This unfinished story just re-surfaced during a perusal of old forgotten files. I forget where I was going with this tale, but if I get enough encouragement, I will attempt to finish it…..
The end came faster than I wanted, but not as fast as I needed. Like a once-brightly shining nova, my luster dimmed until I was just another star in the night sky. I speak, of course, about the crazy years, the lost years spent in the studios of the best photographers, the crazy parties that lasted until we were dragged from the trendiest clubs in the most Now locales. The money that flowed through my hands, never reaching my pocket or bank account. But what did I care? I could always make more; I was a star, a commodity, my assets were a gold mine without apparent end, such was….
My Life As An Ass-Model
Never heard of an ass-model? Neither had I. Oh, hand models made a small splash in the fashion world, and there was more work for a hand model, it’s true. Look how many products need an attractive hand to hold them; not too many advertised items benefit from being clenched between buns, no matter how fine. And mine were fine, that’s not bragging, just fact.
No, ass models were more like stand-ins, substitute butts for the actors and actresses who leveraged their brand by appearing in ads for their own perfume, or line of clothing. Many actors and actresses can emote on cue, but surprisingly few have rear ends that can display arrogance, friskiness, sublime sensuality, or insouciance at the drop of a director’s megaphone. Mine could do this, and more, all within the space of a 1-minute intro for the latest exercise-machine infomercial.
My ass had attitude, was how Phillippe put it. Phillippe was my agent; he discovered my ass, and saw its potential right away. “Zose bun-muffins, in my hands, zey weel become legend.” This was not the kind of talk one looks forward to hearing in the shower room of a Detroit jail, where I was facing nine months and a day for stealing a pizza. I would have gotten away from the cops, I was a competitive runner and broad-jumper in high school, But the pizza-box was an aerodynamic drag. I could have thrown the pie away and made a clean getaway, but I wanted that damn pizza, a double-pepperoni with olives and onions, and some rookie cop managed to catch me as I scrambled over an alley fence that, sans 16-inch box, I could have sailed right over. Damn cops ate the evidence right in front of me as we drove back to the station house.
“How about I make you a legend right now?” I said as I whirled one hundred eighty degrees, fists out, ready to defend my as yet unsullied honor. Phillippe blinked, but I stopped my fist just short of his hawklike nose; he wore his towel over his shoulder, and I saw immediately that his interest was not prurient.
“Magnifique, tres bon.” He stepped back, made a square with his hands, through which he looked at me. “Can you you do zat again, zis time right-to-left?” By zis, I mean this time, the men under the other shower heads were watching our interaction. One suggested that not hitting the little Frenchman would be a sign of weakness, though he put it in less delicate terms. I knew he was right, but Phillippe was talking fast now. “Le fighting move. Can you do eet from either direction?”
“What is your game, man?” I was thinking the guy maybe liked rough trade, and that was definitely not my game.
“Phillippe, I am called”, He stuck out his hand, which I declined to shake, mindful that some bad characters were waiting to see how this was going to play out.
Then realization dawned on him. “Perhaps ees not best place to discuss rump” he says. “Szhust meet me in cafeteria, later. What’s to lose?”
He had me there, I had 270 more days staring me in the face; might as well hear him out. “Okay.” I said. “We’ll do lunch. but you had better leave with me, or it’ll be your ass that gets talked about.
Over soggy fish sticks and mushy broccoli, Phillippe explained himself. He had been caught trying to take a jay of Kind-Bud on the 9:40 Air France Flight to Montreal, and given ten days in the hoosegow. He had been eyeing my backside for the last three days without my being aware of the surveillance.
“I am sorry eef I was too forward, but I did not want to get out before offering you a zhob, no, a career.”
“As what?”, I asked around a mouthful of stale biscuit.
And he made the pitch for work that would be my ticket off the mean streets. I never thought that listening to another man describe my rear end would get me excited, but I had never before heard of ass-modeling, either.
“From every angle ees ass of yours perfect. Needs tan, but zat ees all.” He asked me to describe my exercise regimen.
“Shit, I just survive, you know. I live in a 10th floor walk-up no elevator, but that gig is over now, me being a week late with the rent.”
He was writing on a pad. I read pretty good upside down, and saw the word ‘stairmaster’. “I snatch purses, do dash-and-grabs at department stores with a couple of black guys I know. He wrote “treadmill” after a 2 surrounded by parentheses.
“And you eat…”, Phillippe paused…
“Yes dumb-ass, I do!”, I started to say before realizing he was asking me what I eat.
“The stores throw their old veggies around midnight Tuesday, before the trucks bring in the weeks fresh produce.”
“You cook zese? You fry, saute, bake…”
“Raw, mostly”. He dutifully jotted that down on his pad. Then looked up at me. “How about bread, pasta, rice.”
“I like brown rice sometimes, never liked sandwiches, I just eat the patty out of a hamburger, Dad told me that noodles were made from worms, and that ruined me for any pasta.
“Starch goes straight to make ass bumpy like cheap white cheese. No salt, water retained go straight to derriere.” Ees good, you stay on low-carb diet”, he said, as he took my roll from its place on my tray.
“You go before judge tomorrow afternoon, non? I get out in morning. I make phone talk, you agree work for me, is places we go like never you dream of.”
And he went on and on, until the guards chased us out. He was a scout for a modeling agency, several, in fact. he freelanced. He wanted to be an agent, and he felt that I, part of me, would be the one to make his name in the hoity-toity world of high-fashion.
“We start little. Model for art classes. We get portfolio started, is little job on movie set. no, not porn movie. Is lead actor let himself go a bit, cottage fromage on cheeks, lack definition. Say yes.”
I did. Phillippe was true to his word. A lawyer I could not afford came to get me in the morning; he brought me a suit of clothes that smelled expensive. They fit me like they were tailored. Phillippe had a good eye.
In court, the lawyer testified as to my good character, although he had trouble remembering my name. Phillippe showed the judge the contract I had signed on the walk from the jail to the courthouse. The judge motioned me forward; when Phillippe started to follow me, she stopped him with a glare and a growled “Mr. Nivennes, you may not approach the bench!”
In a whisper that I could barely hear, the lady judge asked me, “Did you read this document before you signed it?”
“No, your honor.”
Well, you should have, that man is not lawyering on your behalf, son.” She handed me the agreement. ” But I’ve seen your record, and I don’t care what bad business deals you make, as long as you make them out of town town, and don’t come in front of me again.”
I started to thank her. “Don’t thank me, just turn around slowly, nice and slowly. Walk back to your seat, slowly, not too slowly, though, and flaunt what you got on the way.”
I felt cheap, used, but I complied. I head her mutter a ‘damnfine’ under her breath.
“Time served”, she banged her gavel. “Court dismissed” , And Phillippe and the nameless lawyer escorted me out the side door, and down the hall to the ‘processing:out’ window.
______________
II. Kobe Beefcake
“Kobe Reindeer? Ow!”
“Yah”, Arnë Tsuchiya replied as he manipulated my left butt cheek with fingers akin to an eagle’s talons.
“Grandfather and Pappy tried to interest some swedish reindeer ranchers in introducing the populace to an artisan, high -quality meat product comparable to what our family in Japan was known for. You bane tensing up.”
“Try not tensing when a freaking Sumo-Swede tries lifting you by the glutes!”
Arnë relaxed his grip. “Okay, Im done now.”
I relaxed, let out a sigh of relief.
And the eagle struck again. “Hah, I got you now!” And his fingers went to work.
I should probably point out this isn’t some kinky encounter. We had come to Gotebörg for a shoot, a magazine ad for some expensive watch that was made to look cheap. Go figure.
During the session, the photographer told René that my ass had great potential, but that he had to play with the lighting, and shoot only from certain angles, in order to hide a certain stiffness in my poses.
The ultra-chic massage parlor that Arnë’s father and grandfather opened after their dream of rubbing reindeer butt was already on Rene’s radar. So he took half of my pay for the shoot, bought an afternoon of specialized, body-part-specific massage therapy. Consequently, there I laid, enduring the tender mercies of a swedish accented, half- Japanese flesh tenderizer.
Arnë began a gentle rhythmic pounding on my buttocks, from the base of my spine down to mid-thigh. For this part of the ritual, I imagined the cows returned to the barn on their own.
“Is this shiatsu?”
“Could be, I dunno, I’m Swedish.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” I lifted my head and looked at him in disbelief. He pushed me back flat on the table. “Your last name is Tsuchiya.”
The pounding increased in intensity, the blows coming faster, harder.
“Whats your last name, Jett?”
“Blue, you know that.”
“Yah, yet you aint blue, I bane know that.”
He had a point, I conceded as the blows turned into slaps, quite rhythmic slaps. Really vigorous, rhythmic slaps. Cripes! I was missing his fists.
“You playing In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida back there?”
“Almost done, Braveheart.”
Arnë’s hand suddenly switched from bad cop to good cop mode, gently yet firmly rubbing my withers. I swallowed most of a groan of pleasure.
Arnë laughed. “Groan away, bud. Don’t worry about encouraging me, I’ve got a dozen numbers in my wallet, ladies you would give a nut for just looking at them for 15 minutes. I don’t have time to be gay, I’m booked!”
“I ain’t gay.”
“Denial ees first step too accepting eet.” I hadn’t noticed Phillippe enter the studio.
“Don’t you start, Phillippe, oh my god-ddd!”
Arnë chuckled. “I’m not accepting marriage proposals at this time.” Arnë had stopped rubbing me the right way, and was wiping his hands.
“That was intense!” I said as pushed my head and chest off the table, swung a leg over the side.
Arnë slapped my leg back on the table, and pushed me back down with his right hand.
“Another twenty minutes, then you bane free man.”
“Twenty more minutes of that?” Dogs liked their butts rubbed too, right? They aren’t gay, I reasoned.
But my logic was wasted, as Arnë replied in the negative. “No, that bane over. Now is time for hot stones rub.”
“Sit down, enjoy beer I bought you.”
” I can’t sit down, Philippe. It hurts to sit down. I may never sit down again.”
I notice you walk stiff here,” Phillippe said sympathetically as he gestured at our surroundings.
Draughted was an open- air bar on a pedestrian walkway alongside one of Gotebörg’s canals. The stone walls and flooring gave the place a timeless, exotic ambience that the duo doing injustice to a Jimmy Buffett tune destroyed
“I’m tellin’ ya, I got 3rd degree burns on my ass.”
“Oui, you have a hot derriére.” He pinched my cheek when I tried to hide a smile behind a sour look.
C’mon! Is to look happy so hard? I make joke for you.”
“Jokes are supposed to be funny, you eater of frogs.” “You would eat frogs, and snails too, if zey were covered in ketchup, you uncultured Yankee! You would not be here, and getting paid at that, if not for mean Mr. Moi.”
Phillippe stretched his left hand out toward the canal. “Zis city was old when Columbus came on America.”
“Came to.”
“Eh?”
“Came TO America.”
“Yes, he did. Do you not appreciate how lucky you are? Beauty here,” he turned in his seat, pointed with his right hand to the interior of the 500 year old one-time dwelling of Grieg’s first clavinet teacher. “And in here, the beauty ees een …well, Hello ma Cherie!”
I turned to look, and saw that one of the gals who had been eyeing me from a table nearby had approached the bar. She was about 30, professional-looking, something about the way she held herself told me she was an American and one who ate right and exercised vigorously.
“Excuse me, I don’t mean to intrude, although I guess I have!” She said with a nervous laugh.
I was leaning on the bar sideways to her, and I saw her look down, then back up from south of my belt area to meet my gaze. “My friends and I have a bet that you can settle for us. Oh, gosh this is silly I’m sorry.”
“No,” I said. “Go for it.”
She took a short breath, paused, and asked timidly,
“Are you the guy in the Goth Jeans commercial, the one leaning on the fence, looking at Leonardo?”
“Yeah, thats me.” It was my first shoot, actually. Phillippe had gotten me a fifty-dollars to be part of a insousciance-overdosed crowd of bored, malevolent-looking teenagers, most of whom, including my twenty-three year old self, couldnt be bothered to look at the camera, and…
“You can’t see my face in that ad!” The lady blushed, Phillippe winked. “You recognized my…you knew it was me, because my…?”
“This is embarrassing, I’m so sorry!” Again, her eyes wandered. I felt like a piece of meat, but I was a contented cow.
“Don’t go, I said. “Let us buy you a drink. Whats your name? I’m Jett. ”
“Lucy. My friends, … I should leave and your friend and…”
“Actuallee, ma cherie, I have zee pressing business affaire. ” To me, he said, “Here, buy ze ladies a round for me.” as he handed me several bills that he had pulled from his wallet.
Lucy accepted my arm, and we walked over to her friends’ table. All three seemed disappointed that
I wasnt walking backwards.
From behind me, I heard Phillippe say, “Limo leave for airport sex in morning, be thair, Assanova, haha!”
‘BOSS’ BUNS
“Springsteen? Yeah, I’ve seen them. They’re good.”
” Ees not band,” Phillippe corrected me. “Ees one man with band.”
As he corrected me, Philip was pushing me out of the car, onto the sidewalk in front of a doorway, its wooden functionality in stark contrast to the neo modern plastic facade announcing the presence of Graphic Solutions LTD, among the other gentrified salons and firms on a block in Queens.
Phillippe ran ahead of me and opened the door. He straightened my collar as I walked past him, then followed me into a lobby with a two-story high ceiling, the walls lined with shelves on which both old photographs and ancient cameras were displayed. I recognized a Brownie Hawkeye, with the saucer-shaped flash reflector screwed in place.
Behind the counter was a woman of thirty or so, talking on the phone. She mouthed the words “I’ll be with you in a moment”at us, then returned to her first priority.
“I have to go soon. …all I know is Reddy isn’t paying 40 for bunk…..just bring what you got, he’s gotta shoot to do…some singer went too long between tours, let his ass get flabby. Gotta do some,….” she looked at me. “..retouching. Yeah, bye.”
She hung up the phone. “Mr. Nivennes, Reddy said to …”
A door opened behind us, we turned to see a smallish man, strut into the room wearing all black clothing, with the air of one who expects to be recognized, for his authority if not for his Fame.
I did recognize him. “Mr Rediffer, I really enjoy looking at your pictures, Sir. I…;”
“Oh, he talks! That’s wonderful, Philippe, but I find it best to keep it professional, only talk to the models in there.” he said, pointing at the door leading to his studio. “And then only to tell them to smile or stop fidgeting or smoking so much weed, it dulls the eyes, the anima.”
With that he and Philippe started talking in low voices that implied a desire for privacy.
I pretended I was bored and not rebuffed, and walked over to where the receptionist was pretending to straighten a daguerreotype from the Mexican war.
“Hi!”, I said
“Hi”, she said
“15K.” we heard the photographer say. “Not bad for an afternoon. Say yes, let’s get started, we’re late. ”
“Eef ees such hurry, ees 17k, and buy silence.”
“Come on Philippe, let me make some money here. After all, I called you, old friend.
You called old friend with model has ass can kill. Seexteen-five!
“Sixteen.”
“Seexteen, shake.”
“$16,000?” Even absent Philips share, that would be more money than I’d made any year of my life so far . Honestly, anyway.
Tammy, assuming she was wearing her own name tag, motioned me closer, and began to whisper.
“The guys next album is being promoted like the second coming. They want everything perfect. They want everything done just right, no ifs, ands,” she made show of glancing down and behind me. “or buts.”
Rediffer motioned for everybody to follow him into the studio. Tammy walked beside me , slightly behind, her hand brushed the back of my slacks as she finished her explanation.
I went through the door, expertly guided by Tammy’s left hand. Can’t say I didn’t appreciate the concern.
“But you’ve heard the buzz I’m sure. There’s already millions riding on this album. It could be worth billions, and the money men don’t want anything to derail that train. Anything like a flabby ass gotten by sitting around writing these great songs to begin with.”
“So the album cover is a picture of Bruce’s butt?”
“No, just a shot from behind, of the artist looking at that.” Tammy said, pointing at wall of the studio that had been completely covered with a picture of an American flag, the stripes slightly uneven due to a purely imagined light breeze.
Tammy went on. “But the negative polling, especially among females, was disappointing. When asked, the interviewees who were “unimpressed” or “disappointed” cited an unattractive derriere as their main turn off to the picture.”
Almost as if Rediffer was completing Tammy’s sentence, I heard him tell his lighting assistant
“So we got to get these shots made, approved, and delivered to the printer by tomorrow. ”
Tammy and I stopped within arm’s reach of her boss. He graced us with a glance.
“Now,” he says ” as he hands Phillippe a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a red ball cap, “tell him put these on. There’s a dressing room back that way,” he pointed to the left of the door leading to the lobby.
Instead of walking in the direction Reddifer indicated, I, holding the clothes in my left hand, took the two steps needed to put me right in front of the startled photographer.
I stuck out my right hand. ” Jett Blue, nice t’meetcha.”
When he saw that I was not going to end this until he shook my hand, Rediffer gave me a limp grip that I held onto.
I said, “Now we’re friends. You can talk to me directly from now on okay, friend?”
Tammy moved one step away from me, but Phillippe just gave the photographer a non- committal shoulder shrug. I was proud of my manager, he could have sided with the photographer and told me to be a good boy.
“You bet, uh, it’s over there, the dressing room is, that way.”
I was halfway across the loft space to the door sporting a Knock Before Entering sign. I diverted course slightly to the left to avoid a man sitting on a stool in the shadows.
“Your ass ain’t the only thing with attitude.”
I stopped and turned towards the man, who slid soundlessly off the stool and stepped out of the shadows. He was my height, but seemed taller. His dark leather jacket was worn over a tee-shirt emblazoned with the name of a band that had broken up years ago.
“You’re not from Jersey. Not with that accent. But you got Jersey ‘tude.”
“Detroit. But Mom was raised on the Shore.” By now I realized who I was talking to.
“Man”, I said. “I’ve heard about you, they call you the new Bob Dylan !”
“Don’t know about all that.” He said with a smile. “But thanks.”
I shifted the clothes to one hand so we could fist bump.
“I just came down to make sure my posterior was going to be well represented.” He laughed, “looks like I’m going to have to hit the StairMaster pretty hard to live up to my own album cover!” With that, he turned and headed for the exit.
“S’long, Boss!” I said. He raised his hand about head high in acknowledgment.
I watched as the door closed behind him. “Jeez, his ass Is fat!”, I thought to myself, and went into the dressing room to change. I wasn’t alone.
“They’ve been expecting you.” I said to a lean guy with slicked-backed hair, busily chopping a pile of white powder. He expertly formed four lines with a razor blade as he responded to me.
“(sniff!) Price went up, Rediffer’s gonna blow a gasket. I need to fortify. You the model?” He stepped back, offered me a straw, and pointed to the two shorter lines.
When I straightened back up he took a different straw and made the last two lines disappear. “Mellow Man.” He said as he wiped the chopping surface with his fingers, then rubbed any errant cocaine molecules onto his gums.
“Not bad.” I agreed.
“No, Mellow MAN, that’s my name.”
“Mines Jett, Jett Blue.”
“That’s cool. Be careful.” Mellow Man says, as he puts the razor in a folding leather case.
“I always am”, I said as I turned and started towards the door.
“No, I mean be careful now! I think some fell on the floor. Don’t move your feet!”
He dropped to his knees, started to closely examine the floor. He licked a finger, and touched it to a particle embedded in a crack between the tiles. the particle stuck to his his finger, which he then licked, frowning at the lack of numbness.
After another minute or so of fruitless searching, and distasteful testing, he stood back up.
“Waste not, want not.” He said. Then he looked at the table next to us, bare but for a stack of pamphlets advertising an art gallery.
“What did you do with my case damn it? It was here and now…”
“…now it’s in your left jacket pocket.”
Mellow Man felt around in the pocket, pulled out the case and gave me a sheepish grin.
“Don’t be mad, let’s do another line.”
“I need to get back out there, I’m working.”
He dumped a sand dune-sized hill on the table, grabbed the razor, and started chopping the granules ever finer. “You sure? One more.”
I was feeling no pain, the hill called my name.
“No, I said.” Two more.”
“Damn, that’s the spirit! Coming right up.”
There was a tap on the door.
“Yo, busy!” Mellow Man yelled without looking up from his work.
Tammy walked in anyway. “Jett! 40 minutes and you haven’t even changed clothes yet? Oh, hi Mellow. Red is waiting for both of you.”
“Be there shortly, want some, hun?”
“What?” Oh, yeah, sure.” Tammy had been entranced, watching me strip down, and seeing my killer ass in the flesh. I tightened one bun, and then the other. She caught her breath, gave an approving smile, and went over to the table where Mellow Man waited.
He was scraping the remains into a thin line, Tammy took the straw from his idle hand. I walked out door and back into the studio. The giant flag wall was flanked with lights on towers 7 to 8 ft tall. They must have done that while I was …talking to Mellow Man. I figured that would be where I was needed, so I turned and headed in that direction.
Several knots of people stopped their conversations and looked my way. I ignored them and resisted the paranoic urge to wipe my nostrils clean of coke residue. I had done that three times in the dressing room, I told myself.
That means it’s all over my fingers, myself said back. I shoved the ball cap into my back pocket, and started to lick my fingers, then thought, everyone will see, and know! Of course they knew, I realized later, most of the attendees were doing Mellow Man’s blow. Still, I didn’t want any sparkling cocaine to show up in the pictures now did I?
I stopped in front of the flag, casually let my right hand fall in front of my thigh where I casually let my finger rub across the denim…
There was a flash of harsh white light from behind me. I turned and saw Rediffer smiling for a change. ” Same pose, make sure we got the lighting right. Nice work!”, he added.
The first shot was the best of the lot, it’s the one they used for that album, the one you used to roll joints on in college with a towel stuffed under the door. That’s my ass you stared at as you sang along to Glory days and the title song, the image of my posterior working its way into your subconscious. I think this one-way familiarity with my ass contributed to the success of many future projects with which I was associated.
But what do I know?
The Village Wordsmithy 