I had listened to my ego, and it was way too loud for its own good.
Even though they were the very same people who trained kids like me for a living, I ignored them like they were the village idiots. To me, baseball was the girl next door. Sweet and loyal, always there for a good night kiss on the cheek. But football was the hot chick that wanted it rough and dirty, who bit and scratched me raw. I kept slithering back for more until she just about ripped my heart out.
One injury turned into another, then another, until finally, the ligaments snapped and my leg began to resemble something like Jell-O. I found the best surgeon I could, and gave him the green light to get in there and fix me up. The surgery was a success, but the results were not. The rebuilt knee was perfectly fine for a regular guy’s life. It did not work for the running back that needed that extra burst of speed and agility to make the play.
I tried to take it like a man, make an honorable exit from the game and move on even though it was like a knife through my gut. Just like that, everything I had worked for and dreamed of, taken off the table faster than a Thanksgiving turkey.
After graduating from college with a degree in business, I did some soul searching. I knew I had blown my one chance of living my passion, so I needed to find something that wouldn’t bore the crap out of me, while keeping me fairly well-funded. Through the years, I had started looking more closely at the action shots that filled my Sports Illustrated magazines. How the photographers were able to make the colors explode from the page. How they could capture the bead of sweat rolling down the pitcher’s face, but blur the faces in the background into nothing more than smudged dirt. It began to stir me, how a moment in time could be captured but the perspective was fluid.
I decided I wanted to learn more about it. Then I set out to become the best.
My technique varies. I change it up depending on what the subject is. Sometimes it’s a straight forward, no bells and whistles, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of shot. Typical for portrait work, still subjects like landscapes, that kind of thing. As I developed my skills, I realized I could actually elicit an emotional response simply by adjusting my light, angling the forehead, the chin, or an ear. Catching a flash of honesty in the eyes of someone you are photographing has become my touchdown. A moment of personal glory so deep and powerful, it’s like a bolt of lightning running up my back and piercing my heart on its way out. Gives me chills just thinking about it.
For a few years, I took every job that came my way. Catalogue stuff, stills for commercials and films, even a few high school senior portraits and modeling portfolios. I needed as much practice as I could get given I had started this from scratch. I made my family and friends promise to be straight up with their critiques, and I took it all in with no ego, which was new for me. I gave myself room to learn, but none whatsoever to fail. There would be no way in hell I would let myself drop another ball and slide back to square one. This time it had to stick.
By now, it has. At this point, my work has gotten enough attention that jobs typically come to me. That’s why I had to hire Melissa a couple years back. I just couldn’t keep track of where I was, where I needed to be, and how to get my stuff shipped to all the right places at all the right times. She’s great. I fully cop to being completely dependent on Melissa to keep my professional life humming. She keeps my calendar in order, books my shoots, and even makes my deposits for me. She gives me the freedom I need to keep this fun. All the other shit that comes with finding a bit of success is a drag.
Just dealing with the women in my life gives me all the drama I can possibly stand. Work stress is unacceptable.
This L.A. job, however, took some time and patience to put together. I was on a short list of photographers Time and the senator were willing to contract with for the photo; now the pressure is on for me to deliver the goods.
Shoot is scheduled for Friday, today is Tuesday. I need to book a flight and get my ass out to L.A. I also remind myself to get Time’s West Coast editor on the line and work out the details. We need to find a mutually agreeable location for the shoot, although I am already planning to be flexible on this. Let this bonehead choose the location. I inject my terms of the deal when I steady my gaze through the lens and summon forth his soul. It won’t be my fault that it’s dark and sinewy, like the snake he is.
Hey, it’s not like I haven’t done my fair share of sowing oats, because I have. The foul-mouthed hottie who just hoofed it out of my house isn’t the first casual fling I’ve enjoyed. Women are appealing to me, but I make no promises. I am who I am, and at this point in my life, I can’t imagine having the intestinal fortitude to wake up to the same face day after day, year after year. I enjoy knowing I can watch them come and go with few complications and limited expectations. Bridget is an exception, I let her get a little too close and I got burned. Usually, I can keep them at enough of an emotional distance to make sure they don’t start in on the demanding girlfriend routine. I am all about the fun, not the strings attached. Even though I have nothing against those tied down, so-called happily married couples who manage to smirk out a smile during Christmas dinner as long as they’re deep into their wine by then, I don’t want to have what they’re having.
I want more.
I want to travel the globe, documenting the bizarre and wonderful things I find in faraway places. I want to capture the Amazon at sunrise, shoot along the Serengeti as wild gazelles dart by, and lift the door tarps of huts deep inside an African village to expose the world of starving families who can’t fill their rice bowls more than three times a week.
I want my camera to be a searchlight, to seek out the guilty and the innocent, the powerful and the meek. I want to honor nature and humankind with each click of my shutter. Then maybe I will think about finding just the right girl who is enough like me to make it work.
For now, I’ll focus on a philandering fuck-up who might have been president.
Chapter Three: Ahmed
It will be hard to leave the boy. He is as gentle and sweet as a newborn lamb. His intentions are pure; his need is great. There are moments I find myself lost in his half moon eyes. Their color is liquid velvet. A brown so deep and translucent it can resemble ebony, then catch the morning sun and appear almost like spun gold. My heart aches with pride, and sadness that I will never see him become a man, or a father.
I know I must sacrifice in the name of my mission. This path has been awaiting my sure foot for many years, brought to me long before my child’s mother became my mate, and many years before I would hear his rapid-fire heartbeat in those first few weeks of life in-utero. At times, I must remind myself to remain resolute in purpose, because there is a portion of this that has left me unsettled. The boy will not know my reasons. He will know my name, he will know my actions, but he will never know the thoughts that have kept my mind focused and my vision clear for all this time.
I have thought about writing to him. Putting this all down in words that he will read one day when he is old enough to wonder who I was. I often whisper to him, using verse he cannot yet understand to explain how I became who I am. I describe to him the life I used to have. I try to speak deeply into his tiny ear, to send my words directly into his developing brain as if I can leave my own personal imprint on his earliest memories. These will become the days that will undoubtedly haunt him. When his father was close, and he was good, and he loved him with gentle hands and a full heart.
There will be those who will tell him I was evil. His mother may curse my very existence and work to erase me from his life entirely. I shall not blame her for that will be a natural reaction to what is about to unfold. She does not share my desire to punish the one who started all of this; she does not even know of it. The woman has no power over me, but I will regret hurting her and abandoning our shared responsibility with
