'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?'
'Maybe I don't want to be an asshole anymore.'
'Damnit, Geof. You shot that fucking Piet.'
I'd known, even when I came in, that sooner or later he'd bring that picture up. you, Eddie Adams, Nick Ut… master images… made history… changed our perceptions of the war.' He glanced at my portfolio box.
'Forget this arty crap. Sleeping with your cameras, squeaking by-that's no kind f life. Stick to what you know, what you do better than most anybody else. Like it or not, Geof, you're a photojournalist.' He peered at me shrewdly.
'If it's the money Look-I'll try to get you twenty-five.'
'It's not the money 'What is it, then?'
'I'm no longer a photojournalist.'
I must have been convincing; from the way he looked at me I could tell my message was finally sinking in. He sat back, shrugged, and then he whispered, 'Then you don't really belong here, do you, Geof? You probably shouldn't come in here anymore.'
I smiled. For a moment he seemed confused. Then he smiled too.
'Yeah! I called you. You didn't come up to sell me. Shit, I'm so used to guys trying to hustle me for jobs…' He stood up.
'Come on, let's get the hell out of here, go get ourselves a drink.' He slipped on his jacket.
'they got this phony English pub downstairs.'
On the way to the elevator he slapped me on the back.
'Respect you, Geof. Really do. Wish I had your guts. Hundred guys I know'd give their left ball to do what you did-say to hell with it, give it up.'
Downstairs in the bar he continued in the same vein. By the third drink his eyes began to mist.
'Boy, you really did it right. Got off the old treadmill while you still had something to say. Became an artist. Confronted photography.
Used it to discover who you are. Your work's solid, Geof. Better than that. It's damn fuckin' good. I you. And you were right to turn me down. But it pay-isn't that the trick?'
It was past midnight when I finally stumbled home, full of rare steak and expensive Scotch, and in an awful self-pitying mood. That's always the problem when you drink with guys like Jim; they spread it around like a disease.
There wasn't anyone to come home to either, just a couple of disconnects on the answering machine, and my big view camera parked in the middle of the room. I stared at the lens opening and it stared back, one big reproachful eye. I splashed cold water on my face, then turned the camera to the wall. I didn't want it to see the way I felt. Jim didn't know it, but it hadn't been on principle that I'd turned him down. Three weeks' work for twenty grand-I'd have done almost anything for that. The truth was I had lost my nerve, though not the way he thought. It wasn't the madmen's bullets that scared me off Beirut, or the danger in the streets, or the possibility of being kidnapped, though all that was real enough. It was the certain knowledge that I couldn't carry out the assignment, because the assignment involved photographing people.
You see: it had been three years since I'd shot a human face.
The next morning I was still in bed, hung over, feeling bad, when the phone rang hard against my ear.
'Hi! It's me-Kimberly. Getting you at a bad time?' And then, before I could answer: 'I'm just downstairs and around the corner. I was wondering… could I pop up?'
'What time is it?'
'Quarter past ten. Didn't wake you, did I, Geoffrey?'
'Where are you?'
'Corner of Nassau and Ann.'
I wrapped a sheet around my waist, then carried the phone to the window.
She was standing in the booth on the corner in front of the bronze plaque embedded in the building wall that says Edgar Allan Poe wrote 'The Raven' on that very spot. what are you doing downtown so early?'
'Early audition,' she said.
'Get the part?'
'they turned me down. I didn't want it anyway.'
I didn't believe a word. There are no auditions, early or otherwise-not in my part of town. But she was looking pretty good down there in her New York actress model garb, chest straining against the fabric of her T-shirt, rear stretching the bottom of her tight and beltless jeans. She was sexy and she knew it, and it seemed she'd worked up some kind of crush on me too. Why else come around after the way I'd talked to her the day before? he actually seemed to be panting as she waited for me to speak. Yeah, she was looking good, full of life, and I needed something good just then. Something fresh, warm and alive. Maybe, I thought, somehow, there might be a way…
'Tell you what, Kimberly-why don't you go around the corner, get yourself some coffee. Give me about twenty-five minutes. Then come back and ring the bell.'
I recall my first thought when she came through the door, that she was even better-looking than I remembered. A little older to closer to twenty-five than twenty-one. There was an appealing sultry eagerness about her that made me sorry I'd been rude. to anyone. Ever. That's how attractive she was.
'Hi!'
'So this is where you live?'
'Live and work,' I said.
She glanced at the walls.
'Nice. Mind if I look around?'
I shrugged.
