She called the next afternoon. I was in a rush to go out, so I guess I was pretty abrupt.
"Geoffrey, it's Kim. Kimberly Yates. We met last night. Remember? I'm calling about those head shots we talked about. You said you might do them for me." Damn! "I don't do head shots," I said.
"Then why did you say-"
"I didn't promise anything."
"I didn't say you 'promised,' Geoffrey. But I thought you more or less agreed." I took a breath. There was only one way out of this. I'd have to be blunt.
"I was busy. I wanted you to go away."
"But why would you want me to do that?" She sounded hurt.
"So I could concentrate on my work."
There was a little pause then.
"Funny. I don't remember it that way at all."
"Well, that's the way it was. I'm sorry," I said.
"I was serious."
"I wasn't."
She paused.
"That's it, then?"
"Pretty much," I said.
"I see." She paused.
"Well, maybe next time I'll catch you in a better mood…"
I glanced at my watch as I put down the phone. I was running late. I didn't wait for the elevator, just grabbed my portfolio and tore down the stairs. I had an appointment with Jim Lynch, photo editor of Life.
When you're summoned by a guy like that, it's not good practice to be late.
In the taxi on the way uptown I thought about Kimberly again. I was forty, I didn't have a girlfriend, and she had the aura of a girl who was available. Shooting her portrait, getting to know her-that could be a lot of fun.
Maybe if I just picked up my camera, casually pointed it at her, and tripped the shutter sort of by accident… But I'd tried that before and it hadn't worked. I had a hunch it also wouldn't work with her.
It was too depressing to think about what might have been, so I turned my attention back to Jim Lynch. I'd known him well in Vietnam but it had been a long time since we'd talked. He'd risen mightily since we'd been photojournalists together. I, meantime, had sunk out of the profession.
Seeing former colleagues wasn't easy for me. The encounters had a way of turning awkward. Photojournalists, packing Leicas, just back from the latest war, don't have a hell of a lot in common with a guy who trudges lower Manhattan at night, hauling a tripod on his back.
I gathered I didn't rate very high with Jim either; he hadn't asked me to lunch.
"Got a proposition," he'd said when he'd called. "Come on up. Bring your portfolio. Want to see your latest stuff." Would he really consider running my night scapes? The fantasy was exhilarating perhaps too good to believe.
Standing in front of the Time-Life Building, I started feeling the old anxiety. That glass concrete slab had once been the high temple of photojournalism. In the old days to be a Life photographer was to be a member of a special caste. You earned big bucks, traveled the world, and when you said "I shoot for Life," all doors opened fast. You also ate a lot of shit: you laid out your story they ran their story; you shot-they cropped; you were an employee-they were gods. So what am I doing here? I asked myself. Haven't I given this up?
Now all the excitement was gone; Life had become a boring monthly. Yet I still felt the stress, bred out of memories of impossible deadlines, peer competition, struggles to get pouches of film onto planes, and the heat of battles with the layout editors, battles you could only lose, losses that filled you with scorn and self-contempt.
And so I entered the portals with a wishful thought: Jim wouldn't have called me here unless he amp;d want to run some of my recent work.
It had been a decade since I'd last seen him, but he looked pretty much the same. His hair was grayer and he sported a brush mustache, instead of the bushy beard he'd worn in Vietnam. He sported a pair of horn-rimmed glasses too, and a pair of snazzy striped suspenders over his form-fitting Italian shirt. He looked lean and fit, like a guy who worked out. Probably had a corporate membership in a gym, along with the sterling-silver health plan, and the solid-gold retirement deal.
He looked through my portfolio, attentive to every shot, gazing, squinting sometimes, as if using his eyes to photograph my photographs.
The process didn't take long.
"Nice, nice…" he muttered, moving quickly from sheet to sheet.
Jim knew how to look at pictures-it was all he did, all day every day, and he did it very well.
"Outstanding," he said when he finished.
"Got a real look. Not derivative like a lot of stuff I see.
Congratulations, Geof-you've forged yourself a style."
He glanced at me over the tops of his horn-rims.
"Especially like the black-and-whites. Clean. Hard-edge. Nice, very nice. And the color work's lush. Those night scapes: haunting quality there. The absence of people-interesting. Considering what you used to do. It's what's not there that makes them work for me. Like what they say about music-it's not just the notes, it's the silences in between.
Here it's the voids." He did his horn-rim number again. "What do you think?"
"I think you're making me feel great," I said.
"You must be softening me up."
He laughed.
"Making money? I know selling prints is rough. "
"I eat. Sometimes pretty good. I also pay the rent."
"Still got that great studio? Nassau Street, isn't it?"
"I live there now."
"Sure. Figures. Sleep in the same room as your cameras. Yeah, I can relate to that." He leaned back in his swivel chair.
"You're wondering why I called?"
"I was," I said. "Like I told you on the phone, I've got a proposition."
"So propose." I settled back myself.
He nodded.
"First I want a promise. You'll give what I say a little thought. Think before you react."
"I always think." "No flying off the handle?"
"Promise. Now what do I think about?"
"Beirut.
"Hey! You can stop right there!"
"Hear me out, Geof. I'm talking three, four weeks. Twenty grand plus expenses. Pretty good bread."
"Sure, it is. If I don't get killed." "You're not the type who gets himself killed."
"That's what everyone who died there said before he went.
"You're different. Know how to operate. You'll stay safe and bring back the goods."
"Why Beirut? Nobody gives a shit. The place has looked the same for years."
"You can make it look different." He tapped the top of my portfolio case.
"Expect me to take a view camera?, You must be nuts!"
"Don't get it, do you? I don't care what camera you take. I'm talking about your eyes. You'll see it differently. That's why I want you.
When you shoot it, it won't look the same."
"No way." ,:You said you'd think about it." , Forget it, Jim. I'm not going to Beirut."
He stared at me. Up to then he'd been coaxing; now I could see a little glimmer of meanness in his eyes.
"Turned yellow, huh?"
"If it makes you feel better, think that, go ahead." I stood, ready to leave.
He looked at me curiously.
"Why? Tell me. Why the fuck not? What makes you think you're so goddamd special?"
I started to turn but he grabbed my arm.
"I know you're not yellow. That was a cheap shot. I'm sorry." We stared at each other. He looked sincere, I sat down again.
"Tell me what's bothering you, Geof, I really want to know,"
"It's simple, Jim. It's a lousy assignment."
"Funny, I think it's the best assignment in the world."
"Lunatics firing at one another. Bodies in the streets. I'm not interested in that."
"You were plenty interested in that in 'Nam."
He was right. I'd been intensely interested. Fascinated. Nothing on earth had intrigued me more.
"I was an asshole in 'Nam," I said.
"So who wasn't?"