Читать книгу Kameleon Man - Kim Barry Brunhuber - Страница 7

I knew I was in trouble last winter when I first noticed the hairs growing out of my shoulders. The first strands, long and curly, were misplaced pubes. Now I have two fine epaulettes of black hair—a matching set to go with my legs and chest. I’m as hairy as a tarantula.

“You’re the hairiest brother I’ve ever seen,” Augustus says, accosting me on the way to the shower. “Turn around, Pappa. Come out here. Check him out.” He pulls me with one arm into the living room where Breffni and Crispen are slurping cereal.

“Ugh,” Breffni says. “Put him away. We’re eating.”

“Ever think of shaving?” Crispen asks.

“Cream’s the ticket,” Augustus says.

I saw a tube of Augustus’s cream in the bathroom. Lye, thinly diluted with the promise of vitamin E. The warning, if it had one, would read: “Do not combine with skin. Not for internal or external use. If ingested, induce vomiting and call next of kin.” No thanks. I’d live with my fur. All the models these days shave, pluck, or wax. But as we all know, fashion works in cycles. Hairiness used to be next to godliness, considered by many a sign of virility. At least it was in those old sitcoms and pornos. Surely the trend of making all male models as smooth as marshmallows must come to an end. And when it does, I’ll be ready, my coat, glossy and neat, my puffs of shoulder hair, angel wings.

I slink back into the shower. To my surprise, yesterday’s trickle of hot water is a monsoon. All of my anxieties about the morning’s go-see swirl clockwise down the drain. My penis sings in the rain. Back out, covered in a T-shirt and sweater, I tell them about the wood lice in the bathroom.

“Wood lice?” Augustus asks, incredulous.

“Are they contagious?” Breffni is only half kidding.

“Only if you’re made of wood,” Crispen says.

“They don’t actually eat wood. They live on rotting vegetable matter. They’re attracted to moisture and dark corners. So let’s try to leave the door open from now on.”

“How come you know so much about bugs?” Crispen asks.

“My mother’s a zoologist.”

“That sounds serious. What happened to you?”

“I thought I wanted to follow in her footsteps when I was young, but I failed grade nine science for salting all the worms and I never recovered.”

“So what’d you do in school?” Crispen asks.

“I took psych, concentrating on the biological basis of behaviour. But I started looking at myself like I was a stranger, so I dropped out. And here I am. Now can I get some food? We’re going to be late.”

I eye the bag of Lucky Charms, but Breffni warns me off with a look. I reach instead for the bag of desiccated generic flakes of corn on the top shelf, pour them into the only bowl left, a tea cup, then jump back in horror.

“Don’t worry,” Crispen says. “The black ones are lucky.”

I dump the bowl into the sink and settle for some leftover bee spittle on toast.

“You look like you could use a caffeine suppository,” Crispen says. “You’d best perk up. This is the big day. Your first cattle call. Your first taste of who’s hot and who’s snot. And you’ll get to meet Chelsea Manson.”

“Don’t trust Manson,” Breffni warns. “He’ll steal the eye out of your head. But he’s a good agent. At least the clients seem to like him. And that’s really all that matters. As long as he gets the bookings. But he’s gotta like you, or you’re done.”

It’s only 8:30, and already I’m stressed. I pop some vitamin C for courage and some iron for good luck. “By the way, I took a message for Simien from Feyenoord while you guys were sleeping.” I wave the pink piece of paper. “What do I do with it?”

Augustus smiles. “What do we do with messages for Simien, C.J.?”

“We put it in his in-box.” Crispen takes the slip of paper, holds it aloft for a second, then lets it waft slowly into the bin by his side.

I frown. “That’s the garbage can.”

Crispen nods. “Indeed.”

“Well, if he asks, what do I tell him?”

“Don’t worry about him. Just concentrate on your audition. Are you going to wear that?”

“You don’t like it?” I glance at my lucky sweater. It got me hired at Moore’s and laid in Syracuse.

“You need something tighter, so they can see your body,” Crispen says. “This isn’t a flippin’ Christmas pageant. They’d have us parading around naked if it were legal.”

I check out what they’re wearing. Breffni’s baby blue T-shirt is almost transparent; Crispen’s yellow one clings like a wetsuit.

“Remind me to take you shopping,” Crispen says. “You can wear one of mine for now. Just try not to sweat, okay?”

I admire myself in the windowpane outside the agency. In this V-neck shirt even I have muscles. The only flaws are my chest hairs sprouting above the low-cut shirt like weeds.

“And there’s the lovely and talented Crispen Jonson. You’ll do our show, n’est-ce pas?”

The speaker and another man are coming out the door as we mount the steps. The one with the scarf grabs Crispen by the collar and teases him about the time he went on without his shoes. The other one, the guy wearing what appears to be a uniform from a Chinese prison, stares at me but says nothing. Breffni trails sullenly behind us, still annoyed at being woken up just for this.

“It’s a zoo in there,” the one with the scarf says, turning to the rest of us. “Chelsea didn’t tell us he was holding a cattle call at the ranch, or we wouldn’t have come. He didn’t even offer us treats. Anyhow, have to go. See you.” He points at Crispen. “Next week.” And they’re off down the stairs.

“Who are they?” I ask.

“The Zaks brothers,” Crispen says. “Tom’s a designer. His brother—I forget his name—is a stylist. They’re good, and they put on great shows. I’d be surprised if they don’t book you, the way Tom’s brother was checking you out. They like to add a dash of pepper to their shows.”

Breffni catches up to us. “They’re not that good, their shows are weird, and they pay lousy.”

“But they always hire the nicest-looking women,” Crispen says. “And there’s free booze.”

The hall inside is wall-to-wall models. One of them bumps into Crispen and gives him a punch of recognition. “Are you doing the Felicity show this year?”

“Every year,” Crispen tells him.

“Maybe this time we’ll, like, actually be wearing clothes,” the newcomer says, laughing. “See you there.” He disappears into the crowd.

“You do a lot of shows,” I say.

Crispen shrugs. “They like my walk. I don’t know why. I never learned how to do it or anything. They just seem to like it.”

“He usually walks with a toothpick in his mouth,” Breffni says.

“With a toothpick?”

“It was one of my first shoots,” Crispen says. “I was nervous and forgot to take it out. And they loved it. So I do it sometimes, so people know it’s me. Kind of like a trademark.”

“What else do you do?” I ask, hoping to glean some last-minute tips before it’s my turn.

“I can’t...there’s no room in here. We have to check in first, anyway, tell them we’re here. It’s first come, first served unless you have a shoot today.”

“Last time Eva was here I grew a beard waiting in line,” Breffni says.

Thin flamingoes and burly Bobs are lined up in all directions. I grimace. “All these people are ahead of us? It’s not even quarter past nine yet. Why can’t we tell them we have to be somewhere?”

“There’s no such thing as having to be somewhere unless you have a shoot,” Breffni says. “And they’d know if you have a shoot. They book your shoots. Trust me. I’ve been through it a billion times. All you can do is wait your turn.”

Rianne is at the foot of the stairs, clipboard in hand. She’s not at her best. She looks about as good as she did at last call the previous night. We make our way over, and Rianne adds our names to the list. She doesn’t look me in the eye.

“I’ll tell you when to go in.” She points to a set of large silver double doors. “In there. When I call you. Crispy, Breff, you know the drill.”

We shuffle off, and I grin. “Crispy?”

“If you ever call me that, I’ll rearrange your face like you were Mr. Potato Head. I take it from her ’cause I’m paid to.”

Crispen herds us toward the wall near the doors where all the other models are loosely lined up. It’s as if the cops put out an APB on anyone under twenty-five and over five foot eight. A summons served to all ablebodied models. An old-fashioned cattle call. And the cattle bear the same brand—we’re all Feyenoord models. There are so many of us that I can’t believe there’s enough work to feed everyone, let alone the other models from the other agencies in the city. I pray for a model-borne plague and carnivorous runways. A model-eating lizard.

“Breff...”

Breffni turns. Rianne is on the stairs. She touches the corners of her lips and pulls them up in a smile. If she were any greener, she’d look like the Joker.

“Why am I even here?” Breffni mutters.

“Why are you here?”

“He’s here,” Crispen says, “because if he doesn’t come, he knows they’ll never put him up for any auditions he actually wants. Business is business, but they’re petty like that. It looks bad for them if their best models are all no-shows. That’s why I go through this crap every year.”

“How come Augustus got out of it?”

“Biggs? He’d be here if he thought he had a chance. But every year, when the Europeans make their rounds, they always tell him the same thing. He’s too big to fit the clothes. I keep telling him to bulk down, but he just keeps getting bigger. I think he’s addicted to being huge.”

“Maybe the muscles have actually grown over his brain,” Breffni suggests. “They’re slowly squeezing it into juice.”

“I think he’s like that creature from that cartoon. He absorbs all the rejection. All the negative energy just makes him bigger.”

We stand shoulder to shoulder, surrounded by guys in their twenties and fifteen-year-old girls in cutoff T-shirts. Exposed navels. Illegal thoughts.

“How old are these girls, anyway?” I ask.

“Impossible to tell without carbon-dating,” Breffni says.

“Young enough to need a permission slip from their parents.” Crispen grabs my head and whispers in my ear. “See that guy?” He points into the crowd.

“The guy with the blond hair?”

“Yeah, he’s garbage. Can’t walk. About as much talent as a Japanese rock star. Don’t trust him. Last time we were at a shoot he gave me a piece of gum that makes your breath smell like puke. All day everybody kept moving away from me, and I couldn’t figure out why no one wanted to be on my side of the group shot. He said it was a joke, and we all laughed about it, but I heard him later in the change room talking to one of the ad guys about my stinking breath. But don’t worry, pretty boy,” he says in the general direction of the tall blond, “when you least expect it...”

“Watch your tongue, C.J.,” Breffni says. “If people hear you and he happens to break his face, they’ll be after you.” To me, he adds, “Not only do the walls have ears, they have fists. It’s a small world, modelling. Everybody knows everybody.”

“Payback...” Crispen nods, still glaring at the blond. Then he peers at me. “How did you get into this crazy business, anyway?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have forever.”

“Well...the abridged text? This girl Melody got me into it.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Ex-girlfriend. She told me I was good-looking enough to be a model. I wanted to find out if that was true. So I did.”

“And how’d you end up here?”

“The Faces contest.”

“You won Faces?”

The tone of incredulity whenever I mention Faces is beginning to grate. “No. Manson spotted me and told me I could work here. No guaranteed contract or anything.” I look at Crispen. “What about you? How’d you get here?”

“Later. I think Rianne just called my name.”

Crispen pushes through the throng and disappears into the room. I follow behind him to the silver doors. They aren’t closed all the way, and through the crack I glimpse flashes of Crispen as he struts for his hidden audience. It’s the strangest walk I’ve ever seen, in that he doesn’t have one. He just walks the way he walks—lopsided, two full sneakers of attitude, and fully toothpicked.

“Chelsea spotted him in a bar in North Carolina.” Breffni is beside me, peeking through the doors.

“What was Crispen doing in North Carolina? And what was Chelsea doing there?”

“Chelsea? I’m not sure. I think his lover at the time was a freshman at one of the universities. He used to fly to Raleigh every second weekend. Crispen was going to school there till he got kicked out.”

“For what?”

“Not my place to tell. You’ll have to ask him.”

Breffni and I each get a door in the forehead as Crispen pushes against them from the inside.

“Already?” I ask. He couldn’t have been in there more than three minutes.

“It only takes five seconds to say no and two minutes to explain why. I’ll meet you guys outside.”

“Stacey?” Rianne flaps her hand at me. My turn.

Eva is disappointingly plain. She’s a tanned, greying woman, wrinkled like her green scarf. She smells of cigar, and her eyebrows are pulled taut like bows. “Hello, dear. Please sit,” she says in an accent I assume is Greek. Her mouth moves, but her eyebrows don’t. She motions to the stool in front of her.

I hand her my book. She flips through without lingering on any of the shots. The kiss of indifference. Hope evaporates like milk.

“Very nice, thank you. Would you walk for me, please?”

The room has its own mini-ramp, raised carpeted blocks that form a capital L. I do my best, but between Breffni’s advice and Crispen’s example, my confident walk becomes a limp. My hips are out of joint, my arms feel six feet long. They swish uselessly at my sides, and my smile at the top of the L catches her checking the clock on the wall. I would have done better to crawl along the ramp on all fours or wriggle up and down it like a snake. At least I would have arched those impossible eyebrows, earned a story over cocktails back in Greece. My shoulders slump, my feet are broken. I keep moving until she delivers the coup de grâce—a curt thank-you. Returning to my perch on the stool, I’m ready to be dismissed.

“You seemed much more relaxed at the end. That’s good.”

“I guess resignation can be a relaxing influence.”

She smiles. “You have a nice look but not much experience. And, to be honest, there isn’t a big market for blacks with us right now. But if you plan on coming to Greece, please give us a call.”

She doesn’t specify who “us” is, or give me any way of reaching them, but it’s better than “Are you sure you want to be a model?”—the line one of my friends in Nepean was slapped with at his last go-see.

I slide off the stool, feeling as if I’m still on the ramp—eight inches off the ground, drunk on adrenaline. I’m more excited by this first failure in Toronto than I was by my first success in Nepean. I might have struck out, but at least I’m in the game. I push through the doors, too hard maybe, nailing a peeping model on my way out.

Chelsea Manson’s goatee is gone and his hair is now silver, but he’s still wearing black and laughing at everything. Like those sinister characters in black-and-white movies who find everything funny. Then he stops laughing. “But where’s Simien? He hasn’t checked in for a couple of days.”

I shrug. “He...I haven’t seen him yet. He doesn’t really live with us anymore.” I wonder if I’ve said too much.

“Well, where the hell is he then? He missed a shoot yesterday. Just didn’t show up. He’s never done that before. Did you give him the message?”

“I never got any message. I just got in yesterday.”

“Right, right.”

Manson laughs. “But listen,” he says, scribbling a date, time, and name. “This is for Thursday. Make sure he gets it. His phone isn’t working, his pager isn’t working. I’m thinking about sending pigeons.” He laughs again. “But enough of that. How did it go with Eva?”

“She told me to look her up if I ever get to Greece.”

“Too bad. Well, don’t worry. You’re beautiful. We’ll get you ready in time for Kameleon.”

“What’s that?”

“Kameleon? That’s the day Kameleon Jeans comes to town.”

“Who’s that?”

“They’re the hottest company around these days, ad-wise. You remember those spots with the blind albino guy?”

“No.”

“They’re huge.”

“Where’s Kameleon from?”

“Germany, I think.”

“And when are they here?”

“In about two months. Plenty of time. You’ll be the talk of the town by then. Now let’s take a look at your book.”

He studies every shot from every angle, chuckles at the last one—me knee-deep in snow. He slides it out of my portfolio and hands it to me. “We won’t be needing this one. Give it to your mother. Hmm.” He’s looking at the shot of me, shirtless, on a deck, supposedly sunning myself. “The chest hair, eh? Yeah, that may have to go.” He looks at me. I stare back. “Just a thought.” After a moment, he says, “Oh, boy, that’s a pretty serious scar on your shoulder. Have you ever thought of surgery?”

“The scar’s from surgery.”

“Oh, keep it then. Scars are sexy.” He laughs once more, snaps the book shut. “Well, we’ll have to do some testing. I know a few photographers looking to shoot a couple of creatives soon. But your look is catalogue. That’s where you’ll be the most marketable. I’ll get Shawna to arrange some go-sees with The Bay, Sears, the other big ones, and we’ll have to make a new comp card. These old DBMI paper flyers...”

He rips them out of the front pocket of my book. “More souvenirs for Mom. Tomorrow go to Copy Cat and they’ll set you up with a new one. Until you get some new shots, you can use this one, this one, and this one.” He plucks three shots from my book. “For the front.” He greasepencils an F on the top corner of one. “And these two.” He marks a B on the others. “For the back. Highest quality laser copies. Colour on cardboard, of course. They’ll be able to shrink them down to the right size because they have our comp-card format on computer file. It’s all done digitally now. Are all these measurements right? And tell them just to use your first name. From now on you’re Stacey. There can’t be too many other guys around called Stacey.

“We’ll want to put you on the next head sheet. Right here.” He points to a spot at the top of the poster. All the models’ heads are shrunken into little boxes, as in a high-school yearbook. The top row is prime real estate. Oceanfront property. “That’ll be about $400, I think. Shawna will give you the exact amount.”

Four hundred dollars is more than three times what I shelled out to be on the DBMI head sheet. But in Toronto a head-sheet shot pays for itself with one booking. Feyenoord sends the head sheet off to clients. Clients see the head sheet, ask to see your book. If they like your book, they ask to see you. And then they book you. At more than $100 an hour. The head sheet is a bargain at twice the price. It’s like taking an ad out for yourself.

“And here’s a voucher book.” He hands me a small white loose-leaf volume with the Feyenoord F in black on the cover. “The white copy goes to the client, the yellow one goes to me, the pink you can keep. One of the models can show you how to fill it out. Your hourly rate is—let’s make it $150 an hour to start. It’s not much, but we’ll top it up once clients get to know who you are. Then they’ll be lining up all the way down Yonge Street to book you. Of course, twenty-five percent comes off for commission.”

I’m still giddy about my rate—$150 an hour would buy a knapsack full of black-and-white film. Maybe even that digital Nikon I’ve been eyeing for months. I only made $80 an hour in Nepean. But as my elementary arithmetic finally kicks in, I realize that with a twenty-five percent commission I’ll be left with about the same amount of cash.

“I’m just wondering. I only paid a fifteen percent commission at DBMI. Where—”

“We charge the standard fifteen percent. Another five goes to DBMI as the parent agency.”

I forgot about Sherri Davis and Liz Barron. They didn’t send me to Toronto for my health. But my calculator is still working.

“Now...”

“The other five percent? Contingency fee. To cover the cost of the courier service, sending your book off to clients, that sort of thing. If the cost of doing all that is less than the five percent we take off, we give you back the difference at the end of the fiscal year.”

“Oh.”

“But enough about money. Would you like some tea? Where are you staying?”

“With Crispen, Augustus, and Breffni.”

“Is he smoking weed?”

I’m not sure which one he’s referring to, but I shake my head, anyway.

“I can smell it on your shirt. Tell him to give it a rest. Listen, before you go, one thing. This city is the Bermuda Triangle of models. A lot of good ones get lost. Drugs, partying, women. Men. You’re with Feyenoord now. You represent us. Promise me you’re going to keep your ass so clean you fart bubbles.” He snorts and slaps me on the back, then calls after me, “On your way out check with Shawna. I think she has something for you today.”

The hallway is still bumper-to-bumper with models. I elbow through, going out of my way to step on the toes of Crispen’s blond enemy, but he doesn’t feel a thing. He’s up next.

One might think being dunked on is the most humiliating experience in basketball. Not so. If someone crowns you by dunking on your head, as long as it doesn’t look as if you tried too hard to stop him, you can wipe the eggshells from your forehead and jog back on offence. You can still shoot it in his eye—a jumper from the top of the key—then talk some trash. Two points by any other name are just as sweet. Being dunked on is easily forgotten. The shame of having your shot blocked, on the other hand, lasts until you win the next game. It’s not only the shot that’s being rejected, it’s you, your best effort, erased, wiped away by a wave of the arm. The grunt when the basketball hits his hand, the look—is this the best you can do?—and the ball sails away out-of-bounds perhaps, or toward the other basket, the start of a fast break. A four-point turnaround. Return to sender.

I’ve used up all my moves trying to get past the other guy. My knees snap, crackle, and pop. No warm-up. I’m as flexible as a basketball. I stumble forward, lean backward, unable to gather my legs under me to elevate. I resort to the first move you ever learn, the one they teach you in school, the one you unlearn on the playground. The shot of the desperate and the white. The fadeaway. But I can’t fade past him. I’m a flightless Bird. My opponent is bearded and dreaded, with conical calves. He doesn’t even bother to swat my shot. Instead he grabs it out of the air with two hands and is on his way before I can call foul or feign a twisted ankle.

The clients, representing Punch Cola, make notes on their clipboards. A line is drawn left to right. A name, perhaps my own, is crossed out.

“Okay, boys, playtime’s over. Line up, take off your shirts one at a time, then run some lay-ups or whatever. Show us what you’ve got.”

I slink to the back of the line and peel. The only one skinnier than me is the man with the big black clipboard giving the orders. Each model takes his turn, launching himself at the rim, vaulting on unseen springboards. Dunks, double-clutches, three-sixties. Breffni goes for a reverse lay-up off the glass. Augustus frightens the rim with a tomahawk dunk. Crispen draws a murmur, throwing himself an alley-oop, tucking it neatly into the bottom of the net. He jogs back into line behind me.

“You should’ve put some cream on your legs,” he whispers. “You’re ashy like Vesuvius.”

I nod. Right now I have bigger things to worry about than my dry legs. It’s almost my turn.

“And thanks for the shoes.” Crispen hands me back my sneakers. He forgot his.

I lace the sneakers slowly. Like a boxer desperately down on points, I’m reduced to swinging wildly, going for the bomb. On my rare Sunday-afternoon forays onto the basketball court I can usually convince the ball over the rim on the third or fourth attempted dunk, at least on the outdoor hoops bent by the weight of hard-core ballers and kids with chairs. But in recent years basketball rims have receded like my hairline. This elementary-school hoop is shrouded in clouds. Seagulls circle overhead. I think back to high-school days, track and field, sixth place in the class high-jump finals. I breathe. I measure. I run. But my approach is all wrong. More like a triple jump—unnatural, three-legged. The ball and I sail under the rim, through the mesh, and into the wall. Thankfully it’s padded with a blue mat. I peel myself off, leave a vertical pond of sweat on the plastic. Lucky for me the poster Punch Cola hastily taped to the wall doesn’t come down. Bruised, ashamed, I trot to the back of the line. If I weren’t brown, I’d be red. I don’t get another attempt.

“Schmidt, Battis, thank you very much. Everyone else I call, please grab a blue script from the table. The rest, take a white one.”

Battis, the other first-round cut, is lanky and pale. He’s the only model on whom my crossover move actually worked. It’s a long walk out of the lineup to the wall with the watercolors where our bags are lying. The other models try not to look at us; some are already reading through the script and practising the line. It’s at moments such as these that one wishes for the existence of transporter beams. Spontaneous combustion. I don’t even bother to change. I stuff my bag and hoist it onto my shoulder. Behind me the man with the big clipboard shouts, “Please slate for the camera! Your name, agency, look left, look right. Then read the line. And keep your shirts off, please.”

The wood lice are hiding, and the mushrooms under the bowl toilet have been harvested. I’m alone in the bathroom, waiting for the others to come home. The longer they’re at the audition, the more aware I become that I’m not.

I haven’t cried since the day my father gave us his new phone number, and I chuckle as the tears snail down my face. I didn’t expect to land the role. After all, what are the chances of a rookie grabbing a speaking part in a national soft-drink commercial? A commercial worth hundreds up front, thousands in residuals. Why Shawna sent me out for an audition casting for basketball players is beyond me. It reminds me of my humbling high-school gym class, being picked by substitute teachers to demonstrate basketball drills. They always looked baffled when I said I couldn’t play, as if I’d told them I couldn’t walk. Being embarrassed on the basketball court this morning isn’t the thing that hurts—I’m used to that by now. Nor is it being rejected for the role. What’s bugging me is being denied the chance to say the line. I don’t know what the line is. I don’t even know if I’d have been any good. But they’ll never know, because they didn’t even give me a shot. I feel like a kid watching his helium balloon drift over rooftops and telephone poles. At the audition the rope slipped through my fingers, and right now it seems like the single biggest injustice in the world.

My razor’s still lying in a puddle on the counter, covered in grains of black beard and drifts of shaving cream. I pick it up. I’m even lighter in this mirror. My pelt, even more noticeable than I thought. It would be so easy. I’d be reborn, hairless as a chick. Smooth as the top of my feet. A Samson in black-and-white negatives, empowered by the trimming of my hair. Lightly I pass the razor over my chest, millimetres from my skin, not close enough to cut. Over the nipples, the lubrasmooth strip angled low. I listen to the snick, snick of the blades catching each hair. Again and again the razor lowers, a scythe through a black veldt.

“If you’re going to do it, at least use some shaving cream, brother.”

I whirl, brandishing my blade. A tall man stands in the bathroom doorway, smiling. Either he’s Simien or a helpful burglar.

“But I wouldn’t do it if I were you. I did it once when I was starting out. It was fine for a couple of days till the hair began growing back. Ever had chicken pox?”

I nod, still holding the razor.

“This was worse. Man, the itch when it started to grow back. And the stubble rubbing against the shirt. It was like wearing a steel-wool vest. Like I said, it ain’t worth it.”

I drop the razor into the sink.

“You must be the new guy.” He grins and leans against the door. “I’ve got to hand it to them. You’re the one thing they were missing. Now they’ve covered the spectrum.” He puts his hand to his mouth, holding an invisible microphone. “Black and bald? Big and black? You want ’em, we got ’em. Too dark? Don’t worry, we got mocha. Fifty-one flavours of Negro.” He laughs. “You know, they won’t hire any other black models now that their collection’s complete. Now that they’ve got their light-skinned brother, their mulatto, tragic or otherwise, they don’t care, as long as you reflect those brown light waves, brother. Ever wonder what the world would be like if the word light were called dark? But that’s another story.”

I sense that he’s stopped talking. I wasn’t really listening. I’ve been looking at his eyes. They’re green. He’s black. He doesn’t need them to be the most unusually beautiful man I’ve ever seen. His eyes are long and sad. His nose is narrow and hooked. You could rappel down his cheekbones. I’ve never seen a Moor before, but he’s everything I’ve imagined one to be—tall, regal, Solomonic. Like those Spanish paintings of a black Jesus.

“So what’s your story?” he asks.

“My story?”

I follow him into his bedroom—my bedroom—and tell him about the contest, my move, my first go-see, my first audition.

“Don’t sweat it,” he says, pitching clothes from the closet into a cardboard box. “You could have read that line like James Earl Jones and they still wouldn’t have cast you because your nose is too long or your eyebrows are too dark. If there’s one thing about this business, it’s that you get used to rejection.”

That’s about as comforting as the thought of eventually getting used to a bad smell.

He grabs the cardboard box and tosses it into the living room. Snatches another and begins to empty drawers. “I can’t believe you came here without a contract. You didn’t even try the market first. The Ashanti have a saying—’You don’t test the depth of a river with two feet.’ But you’re here now. Best to make the best of it.”

Just then I hear the chunk of the elevator thumping shut, and seconds later Crispen is through the front door.

“Stace, man, my shoes! You took off with my shoes!”

I’m out of the bedroom. “Your shoes?”

“Well, the shoes we were sharing. Come on, man. I had to play Africanstyle. You know how hard it is to jump barefoot?”

Breffni and Augustus troop into the apartment behind him.

“So did you get the part?” I ask Crispen.

“That’s not the point. You can’t just pull a Houdini like that and leave a brother swingin’ in the breeze. Shoeless Joe and shit.”

Simien steps out of the bedroom, carrying the last of his cardboard boxes. He looks through Breffni, Crispen, and Augustus as he heads for me. “I know none of these guys will give me any messages, but if you get one for me, call me at this number.” He hands me a business card. Simien in black italics, and two phone numbers. “The second one’s my pager. That’s only for emergencies. Like the Bat Signal. Please call me if someone calls me. Because of these jealous, petty people I missed out on two shoots already.”

“Why would we give you messages about Feyenoord shoots when you’re switching to another agency?” Crispen asks. He doesn’t move when Simien brushes past him with a box. If push came to fight, it would be hard to pick a winner. Crispen looks more like a fighter, but Simien seems more dangerous.

“I need my messages because I haven’t officially left yet. I’m not telling Manson anything until it’s official. I don’t want to give him a chance to spread any more rumours about me before I make my move. Why give Feyenoord a running start?”

“But why are you switching?” I ask.

“Five percent, brother. Remember that contingency fee? Biggs, what happened when you wanted to buy your car and you asked Manson if you could have the difference between that five percent and the actual money you owed for the couriers and the other stuff right away instead of at the end of the year?”

“He told me he couldn’t do it till the end of the year.”

“Of course he couldn’t. Because he has the money tied up in investments and mutual funds that only come due on a certain date. That’s why it seems like the end of that fiscal year is always at a different time.”

Augustus frowns. “So?”

“So that’s five percent of my money paying for his second Mercedes, his apartment in Raleigh. So tomorrow, I’m going to tell him either I get my cash now or I’m gone. He’ll hum and haw and promise to have it for me in a week or a month. But he won’t have it. And I’ll be working for Maceo Power the next day.”

“They any good?” Augustus asks. “Things are kind of slowing down with me at Feyenoord. I’ve been thinking of making a switch for a while now.”

“Maceo doesn’t do any hand modelling.”

“That’s right by me, Pappa. I’m tired of that stuff, anyway. I want to do some real modelling for a change. That’s why I came to Toronto in the first place. How can I get any real shoots if all they keep sending me on is hand modelling?”

“What’s wrong with that? You make great coin doing what you do, don’t you? Like the Egyptians say, making money selling manure is better than losing money selling musk. It’s all about selling yourself. How much you can get, how much of yourself you have to sell to get what you want in the end. That’s why I’m making moves.”

“For five percent?” I ask. “Isn’t the extra five percent worth it to be with the biggest agency in the country?”

“You don’t get it. Modelling is a means to an end. You have to know what you want in the end. Breffni wants to be in the movies. Augustus wants to be a real model. Crispen...I guess he wants to meet women. The problem with you guys is you think you know what you want, which is worse than not knowing at all. You’re all obsessed with the means, not the end.”

Somehow I feel compelled to answer the question he hasn’t asked. “I want to work overseas.”

“That’s the means. What’s the end?”

“Like I said, Europe, contracts, Hugo DiPalma, Brian Chin. Shoots in Tahiti. My own line of...anything.”

“But that’s the means. What’s the end?”

“I don’t follow.”

“See what I mean? Another lost brother. Shame.”

“You’re the only one around here who’s lost,” Crispen growls. “At least he doesn’t spread his cheeks to get shoots.”

“I almost feel sorry for you, Crispen. You can’t stand to see another black man succeed. But, of course, you’re too green to be black, anyway. Don’t worry. When I’m gone, you’ll be the man at Feyenoord. As they say in Ghana, if there were no elephants in the jungle, the buffalo would be a great animal.”

“Well, like they say in North Carolina, fuck you. And get the hell out my house.”

Simien smiles, picks up his last box, and closes the door behind him.

I hold my breath until I hear the elevator door slam. “Well, he seemed nice enough before you guys showed up. What’s up?”

“With Soul Brother Number One?” Augustus says. “Two years ago when we met him he was cool.”

“Great guy,” Crispen says. “Loved him like a brother. Then he started getting big, with all the ad campaigns and contracts and whatnot. And slowly he turned into the back-to-Africa-preaching, ass-kissing fag you saw before you today. But on the positive side, at least you have your own room now.”

“He’s gay?”

“A friend of mine who went to Milan with him said he caught him and a photographer together in the washroom,” Breffni says.

“Caught them doing what?”

“Put it this way. There were two pairs of shoes inside one stall.”

“But how do you know that’s true? People used to make stuff up about me all the time.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me with Simien,” says Augustus. “All that weirdass African shit. He’s not African at all. He’s from Victoria, B.C.”

“That doesn’t necessarily make him gay.”

“Well, we’ve never seen him with a woman,” Augustus says. “You got a woman, right?”

He seems to be eyeing me suspiciously.

“I told you last night. Ex-girlfriend.” Then I remember. “I have to make a call. Is this the only phone?”

“Yep,” Breffni says.

I scoop up the phone and take it as far away from them as the network of extension cords allows. Five rings later I get a flat recorded voice.

“Your call has been forwarded to an automated answering service.” Then a pause, and her own voice, “Melody Griffin,” softly, ending on a high note, a question. Then the voice again: “Is not available. Please leave a message after the tone.” The tone.

“Hi, it’s me.” I try to make whispering sound amorous. “Just wanted to let you know I’m thinking of you. Had my first audition today...” I’m not sure what to say to a girl who halfheartedly slashed a wrist because I left her for another city. The others are pretending they’re not listening, but the television’s on mute. “Well...bye. Call me when you get a chance.” I leave my number.

I shuffle back with the phone, expecting to field questions.

Breffni’s first. “Your ex?”

“Yep.”

“White girl?” Crispen probes.

“How’d you know?”

“The way you talk to her.”

“How’s that?”

“The tone of your voice.”

“And besides,” Augustus adds, “a black woman would’ve already had your new phone number by now.”

They all laugh.

“Don’t tell me you guys have a problem with me dating a white woman.”

“On the contrary,” Crispen says. “I highly recommend it.”

“It can be very beneficial,” Augustus agrees.

Jerking his thumb at Augustus, Breffni says, “Angie paid his rent last month.”

“And Christine lends me her credit card twice a week.” Augustus shrugs, as if he had no choice.

I turn to Crispen. “You, too?”

“I’ve been known to accept a few campaign contributions from well-meaning donors,” he says, smiling slyly.

“Man, you guys give dogs a bad name.”

“Don’t look so shocked. They’re getting their money’s worth,” Augustus insists. Then, in a television sotto voce, he adds, “For as little as pennies a day, you, too, can make a difference in the life of a Negro. That’s right. Guess who’s coming to dinner?”

“And sleeping over in Jenny’s room?” Breffni contributes.

“And keeping the spoons,” Crispen adds. “Now, of course, some brothers—” Crispen glances at Augustus “—sway a little too far over to the light side. Remember Bobbi?”

Augustus groans.

“Biggs was living with this 200-pound woman. She paid the rent. She gave him a car...”

“The Mazda?” I ask.

“The same. Bobbi’s doing. But when she caught him with all those other girls, she gave him the boot. And that’s how he ended up here.”

“It was only supposed to be for a couple of weeks,” Breffni says. “That was last year.”

“Speaking of white trash, me and Breff saw Bobbi at the Palace last week. With some short brother. Small-time player.”

“No surprise,” Augustus says. “Like they say, once you go black...”

They set off on a second round of Bobbi stories, but they’re all variations on a theme. I gather my things from the corners of the living room and cart them into my room. It smells strongly of incense and slightly of naphthalene. I open the window and study the view of a brick wall. The fire-escape ladder is a ladder to nowhere. I dump socks into drawers, hang shirts in the closet, fold sweaters into milk crates.

Simien has kindly left his mattress. I lower myself onto it gingerly. If what they said about him is true, these stains could have come from two dudes.

As I become slowly sealed in the envelope of sleep, I wonder what Melody would have thought if she heard the boys talking about their white girlfriends. I suppose I should be outraged, but instead I feel strangely left out. Cheated, because I’m not getting anything out of my relationship except suicidal affection. I wonder if Melody would have been as willing to bleed in the bathtub for a white man. I wonder how long it’ll be before she realizes she’s being short-changed. I ride horses. I don’t mind the Beach Boys. I think black people are better off here than they were in the jungle. When Melody’s with me, does she really notice the difference? I’m not the genuine article. I come with no pedigree of negritude. These things never would have crossed my mind back in the days when I wore corduroy pants that went zwee, zwee with every step.

There was no black or white in my world until that day at camp when David Wiener asked me why I looked like poo. Since then I’ve realized the world isn’t shot in colour film, where everyone’s a different hue. It’s shot in black-and-white. There are only different degrees of one or the other. We’re black, or we’re white. Or, like me, we’re shades. Insubstantial images of something real. Reduced almost to nothing. The only thing worse than living in that black-and-white world is living in a grey one, in which race doesn’t matter except to everyone else. In which nothing’s black or white, and everything’s both. The problem with living in grey is that one grows no natural defences. Growing up grey is like growing up weightless on the moon. To return to earth is to be crushed by the weight of one’s own skin.