Chapter 5: No Contest

I WENT OUT to play ball Sunday. Andy hadn’t been in church and I heard his family went on a vacation to Northern Wisconsin. Nice. Some of the same guys I played with before were there and we only had enough for three-man teams. One of my teammates joked that they needed another guy to make up for me being on their team. I just laughed it off. What can you do? I play crappy.

“Hey, I expected you to be in the hospital,” Tom said. “I heard Tony was out to get you.”

“Naw. That was just a misunderstanding. Some asshole told him I was making time with his girlfriend. As if. I haven’t met a lot of people yet, but Patricia has to be one of the hottest in our class. Can you imagine me with her?” I said.

“Not like it isn’t every guy’s fantasy,” Jon said. “You’re right about her being the hottest in your class.”

“What year are you, Jon?”

“I’m a sophomore. I think I’ll make the team this year, though.”

“You’ve got a good look for the basket,” Dan said. “So, Tony really didn’t mess you up? I saw Patricia coming in and out of your garage a lot. And she was sure wearing sexy clothes.”

“You must have been the reason she closed the garage door when we were doing her photos,” I said. “Of course, I hear Tony is out to get the guy that almost cost him his motorcycle.” Dan looked remarkably unhappy.

“What kind of photos?” Tom asked.

“She wanted to help refinish Tony’s motorcycle first,” I said. “She said she wanted him to think of her every time he mounted his bike, or something like that.” I took a shot and by some miracle it went in. We were still warming up and just shooting around. “So, when it was finished, we set it up in the garage so she could do some sexy calendar girl type poses with it. I printed an enlargement of one of them and she gave it to Tony to welcome him home yesterday. He was pretty pleased.”

He and Patricia had zipped by later in the day and picked up his prize. I wasn’t outside, but saw him open the door and then come out again.

“Fuck! You took nudies of Patricia? How do you get that stuff developed?” Dan asked. He was suddenly more interested in Patricia’s pictures than in trashing me to Tony or the other guys.

“Not nudies. Just sexy shots with her in shorts and a top and stretched out on his bike,” I lied. I only counted the photos we took on that last roll of film. And getting a picture of her nipple wasn’t the same as doing a nude photo. “It’s the same kind of shot Henry has behind the counter in the gas station. Though I think his calendar is for, like, 1955. I do all my own developing and printing. Photography is what I do.”

“Henry loves that calendar,” Tom said. “I work there one day a week and that’s the one thing in the whole station that you don’t dare touch.”

About that time, we started playing in earnest and I set about proving why my team was entitled to an extra person. Dan was as pissy as ever, but I think I made a new friend in Jon.

“Hey, our farm is up River Road just past the cemetery,” he said. “If you ever want to go fishing, let me know and we’ll go out to my favorite hole on the river. It gets a little narrower and faster behind our farm and there’s a great spot that’s sheltered from the current by a fallen log. I’ll show you sometime.”

“Sounds like fun. See you guys next week.”

I received my entry form for the fair in the mail Monday. Entries were due in just ten days. And the entry form said that all photos of people had to have a signed release from the model. Dang! I didn’t have any releases and didn’t know where to get one. I headed to the library.

I had no idea what I was looking for when I went in. It wasn’t very big and seemed to be mostly cheap fiction and self-help books. I went to the desk and a woman with half-moon glasses was checking cards in a stack of books. The nameplate on the counter said “Miss Ludwig.”

“Excuse me, Miss Ludwig,” I said quietly. It was a library after all. “I’m wondering if you could help me find a reference.” She looked at me over the top of her glasses and smiled.

“Oh, you’re new in town, aren’t you? Let’s get you set up with your own library card while you tell me what you’re looking for.” I was agreeable to that. I made regular use of the library in Calumet, and it was huge. I hoped there was something in this library I’d want to read. I gave her the information and explained that I was looking for a model release form. I showed her the entry form for the fair and she nodded.

“I’ve never used a form like this and wondered if there was some kind of reference book of forms I could copy one from.”

“Now that’s interesting. I’m sure none of our reference works would have that, but let me do some checking here.” She pulled out a volume of “Books in Print” and went scanning through several pages. She turned the pages and read through what she wanted faster than I could read the headings at the top of the page. Then she stopped and tapped an entry. “I think this is what you want.” She turned the book so I could read the entry.

“Guide for professional artists, musicians, and dancers. How to create and protect your business interests, copyright your work, and sell your product.” I read. “That sounds perfect. Do you have a copy?”

“Oh, no. I’m afraid not. Let me do some checking around and see if I can find someone who does have. I have your phone number here on your card application, so I’ll call you if I find something. It shouldn’t take but a day or two.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I put my new library card in my wallet and mounted my bike again.

When I rode by, Judy and Janice were headed down the street toward my place, pushing a pink girl’s bike. I stopped and walked beside them.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Oh, we were just coming over to see you.”

“Don’t tell me you want your bike painted,” I laughed.

“No. This bike is really too small for me now, but I thought if you wanted it for your sister, I’d give it to you. I asked Mom and she said it was okay,” Judy said.

“That is so cool, Judy. Thank you.”

“So, are you done with your big project? Can you take pictures again?” Janice asked. “We’ve got some cool ideas for costumes.”

“Yeah. Actually, I’ve got time. I’m trying to work out how to exhibit your picture in the fair. Not sure it’s going to work,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Well, it turns out that I have to have a signed model release for any photo that I exhibit.”

“I’ll sign it,” Janice said.

“Well, I appreciate that, but I don’t know what the release should say. The fair didn’t send a copy of what they want,” I said. “The librarian is looking for one for me.”

“Does Miss Ludwig even know what a camera is? I don’t think they had them when she was our age,” Judy laughed.

“Hey! She seems like a nice woman and not that old. She was willing to help.”

“Well, just write up a thing that says we give you permission to display our pictures and we’ll sign it,” Janice said.

“Except the ones in our bathing suits. You know ... uh ... that kind of showed um...”

“Your nipples? No, I wouldn’t display that. I’d like to display the smoking portrait, though. I thought next, we might take some pictures at the old train station. If we had a couple of suitcases, we could set a scene like you’re waiting for a train. Or maybe like one of you just got off the train and is being met by the other.” I carefully didn’t mention that I kept a copy of those other photos in my desk drawer with the photo of Patricia’s nipple and often looked at them just before bed at night. They were on my list of things I’d like to see again.

“You’re still embarrassed?” Janice ribbed her friend.

“It was your idea,” Judy hissed.

“What was?” I asked.

“Um ... taking the lining out of our suit tops so they fit more like Patricia’s. We saw you looking at her at the river,” Judy said. “I didn’t know they’d show like that!”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of. You’re both pretty damn hot. And any kind of picture you want me to take, I’ll try.”

We got to the garage and I took the girl’s bike from Judy after I parked mine. When I turned around, they were both staring at my work bench. I guess I didn’t mention that when Tony and Patricia went off to fool around on Saturday, they’d left the photo on the work bench to pick up later. Well, Dad got home before they got back and saw it. He hung it over the bench. I tried to explain that this was Tony’s photo of his girlfriend and Dad shook his head.

“Too bad. It looks good there.”

“Could I, like, hang a print of it just to have there?” I asked uncertainly.

“Every garage needs a girlie photo. That one’s a cut above most.”

That night I printed another 8x10 and grabbed an old frame to put it in. Then I hung it in the garage above the work bench. Judy and Janice were staring at it.

“Does Tony know you have a picture of his girlfriend?” Judy whispered, as if Tony might overhear her.

“Yeah. Patricia gave a copy of it to him when he got home. He liked it so much he said I should blow it up and make a billboard out of it. I told him I’d enter it in the fair, but I need to get a model release from her, too.”

“You might as well hang the picture with our nipples showing in our suits,” Janice said. “Nobody will look twice at us when they see that.”

“God, she’s gorgeous. I wish we were still friends,” Judy said.

“Yeah.”

I sensed there was a story there, but I didn’t press for it. Instead, we walked over to the derelict train station and talked about how we might stage a couple of photos.

“We’ll come up with something. How about Thursday?” Janice said. We agreed and I headed back home.

I spent some time tearing down the bike Judy brought over and cleaning it up. It wasn’t in bad shape, but I remembered what Kat had said about having me paint her bike purple. I figured, why not? It was sure to be a surprise for her since she never came into the garage. I just needed to get a can of purple paint. I hoped they made it that color.

I stopped in at Center Marketplace where Dad got the black paint I used on my bicycle. I couldn’t imagine Mr. Barkley would have any purple, but his store had a really odd assortment of miscellaneous stuff. I found him in the back, putting some mugs in a box, each one wrapped in newspaper.

“Mr. Barkley, I was wondering if you had any Rust-Oleum in different colors than black like I used on my bicycle.”

“Oh, well hello there, Nate. Rust-Oleum. Hmm. After Johnson painted his tractor, there wasn’t much call for the stuff. Here, carry this box for me and we’ll go look,” he said. He called toward the front of the store. “Alice! I’m going upstairs to check on some stock.”

“Yes. You remember what the doctor said about you smoking. Don’t let me catch you at it,” Mrs. Barkley yelled from the front of the store. I picked up the box and followed Mr. Barkley up the stairs in the middle of the store. It had a gate across the bottom that he unlocked so I could go up.

“Once was a time when all four floors of this store were hopping. Menswear on this floor and shoes over there,” he said pointing into a corner by the windows on the second floor. “Third floor was hardware and notions. Gave the men something to do while their women shopped for fabric and thread.”

“What happened?”

“A lot of things. The depression. The war. And possibly most important, the automobile. Once it was no longer an all-day commitment to get to the city of Huntertown or even Dubuque, the local store ceased to have as much draw. Why buy farm overalls from the local store when you could get them fifty cents cheaper at Sears? Things started getting more specialized. Get your hardware at Ace. Farm and garden supplies at the Tractor Supply. Clothes at Sears. Notions at Woolworth’s. Gradually, the store shrank and we sold off most of what stock we had.”

We headed up a narrower flight of stairs at the back of the store from the third floor up to the fourth, each floor blocked by a locked gate as if they’d been closed off each time a floor was vacated. Mostly, the second floor had been empty shelves and racks with just a few left over things scattered around. There was a chair on the third floor with an ashtray beside it and I figured that if Mr. Barkley was making this climb by himself, he’d be sitting over there having a smoke. The rest of the room was empty. I wondered where he was taking me as we went on up to the fourth floor.

“Did you just take stuff to a dump when you closed a section?” I asked.

“Oh, no. Auction was where most of it went. What I didn’t sell or didn’t want to sell came up here. There’s an outside stair to here and a lot of stock used to get carried up those stairs and then brought back down from here when it was needed. Then there were all the promotional displays, Christmas decorations, and stuff I just couldn’t bear to part with.”

We got to the fourth floor and I entered a wonderland. There were old merchandise displays, a few toys, Christmas decorations—and decorations for almost any other holiday—some furniture, a few garden implements, a shelf of men’s and women’s hats, a suit hanging on a rack, a cigar case, dishes, an inflatable Santa Claus, some small theatre lights, a Greek pillar, mannequins—some with clothes still on them, a couple of end tables, vases, lamps, buckets, a stepladder, a tea kettle ... that was just what hit my eyes immediately. It was hard to catch my breath there was so much stuff. Imagine going into your grandmother’s attic and discovering stuff from her mother and grandmother. It was like my dad’s boxes of junk, but far more interesting than a broken water pump.

“Here we go,” Mr. Barkley said. “We did a float back a few years ago when the Fourth of July Parade was more than bicycles. For some reason, the kids wanted their wagons painted purple. I got a few cans of this. Here you go.”

He handed me a can of Rust-Oleum. Who knew they made a color called ‘Grape?’ I had a sudden idea. Couldn’t hurt to ask.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a model release form up here somewhere, would you?”

He started laughing.

“Much though I like to say I kept things that were important, I’m not a magician that can just pull stuff out of my hat,” he said, tapping an old top hat on a dusty table. “Why on earth would you need a model release form?”

That led me to tell him all about my photography and the fair entry requiring that portraits have a model release form. He didn’t have one, but we talked a lot about what I wanted to do with photography. He pulled a Brownie Kodak Hawkeye camera kit from under a counter.

“I have one just like that!” I said. “Proudest day of my life when my uncle gave it to me for my birthday. I don’t use it much anymore since almost everything has gone thirty-five-millimeter. But I’ve got an enlarger and I process all my own film. Not a very good set-up in my basement. It leaks light all over and I can only work in the middle of the night. Someday I’ll get a better darkroom—when I can afford it. Um ... could I come up here and take some pictures?” I asked.

“You want to take pictures of all this junk?”

“It might be junk to someone else, but there’s a kind of glamour about it as well. I’d love to bring a couple of my models up here and take pictures of them with some of this stuff.”

“You behave yourself with models. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. They’re really good girls. That’s why I need the model release form for my fair entries,” I said.

“Why don’t you bring a selection of your best photos over to show me,” he said. “If they’re as good as you say, I might consider letting you use this floor.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll bring you my portfolio.”

We went downstairs and I paid seventy-five cents for the spray paint and went home.

Wednesday afternoon, Kat and I were sprawled out on the living room floor with the fan blowing on us. It must have been nearly a hundred degrees, but I was too hot to bother getting up to look at the thermometer outside the kitchen window. I’d managed to get the first coat of paint on Kat’s new bicycle early in the morning, but the temp got so hot it was impossible to work in the garage. Mom wasn’t even parking her car in the garage because she said it got hotter in there than parking it under the tree in the driveway and leaving the windows open.

That was weird. We would never have left the car unlocked with the windows open in the city. It would be gone before we turned around. Like my old bicycle. Mom answered the phone in her office and called to me.

“Nate, there’s a Miss Ludwig on the phone for you. Do you know her?”

“Yes, Mom. She’s the librarian. She was going to see if she could find a book for me,” I said, scrambling to get to the phone. “Hello?”

“Nate, I think we have success. I just got a package from a contact in Chicago that has a number of forms in it that you should be able to use. Why don’t you come to the library and pick them up? It’s cool in here and I have the fans going.”

“Great! I’ll be right over. Thank you, Miss Ludwig.” I turned to explain to my mom. “I need a model release form for my County Fair entries. Miss Ludwig managed to find some samples for me.”

“Oh, well that’s good. Why don’t you take Kat over there? It’s probably cooler than in here. Maybe you can get her a library card.”

“Sure, Mom. Hey, Kat, let’s go to the library. They’ve got air conditioning and ceiling fans.”

“Oh, yeah. On the way back you can buy me an ice cream cone.”

I sighed and Mom handed me two dollars. Kat and I headed for the library.

She wouldn’t admit it if you just asked her, but Kat is a book addict. That’s one of two things she does all the time. The other is drawing stuff. She draws cartoons and pictures of kittens and designs out of repeated patterns that will cover an entire page of her notebook. Finding out there was a building she could walk to that was air conditioned and full of the exact kind of stories she liked to read was like me discovering the fourth floor of Mr. Barkley’s store. She happily went down the row, choosing the latest Nancy Drew story before she sat in a corner on a pillow and started to read.