just don’t have as much class as the VW.”
“I can see those all as good options,” he said.
“When Chris took me to Dubuque a couple of weeks ago, we even looked at a used milk truck. I liked it except it only had one seat and even laying something all the way up over the step well, I wasn’t sure I could fit a ten-foot drop in it. Otherwise, it would be pretty cool to have an old delivery truck with my studio name painted on the side. I see the Charles Chips truck and always think it’s pretty cool.”
“I’ll keep an eye out in Chicago. There are likely to be more in the metro area than out here in the sticks.”
“That would be great.”
“I am surprised at the kind of photos you’ve been taking,” Mr. Evans said. “Keeping in mind my only experience with your photography was looking through the yearbook and the wonderful photo of Christine you took at the cemetery. But I have to say that looking at your work, I can actually understand why so many young women are willing to come in here and pose for you.”
“What you don’t see, Ray, are the photos of a dozen models who have come out from Chicago to have portfolios shot,” Uncle Nate said.
“That prize-winning photo on the wall is from one of those models who has given me special permission to display that one photo. There are a couple others on the wall who signed immediate releases.”
“Just color me impressed,” Naomi said.
I smiled at her.
It was nice to have Chris and her family join my family. I was glad Uncle Nate got to meet my girlfriend. He asked if I could spend a couple of days in Chicago over Christmas break and I hoped it would work out.
“Were they brutal to you in the studio?” Christine asked when we got a minute alone together. We’d all gone up to look at Kat’s room and Christine and I slipped into my room so I could at least show her where I slept when I didn’t have so many sisters in the house.
“Not too bad. I think they’ll continue to let you hang out with me. Your mother decided the bed was too uncomfortable to get in trouble on.”
“I wonder if she’s checked the back of the station wagon,” Chris giggled.
Her family took off about the same time Uncle Nate did. He was pleased with what he’d seen and promised to call about Christmas. The rest of us just lazed around that evening, playing games and eating leftovers.
Friday morning, I set things up in the studio to do a family portrait. I really needed to get some more furniture for settings. We managed to have Mom and Dad on the fainting couch and Dad held little Cameron. Deborah perched on the edge next to him and the other three of us stood behind. I got a little step stool for Kat to stand on so she wasn’t completely hidden.
I didn’t use a fancy backdrop or add much in the way of props. It was just fun to have everyone together and get a family picture. I set the timer on the camera and had five seconds to scramble around to get in the picture next to Kat.
For individual portraits, I got a little crazier. I lowered the sky and clouds drop behind Naomi and gave her a model airplane to hold as she stood in her Air Force dress uniform. She wanted one without props, too—spoil sport.
Kat wanted her new picture to be at her easel with paints and she went to the trouble (with Dad’s help) to bring everything over to the studio. It was a pretty cool setting and gave me an idea for another of the four of us ‘kids.’ I had to run home for another prop, but was back in a flash.
I set up the night reflection backdrop and put a chair on a small platform. Deborah sat in that with Cameron, showing the little girl the water pump she’d taken off the old Studebaker. Kat sat at her easel looking at Deborah with Naomi leaning over her shoulder. Cameron started to fuss and Deborah fed her, which was perfect. I grabbed my 35, set the Hasselblad on the timer and hurried around to look like I was taking Deborah’s picture. We had to try it two or three times, and eventually Dad stood at the camera and snapped the shutter when I said ‘ready.’
And that brought me to Dad. Of course, we wanted new pictures of Mom and Dad together, but I thought about our family photo albums and couldn’t remember just having a picture of my father. I had him take off his suit jacket and tie. I moved the stepladder over in front of a plain backdrop and hung a snowflake from the ceiling. Then I had Dad pose with a foot on the stepladder, looking up at the snowflake. It looked like he’d just put it in the sky.
Naomi had to catch the Saturday bus back to Chicago so she could transfer back to Texas. I suggested that I could drive her to the bus station in Chicago and it would be quicker. Everyone agreed and I called Christine to see if she could join me for the excursion. We figured we’d be gone most of the day. Mom and Dad agreed to the plan since I wouldn’t be driving alone, and we all took off early Saturday morning for Chicago.
We got to the terminal in plenty of time and all sat to have breakfast in a café near the station.
“You two be careful and don’t… you know… get in trouble. You’ve both got a big future ahead and shouldn’t get tied down like Deborah is. I worry about her. With John in Vietnam, she’s alone with the baby and has to fend for herself. As many of them as there are, the world isn’t kind to single mothers.”
“We know,” Christine said. “We’re always careful and Nate and I both understand that there isn’t really a long-term thing for us after high school. But until we can both get out of town, we’re the best choice there is.”
That was just a little bit of a shock to me. I mean, I knew that if I ran to Canada, Chris wouldn’t come with me. But I’d thought that we’d still try to make things work when I was in college and she went to business school. She was really a good partner and I loved her.
We would have a nice talk on the way home.
We made sure Naomi was on her bus and headed for Texas, then we got back in the car.
“Show me where you used to live,” Christine said as she hugged my arm in the Galaxie. We’d taken time to go to the Museum of Science and Industry for a couple of hours and I told her all about how many times I’d come here as a child. We got to see the lightning bolt flash in the center court and it made our ears ring for twenty minutes.
“It’s not much to see,” I said. “Um… I need to look at the map.” I got the map out of the glove box. Naomi had navigated us to the bus station and it was an easy trip over to the museum. “Okay. There’s a new freeway that’s always a mess. We should go straight down Lake Shore Drive to Harbor and cut over to Commonwealth. I’ve got it.”
“Wow! I don’t know how you find anything here,” she said. “I’m so used to saying things like, ‘Just go up two blocks and turn right. It’s right there.’ How far is it to your house?”
“It’s about like going to Dubuque from Tenbrook, except there’s traffic and lights. When we leave South Chicago, we’ll hit Highway 20 westbound. It’s farther than getting from Tenbrook to the Chicago bus station on the interstate. But I’m glad you’re interested. I like sharing things like this with you.”
“When you lived here, where did you go to park? You know? To have sex?”
“I never did that when I was here, as you well know. You are my first girl and my first lover.”
“That gives me tingles, but I meant kids in general, not you specifically,” she giggled.
“Well, I didn’t really know anyone who had a car, so parking wasn’t an issue. There are places around where I heard people went to screw, but none of them were very safe. In the summer, there are lots of parks kids hide out in, but they aren’t particularly safe either. The best places I heard of were when kids got together at one of their houses or apartments while parents were gone.”
“We really live in a different world, don’t we?”
“I like it better mostly, but there are times I miss the city. Uncle Nate and Aunt Grace live up toward Cicero. That’s about due west of The Loop.”
“Where is the college you’ll go to?”
“It’s right downtown on Michigan Avenue. Actually, closer to where we dropped Naomi off to catch the bus,” I said.
“I’m such a small town girl, I’d be afraid to live in the city like that.”
“I promise you lots of opportunities to come and visit me,” I suggested. “I really don’t want to break up just because we’re going to different colleges.”
“What we need to do is find your microbus and you can pick me up and just park somewhere,” she said. “I do love you, Nate. When we’re working in the studio, I think how cool it is and that we work so well together. But how can you have a studio like that in the city? Would any of those girls come to you if you were in Chicago instead of three hours away?”
“I don’t know. For the time being, though, I plan to keep the studio in Tenbrook. I might not be able to take as many pictures there, but I’ll be taking some.”
“Take me someplace to make love, Nate. I don’t want to think about not being with you.”
Chris joined me in the studio Sunday afternoon for Amy’s photo session. Amy surprised me once again. She brought me a new model release.
“This covers anything from today forward, but not anything from our first sitting,” she said. “I had to write that in and Mr. Mayer notarized it.” I looked it over.
“So, you don’t mind me displaying photos of you?” I asked. The new model release was effective immediately.
“I learned so much the last time. I really wouldn’t want those other photos shown right now. I’m still close to being the same bitch I was then. But one of the things I learned was to trust you. I know that someplace in our time together you will get a perfect photo. Maybe not a championship photo like that one, but you don’t want to display anything that doesn’t look incredible. Put me where you want me. Tell me what to do. And if I’m not being what you want, yell at me until I do,” she said.
“Amy, you know I’m not going to do that as a matter of course. I really love seeing you happy,” I said.
“Getting laid regularly helps the attitude, doesn’t it Chris?” Amy giggled.
“Oh, sister, how true that is!”
“I want to follow through with this theme a little, but I want to show the desolate girl of the former photo cleaning up her act. Not all the way there yet, but contemplating her future.”
“I’m down with it.”
“Okay. You okay with starting off nude for this?”
“Hey, you’ve seen all the goodies I’ve got to offer,” she said, starting to pull off her clothes. “Bed?”
“No. I’ve got that chair and table set up in the corner for you.” We moved over to the corner where I’d set a plain wooden kitchen table and chair on a braided rug. On the table were the phone and a coffee cup. Amy stood in front of me, completely naked awaiting my instructions. “Do you have your hose and high heels with you?”
“Of course!” she said, grabbing her bag.
She sat on the chair pulling on the hose as I turned on the lights. I snapped one photo of her pulling them on. When she had the hose and heels on, Chris brought a black hat and a set of choker beads. I looked through the lens and shot another exposure.
“Chris, I think her lipstick needs to be just a little heavier. We want to be able to see the same girl from the other photo, just not the despair,” I instructed.
Amy sat quietly as Chris applied her lipstick and then touched up her cheeks and eyes as well. I redirected a spot light and opened it up a little to shine almost directly from the front. I adjusted the angle so the shadow on the wall didn’t loom too high above her. I wasn’t going for a spooky look. I touched her shoulder and she looked up at me. She was ready to follow instructions.
“Scoot forward on the chair about halfway and lean back. I know that’s going to make you slouch a bit, but it won’t be too much. And don’t worry about the chair. We disinfected it with Lysol just before you got here. Put your left hand on the chair beside you, just relaxed. Take hold of the coffee mug with your right hand, but don’t pick it up yet. Now, lift this leg and put your heel on the rung of the chair. That’s good. We’ll do several different head and face positions. Ready?”
Each time I shot a picture, I adjusted her position a little or changed the lighting slightly. I was waiting for the shot that showed her truly contemplating the future. Her head dropped down a bit and her lips parted to ask a question. I got the shot. It was the one I was waiting for.
We took a couple more scenes, including one in front of a mirror near the window. Nice reflection. Overall, we worked about two hours and then we wrapped it up. Amy hugged Chris and then turned to me. I welcomed her into my arms and she hugged herself to me.
“You know, if I wasn’t getting laid regularly, I’d definitely put the make on you,” she giggled.
“Ah, but you know my rule. No sex in the studio.” I kissed her forehead, patted her bare rump, and sent her off to get dressed.
Deborah didn’t want to leave. She was really missing John and didn’t have a lot of friends in Leavenworth. In Tenbrook, she had family she could talk to. As soon as I got home from school each day, she’d push Cameron into my arms and I’d ‘take her dancing.’ We put records on the stereo and danced all over the living room. Eventually, I’d need to study and Kat would get child care. While we were watching Cameron, Deb was out looking to see what kind of places to live she could find here. That got discouraging pretty quickly, and she started preparing to go back to her base housing.
For my part, I was a little on edge all week. I scarcely had time to go to the studio and work on the piles of photos I had to print. And Friday, my mother and father were accompanying me to appear before the draft board and plead my case to become a conscientious objector.
What I found there was not only disheartening, it made me mad as hell.
I was ushered into a conference room type of place and sat in front of a table with four people at it. They were the county draft board and all had clipboards in front of them. They were not introduced by name. They were simply the local selective service committee. But one of them didn’t need an introduction. I recognized him, even wearing a suit and tie. At the right end of the table sat the former Constable of Tenbrook, Clyde Warren. How the hell he got appointed to the draft board I’ll never know.
I fought to keep my cool and present my case. The members of the board asked questions and asked my parents to verify my statements.
“There have never been guns in our home,” Dad explained. “We live in a violent world, made more violent by constant escalation of conflict. I made a commitment when I married Joyce that I would not contribute to the violence of this world. Our children were not even allowed toy guns, nor did they ever play soldier, or Cowboys and Indians, or other violent pretend games. This is a legacy I am proud my son has maintained.”
There wasn’t much of a better recommendation than that, in my opinion. Mom got her opportunity to speak as well.
“I am an ordained minister of the Methodist Church. My ministry is a ministry of peace and love. I teach that and preach that in my church. I teach that to my children in my home. War is wrong and is a failure to honor God.”
I was pretty sure my case was solid and I’d be granted the opportunity to do alternate service. Then Clyde Warren spoke up. The bastard.
“I viewed this case with interest,” he said, “and have investigated the facts and the laws of the United States. I talked directly with Bishop John Weeks of the Illinois Area of the Methodist Church. His assessment was that while the Methodist Church abhorred war, it did not by doctrine or creed forbid service in the United States military. In fact, it sends chaplains into the armed forces on a regular basis to minister to the large number of Methodists in the service. In the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, signed into law in June of this year, Section 6(j) defines the criteria for becoming a conscientious objector as being opposed to participation in war in any form because of religious training and belief. The act goes on to specify that, and I quote, ‘the term ‘religious training and belief’ does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views, or a merely personal moral code.’ Since the church being cited does not have a specific anti-war stance like, say, the Quakers. I do not believe we can issue a conscientious objector status in this case. I move the subject be classified 1-A.”
“That’s not a fair judgment,” I said, standing up. Dad pulled me down. The board had begun arguing among themselves. It was clear that at least one member was arguing on my behalf. Warren wore a smirk when he looked at me that told me everything I needed to know about why he was so adamantly opposed. In fact, why he’d gone to so much work to prepare a case against me.
Finally, the man in the middle of the table, more or less, pounded a gavel on the table as if he were a judge.
“We of the Hunter County Selective Service Committee find that the issue needs significantly more study than what has been presented in this meeting,” he said. “We will seek clarification from the state board regarding how to interpret the new law. Nate Hart, in the meantime, you will retain your classification of 1-S-H, a student deferment. Upon completion of high school, if you have enrolled in a college degree program, your deferment will be continued as 2-S. This will continue until you have completed four contiguous years as a full-time student in college or have graduated. When you are no longer a student, we will reconsider your Selective Service Classification in light of the understanding we gain in the next months. This classification hearing is now ended.”
He pounded his gavel again with what I considered more emphasis than what was merited. Then he stood up and left the room. I think he wanted it clear that the conversation was ended. Mom and Dad and I stood up and headed toward the door when Clyde Warren stopped me.
“You should just give it up and join your little nigger friend in Vietnam. I’m sure he misses your ass.”
Before we could respond, he rushed out the door and was gone.
The fucking bastard! Why would he even know Tony was headed for Vietnam? Unless he’d managed to influence the draft order. That made more sense than anything else. Tony had only been out of high school a month when he was drafted. Even as a nineteen-year-old, that was too fast. I wished the operation of the draft board was more transparent. I was sure something shady was going on.
On the way home, I considered my options. I was safe for now. I had at least four and a half years before I needed to worry about the draft, as long as I graduated from high school and stayed a full-time student in college. That seemed like a cop-out. Nobody wanted to go to Vietnam. But I could be exempt because I could afford to go to college.
That was the first time I contemplated burning my draft card. There was a guy in New York City who led a whole bunch of guys in burning their draft cards in April. He was arrested and was awaiting trial. Still. He had a hundred guys in New York burning their draft cards. His act of protest meant something. Destroying or mutilating a draft card was a felony, worth up to five years in prison. Who would even notice if I staged a protest in front of the Draft Board in Huntertown?
And there was my family to consider. I knew that such an act would end my relationship with Christine and with Ronda. They weren’t committed antiwar resisters. Mom would get reassigned to a church someplace where they’d never heard she had a son. My little sister would be uprooted, just when she’d found a home and place to have friends.
And what of my other sisters? It was stupid to think the Air Force wouldn’t find out that Naomi’s brother was an antiwar draft resister. They could just tell her she didn’t make the grade and wash her out. Worse would be if Deborah’s husband was given frontline duty in Nam. I had no doubt in my mind that the powers who sent young men to war were vindictive and self-serving. McNamara was an ass. Johnson kept feeding him with more lives to waste.
“How did it go?” Deborah asked as soon as we got home.
“I lost,” I said. I wasn’t expecting her to burst out in tears. And they weren’t happy.
“I’m a terrible sister! I should have written the letter. I should have supported you. I should have gone with you to face them.”
“Deb, hush,” I said, taking her in my arms. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. There’s a guy on the draft board who hates me and Dad. I don’t know how he ever got appointed to the draft board, but there’s no way he’d have allowed me to get a deferment. He didn’t even want me to have a student deferment.”
“That’s terrible! What are we going to do?”
“I suppose I could go to class this afternoon, but I think I’ll go up to the studio. I’ve got a real backlog of photos to get printed before Christmas. I’ll be back for dinner,” I said.
I didn’t let the conversation go any further. I just left and headed for the studio and started work. I needed to stop thinking about this for a while.
The annual season kickoff basketball tournament in Huffington started that night and continued Saturday. I went and took pictures. Chris sat with the pep club and cheered. Our school got third place of four teams.
Sunday after church, Deb packed her car and got Cameron situated in her crib in the back seat. After a tearful goodbye to all of us, she took off for the return trip to Leavenworth.
It would be nice to have my room back, but I admitted that I’d miss my oldest sister and my sweet little niece.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
