I art directed a photoshoot yesterday the subject of which was a Monk

You don’t want to know the short form of that sentence, do you?

I SHOT A MONK!

We of the photography set refer to our work as shooting but that’s over for me.

What are you shooting today? we ask or Who or Where or When

But I have changed my clature, Norman.

I art direct for a Health and Wellness magazine and this time it’s The Urban Buddhist Monk on the cover and he also gets a three-page article so we need three pics of him, one cover-worthy and then two for inside and if you can only get one good one, which happened last issue, it’s fine.

I used a new photographer this time his name O’shane and his assistant Ishmel both young and interesting and talented guys, at the beginning of their careers while I am in my twilight but still eager, you know, I’m not one of those art directors who just look at the screen and say a little left.

Anyway I was in no frills Thursday, the night before the shoot, and my phone rang which is always a panic-tinged kerfuffle but especially when Anna said she’d pick me up so I HAD to get it and by the time I found it the ring seemed to be waning like I could tell she was losing interest but there she was all bubbly and ten minutes away and chatty so we shot the shit, the phone squeezed precariously between my chins and my necks as I manoeuvred the cart and filled it up and she asked if I was working tomorrow, which was yesterday, and I said yes I am shooting a monk.

Pause

So you see where the nomenclature needs to switch back to the more awkward we are taking pictures of a Monk, or having an old-fashioned photo-session, because the way I said it I could have ended up I don’t know where.

Of course the Monk, was wonderful – as I suppose goes without saying – it’s like saying a scientist is smart or an athlete fit

I took the GO train to the temple about a 45 minute ride and I love GO trains and this is twice as long a ride as when I go in to work so I was excited for the rolling opportunity to continue with my dastardly stories from The Shrinks Next Door. I was working on a juicy deviant called Simon Deslaurier and then about half way there you know I was thinking about the shoot – the session I mean – and I figured I’d better stop writing and thinking altogether about old Simon so deliciously dark because what if the Monk can see into my mind?

So I started writing a love story on purpose and here it is if you feel like reading it, and if you don’t, here it isn’t

THROW JACKSON

Sometimes I just feel like telling a love story, with a happy ending and none of that conflict that people are told they need in stories.

We had enough of it growing up you see and I don’t only mean the stuff what was brewing behind Walter Cronkite’s shoulder on the nightly news. The conflict I am talking about was in our community almost like the religious poison in Northern Ireland my dad didn’t talk about but my Uncle Ted spewed in accented mouthfuls when he was flying on the whiskey my mother called it.

The Ford plant was on the west side of our village and the GM plant on the east. Our parents worked at Ford and we had to be careful who we palled around with. It wasn’t enough our friends had brains courage heart, no, they had to be full-blood Fords.

Our village consisted of practically identical houses, two same-faith churches kiddy corner, a public school and a high school, a plaza all lined up with a grocery store one end, Village Variety, a drug store where the pharmacist looked like Alfred Hitchcock and my dad used to go in and say good eeeeevvvening no matter what time of day it was, a hardware store, a barber shop, a beauty parlour although I can’t figure out in my head where it goes, a greek restaurant, Hunt’s bakery, Judy’s women’s wear with the most elegant mannequins looked like they were like frozen on a dance floor.

The bluffs were very big and dangerous clay cliffs upon which we teetered and climbed, the forbidden Lake Ontario below is how we learned to lie. Let’s see if I can put that into words: In the same way we knew there was no Santa Claus, our parents knew we swam in the lake, but we were able to maintain a beautiful and mutual lack of acknowledgement of both these things throughout our childhood.

Some love story, huh?

We none of us kids wanted conflict which made us I don’t know if lackadaisy is the right word I’ve never tried it out before but it certainly made us in the lower echelon of ambition and zero competitive urges except for a few whose parents were teachers or ministers or business people including Throw Jackson, whose parents owned the hardware store, so it was okay that he was my brother Tommy’s best friend.

Everybody called Throw Throw same way we called Shorty Shorty and Whitey Whitey I mean one look at him you knew he had an arm but that was only half of it there was also his eyes.

Everybody was always trying to start something. My dad had a handful of opening lines he’d bring out after a drink or two like dangling a fist but most of the time it was only a tiresome series of jokes and punchlines that never varied I can’t even bear to type them out.

I grew up on Fords he always said and he’d pause look around with that half-smile waiting for a GMer to contradict him but it was Throw had the best line out of all of them I ever heard.

That’s why you’ll never get scurvy.

My dad turned to him what?

All the lemons.

I’d never seen a kid like Throw didn’t give a shit who he made fun of and talked to everybody the same including teachers, parents, cops, pets, beggars, choosers, and even me, Tommy’s pale little sister on the verge of invisibility.

Whatddya think, Stella?

I just looked at first didn’t smile or anything and he’d say it again like he actually was waiting for an answer.

Stella. What do you think?

And he’d wait. He’d actually wait and my thoughts so unused to the air kind of quivered on my lips you know my voice so small he’d lean a little my way and sort of nod at every word, you know, acknowledge each of them until I’d finished and then he’d look at me and smile, close his eyes in conjunction with a little nod or two, he’d squint and say well that’s interesting.

All you need is one person to think you’re worth listening to and you get your voice.

But this was supposed to be a love story.

I saw Throw again by chance just last fall we both were home for Thanksgiving – he plays ball for the Kansas City Royals and I hadn’t seen him in five years except on TV – those eyes came right at me from across the parking lot and I don’t know what to tell you but I’m going to Kansas City again next Thursday. There’s no place like it.