A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (43 page)

She is constantly bothering us about the hours we keep. Also about our need to work out more.

“
You wood look much bedda eev you worked out some.
”

We offer to fulfill her obvious wish to see us naked by inviting her to our next photo shoot.

“
I don
’
t have to be nude, do I?
”

“
Actually, yes.
”

“
No.
”

“
No, you won
’
t do it, or no, you don
’
t believe us?
”

“
Both. No.
”

But Judd says yes. It
’
s our second big nude shoot. This time we are setting out to demonstrate what people
’
s bodies actually look like, the exercise being a response to a familiar complaint, of course: the media
’
s and advertising
’
s distortion of our perceptions of our own bodies, how the average person does not and cannot meet the unattainable expectations rammed down our blah blah blah. What we want to do, just to see if it
’
ll work as much as
anything, is to assemble thirty or forty friends and acquaintances, ideally being of thirty or forty different sizes and shapes, and have them pose naked. We will then display the pictures on the page, unadorned, in a simple grid, one God-given body after another, making clear how seldom actual people look like the people seen on TV, how all bodies, while not necessarily all beautiful, are at the very least valid, are real and—

Okay. So. We hire a photographer, a sober, softspoken Dutch fellow named Ron Van Dongen, who will do the shoot, this groundbreaking shoot, almost for free. He asks only for the cost of film and a chance to keep the negatives. Yes. So.

In the interest of demonstrating inclusiveness and diversity, in the interest of making clear that differentiating between this one and that one, discriminating on the basis of size or shape or color, these superficial distinctions, is obscene, barbaric, in the interest of setting all this straight, we make calls looking for volunteers:

Do you have any black friends?

Oh yeah? How light?

Really? I thought he was Indian.

How about large friends?

No, we need guys. We already have enough women.

How big is he?

You think he
’
d do it?

Also, do you know anyone flat-chested?

Like, flat-flat. Bony.

Where is the scar? Is it noticeable?

She has hair where?

In contrast to the first naked photo shoot, this time it
’
s infinitely easier to find people, because at this point we have an actual magazine to show people, and because this time there will be no running-with-penis-flapping, and early on we make two compromises: a) we promise to grant anonymity by cropping the pictures at the neck, and b) we let everyone wear underwear, if not
on top at least on the bottom. We do this for them as much as for practical reasons, realizing with a deep, regret-filled sigh that filling our pages with stark naked people, particularly those whose bodies are clearly imperfect, will not help the magazine
’
s struggling newsstand distribution. Yes, it
’
s another heartbreaking compromise—and do know that each one is a five-lane highway through our souls—but this point must reach America, however tattered it is once it arrives.

Judd says he
’
ll be bringing a friend, another member of the cast. We are thrilled. With two cast members present, this will definitely get on the air, this
’
ll be the thing that pushes us over the edge, and when we see the car coming down the alleyway, an old periwinkle blue Dodge or something, a prototypically San Francisco car, a boxy sunwashed old thing, we can feel the pieces coming together, our doing something sociologically huge, with appropriately sized media coverage, a loud point being properly amplified, disseminated to millio—

There are no cameras. They drive up and—

There is no van following them. I meet them at the car, as they park in the alley behind the studio, and, as casually as I can, I look up and down the alley for the van. But there is no van. There are no cameras. We have expected cameras.

“
Hey,
”
I say.

“
Hey,
”
Judd says.

“
So. No camera crew, huh?
”

“
Naw, they
’
re with Rachel today.
”

“
Oh. Well, good. We sure didn
’
t want those
cameras
getting in our way today, messing everything up.
”

“
Right.
”

“
Cameras can be so distracting...
”

“
Yeah.
”

“
...in your face, recording everything, all the things you say and do.
”

“
Right. Oh, this is Puck.
”

“
Hey.
”

“
Hey.
”

I shake hands with Puck. He is wearing long shorts and a white tank top. He is rangy, pale, his eyes alert in a jarring sort of way. As I have his hand, he starts talking. Quickly, without taking breaths, without blinking. When I hear Puck talk I immediately wonder if Puck is on some kind of speed-oriented drug, some kind of hallucinogen. I have seen TV movies about people on such drugs. There was one with Doug McKeon and Helen Hunt, where she takes PCP and jumps out the school window, falls two stories, gets up, runs around, dies. Maybe Puck is on speed. Is this what speed is like? He will not stop talking.

He is talking about
The Real World,
and how he
’
s going to ride it all the way to the top, that there
’
s no stopping him, that he
’
s also a
bike messenger you know that car road cuts racing motocross fuck yeah shit cool all the way to the top.

He is easily the most unsettling person I have ever met. He has scratches all over his body, including his face. Maybe he has cats? It
’
s hard to tell. He will not stop talking.
Used to ride motocross and there
’
s some fine women in the cast but they seem frigid and yeah, got an agent and party cool shit yeah dude dude dude all right gotta split soon all right dude. Dude.

He is fantastic and horrible. He is magnetic and repulsive. His eyes are hungry,
fucking yeah shoulda seen it dumbshits mamas brews ollie rad bitchin.
He pulls up his shirt to show us his tats.

We all mill in the alley, waiting for our turn with Van Dongen. Kirsten, always the good sport, arrives, and Carla, a smattering of interns and friends, their friends. We have called everyone we know.

One by one, we walk in, close the door behind us, and are alone with Van Dongen in the studio. He motions us to step into a U of white screens, and gestures for us to take off our clothes,
whatever it is we
’
re planning to take off. We do, and when we do, fumbling with exactly what to do with our arms, our hands, we wonder what he thinks of our bodies. We do not know what to do with our hands. We have them at our sides, then in front of our privates, then behind our backs. What can one do with one
’
s hands when the camera is interested in other things? When he shoots, the flashes in front of us and behind us all woosh at once, and we are frozen in the white. Then it is dark again. He takes about five pictures of each person, a few of the front, a few of the back—we can
’
t afford the film to do more—and then we are done, opening the studio
’
s heavy door to the overwhelming light, a hundred times that of the flashes—San Francisco at midday.

But we approve of these people, those who agree to be naked. We think less of those who refuse to do this, our many friends who said no; we deem them not only overly chaste but stingy, small, lacking in heart, a basic sort of courage. We favor those who pose, favor further those who, like Moodie, Marny, and me (and Puck), offer to pose nude, even though the shots are unlikely to be used. Naked! Naked means something, we decide. Those who pose are our people, people who are living the sorts of grabbing lives we favor, people who cannot say no—with all this, how could we, how could anyone, possibly say no?

In the alley, Puck becomes impatient.
Party shit move chicks fuck yeah motocross X9-45GV boozin gotta split.
As we are talking (or he is talking), a small dog comes to us, literally sniffing around. We play with the dog, and soon discover that the dog, though looking well cared for, has no tags. Shortly after meeting the dog, Puck decides that he will be keeping the dog. When he is done with his shoot, Puck and Judd leave, and over our protests and Judd
’
s, Puck grabs the dog, who no doubt belongs to a nearby resident, and brings him to
The Real World
compound, where he will join the cast.

Shortly thereafter, when I
’
m at the house, the one time I visit, playing pool with Judd, I see the dog, and see the other cast mem
bers lolling about, with seemingly nothing at all to do—the show having cornered them into a weird problem: because they
’
re discouraged from working (boring), or traveling (unfeasible), they cannot produce and cannot move, are left to wander from couch to kitchen to bed, talking and waiting to offend or be offended.

When we get the pictures back, Moodie and I pore over them for hours on end. We study them, try to identify who is who. But because the subjects
’
heads are cut off, we cannot immediately discern identities, even our own. We cannot tell the difference between one of our interns and a large, furry man who showed up unannounced. We cannot, much to my embarrassment, tell the difference between Kirsten and Carla, who are both thin and unblemished. Most unsettlingly, it takes a second to tell me from Puck—we have the same shorts, the same build, the same stance. The only difference lies in the tattoos—I have none, while he has a bunny, a bumblebee, a bird. Otherwise, we are shocked by the variance of people, the oddness of our peers, how high that large-breasted woman wears her bra, how furry that guy
’
s back is, how unusually shaped that one
’
s shoulders, how flat this one
’
s butt—it
’
s all so much weirder than we imagined. The variety of malformi-ties, the unexpected flaws, the premature sagging, all the tattoos, flowers and snakes, how hairy all the crotches are, bursting from panties and briefs, that one woman who, even with her breasts obvious, convincing, somehow seems too like a man—

These people.

These people are
freaks.

Worse, Toph thinks he is one of us. Though he had always spent time with my friends—since he was tiny he had known Flagg, Moodie, Marny, et al., had considered them his own friends—lately the confusion had reached a new, distressing level. Though he was doing fine socially, at school, he had been lethargic about pur
suing friendships with kids his own age. He couldn
’
t believe the stupid things they said. The girls were hopeless, the boys just a little better. And so he was never hesitant to attend any social gathering of my own demographic, shied away from no one, especially if the atttendees, mostly strangers, were up for a rousing sort of parlor game. It was not uncommon to find Toph, at one of Marny
’
s barbecues, in the middle of fifteen, twenty people sitting on two couches arranged in a V, briefing the assembled on the rules and subtleties of charades, a game I did not teach him but which he knew well and could readily organize. His presence was so expected socially, and at the office—

Paul:
“
Hey, Toph.
”

Moodie:
“
Hey little man.
”

that when someone noticed him for being him, we would all have to stand back a second and see him for what he actually was, at least superficially: a seventh-grade boy. Of course, he had a difficult time discerning, himself. He had recently made this clear, when he and Marny and I were driving back from the beach. She and I were talking about one of the new interns, who, at twenty-two, was much younger than we had assumed—

“
Really?
”
said Toph.
“
I thought he was our age.
”

He was in the backseat, leaning forward, head peeking between us.