Begleiter Leaving Cleveland

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-6678-8844-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 272 Seiten

Aspiring photographer, Sam Cohen, knows there must be more to life than helping his father run the family business in Cleveland, Ohio. He sets off for New York City and stumbles into an unforgettable adventure in the heart of the celebrity and art world of the 1980's. He apprentices with 'Johnny Strand the Photo Man' in a wacky commercial studio. Sam gets his big break a year later when he becomes the assistant to the world-famous photographer Izzy Teivel. It is an auspicious start for Sam but reality sets in and dysfunction prevails. Izzy is revered by her fans, clients, and subjects but is unrealistically demanding to everyone, especially Sam, who finds himself questioning his choices and sanity. The pressure manifests in nightmares of his father's past as a survivor of the death camps during the WWII Holocaust. Sam's guilt in leaving his family behind is triggered by Izzy's portrait assignment photographing the famous Jewish writers Elie Wiesel and I.B. Singer for Vanity Way magazine. Morally conflicted, Sam has to decide whether to return to Cleveland to help his estranged father and overprotective mother or to stay in New York City and pursue his dreams.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Begleiter, Steven H.

Leseproben

Chapter 5

The Roommate

A week passed and I almost forgot that Rachel was moving out. I was on the Upper East Side knocking down walls with a sledgehammer when Derek came up to me and announced, “Well, I think it’s all set. I just got off the phone with your sister and she said you’ll have your new roommate by the first of September.”

“What?” I said, trying not to lose my cool. “Don’t I get to meet him first, to see if I even want the guy as my roommate?”

Derek put his hands up defensively.

“Rachel only told me that she has a friend who has a brother about your age who is looking for a place in Manhattan. I’m sure he’s fine. Your sister wouldn’t set you up with a bad roommate.”

“So, I have no say?” I looked at Derek waiting for some response. He smiled.

“I guess not. It will be OK. According to your sister, he’s studying psychology and comes from a good Long Island family.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Howieeee,” Derek said with his best Long Island accent.

As it turned out “Howie” was from Cedarhurst, Long Island, an affluent Jewish community. In public he fashioned himself the young Freud, with a thick black beard, wearing a tie and a vest with a pocket watch. In the apartment he transmogrified into a Hassid, stripped down to his white Fruit of the Loom T-shirt (stained under the arm pits), ankle-high sweatpants, and white socks. That was Howie.

For the newcomer, surviving New York is all about making rent. Derek employed me part-time but I needed another job. Going through The Village Voice, I saw an ad that read, “Sell over the phone. No experience needed. Good pay.” I called the number, showed up for a job interview, and was hired. I was now a sweet-talking, sell-anything, clock-watching telephone solicitor. I was also getting very depressed. This was not why I came to New York.

My lifeline to the world had always been my camera. I was Diane Arbus, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon. Yet I was working as a telephone solicitor selling unwanted subscriptions of Reader’s Digest to elderly women in living on Main Street in Kansas City. It paid the rent, but it was excruciating. Hour after hour, day after day, I watched the second hand of the clock slowly edging towards my liberation. Worse, I was good at the job! I almost always met my quota early.

After about three weeks, I was fired for using the phone to call friends around the country. Walking up Broadway to my apartment, newly unemployed, I pondered what to do next. I needed a job to pay my rent, but I wanted to get paid taking photos.

When I got home, I found a message on my answering machine. It was my friend Mark, who was free that night and wanted to get together. He said he had a proposition. Mark was also an aspiring photographer. We met at a bar called the West End, where I overheard him trashing some photographer he had worked for. Unsolicited, I decided to chime in.

“I hear she’s a bitch to work for.”

Mark gave me the “Who the fuck are you? look,” before his face lit up, “You know her?” he asked.

“Ah, well, I’ve heard about her and how she treats her assistants.”

“You heard right,” Mark said. “She makes her assistants clean the toilets at the end of the day and she fires them if they look at her the wrong way.”

“Wow that’s rough. Why do people work for her?” (God, I thought. I really do talk like a hick from Ohio!)

“She’s a famous fashion photographer. What photographer doesn’t want to hang out with anemic models and bodybuilders?” he said sarcastically.

I extended my hand to Mark. “I’m Sam and looking for work as a photo assistant. Got any ideas?”

Raising his eyebrows he asked, “What do you know?”

“Um, I know the difference between an f-stop and shutter speed, and a little about strobe lighting.”

“How little?” Mark asked.

“I know enough to fake it till I make it, “I said nervously.

“That’ll do,” he said.

I bought a round of drinks. He bought the next one. And the next. We talked small talk until, eventually, Mark got around to his “proposition.”

It involved the photographer he was currently assisting.

“He is a great guy to work for, a bit of a space cadet, but generous.”

“What’s his name?”

“Well, I call him the White Rastafarian since he smokes a big spliff before he begins the day, one for lunch and, after the 12-hour workday, one more.”

“Wow, how does he function? I mean, didn’t you say he was a high-end commercial photographer?”

“He is. He bills about three to five grand a day for his higher-end clients. I’ve been working for him about a year and I’m beginning to burn out. I need a change. Hey, can you come to work with me tomorrow so I can introduce you?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to contain my excitement.

“Great! I’ve got to go meet my wife. Here’s the address. I’ll meet you at 8 a.m.”

“Cool!!! But why do you want me to meet him?”

“Because if he likes you, you can have my job,” said Mark with a Cheshire Cat grin.

“What are you going to do?” I asked nervously.

“Me? I have an interview with a really famous photographer and if she hires me, I’m going to take that job.”

“When do you find out?” I asked.

“In about two weeks. That will give me time to train you, if you get the job.”

“OK,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yep!” Mark said, flashing his bright white teeth again.

I soared out of the West End. I couldn’t believe a chance encounter with a stranger could propel me in the direction of my dream. Of course, I had no idea if I would get the job but then, what did I have to lose? I mean, I had just lost my job selling the Reader’s Digest to total strangers.

It was dusk and the streetlights were beginning to glow. New York City at its best. People swarming the sidewalks, weaving around each other, trying not to make eye contact—unless there was a physical attraction or a con. New Yorkers with their heads down and tourists with their heads up. Walking the streets of NYC was a game. You avoid contact and look ahead to the crosswalk, gauging whether to cross or not. The street strategy was to move as quickly as possible to get from point A to point B without stopping.

Entering my apartment building I ran into my neighbor Cindy, another starving wannabe artist living in a high rise waiting for her big break. Her dream was to be on Broadway. She also had the luxury of a Daddy who paid for everything.

I liked her, nonetheless. She was a Jersey Jewish girl who complained more than I did.

“Hi Cindy, what’s new?”

“Oh, I just had an audition from hell. I waited three hours to be seen and then had two minutes to perform. It was just awful!”

“Well, there’s always the next audition,” I said encouragingly.

She lifted her eyebrows, turned toward the elevator doors, and started chewing her gum.

“I have sort of an audition tomorrow too,” I said.

She gave me a bewildered look.

“I thought you took pictures.”

The elevator door opened and we both got in.

“Well, I do take pictures. The audition is for a photo job.”

“Hey, I need new headshots. Can we barter or something? I’m broke.”

“Maybe … if I get this job. Then I would have a place to shoot. What can you give me?”

She smiled as the doors opened. We happened to live on the same floor. She continued to smile at me and headed to her apartment.

“Good luck with the job interview,” she said, as she unlocked her door and disappeared.

Cindy was very pretty but I was suspicious of dating a woman too dependent on their father’s money. I felt more at ease with independent women. In part because of the strong independent women I grew up with. This revelation became clear on my first and last date with a woman from Great Neck Long Island, Marci Greenblatt. Trying to impress her, I took her to Lincoln Center to see a ballet and then out for dinner at a restaurant nearby. I told her I was a photographer and she replied in a very serious tone, “Don’t worry, if we get married you can work for my father. He owns a button factory.”

Growing up poor and Jewish in the suburbs of Cleveland, and attending temple in an affluent neighborhood, may have been the cause. Every Sunday morning as a child I was woken abruptly with my mother shouting, “Wake up and get dressed, you’re going to be late for Temple!” In Temple, I would hear all the wealthy Jewish kids brag about their new toys, ski vacations, and trips to Europe. I would count the minutes in anticipation of my mother picking us up and driving to the Howard Johnson’s restaurant across from Severance Hall, where the Cleveland Orchestra performed.

Rachel and I would order the Black Cow, root beer, and vanilla ice cream. The whole time Rachel would lament about how small our house was and how we should move to a bigger house in Shaker Heights. As I sucked at my straw to get the last of my Black Cow, Rachel continued to whine. I could see my Mom’s face turn beet red, trying to look earnest, while chain smoking her...