Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

It’s hard to hang an age on him. He looks haggard, but somehow still kind of soft. His skin seems doughy and too white. He’s bald but for a crown of still-red hair that’s cut close to his scalp. He’s over six feet, but he’s got rounded, bony shoulders. He’s wearing a summer jersey covered by an argyle wool sweater-vest, both tucked inside the waist of army green fatigue pants. Sylvia can’t stop herself from leaning forward a little and she sees he’s got on leather sandals and black stretch socks.

She wants to run. She wants to go home and wait for Perry and say, “You were right. We’ll go with the jewelry.”

The guy behind the counter looks her up and down and then plunges both his thumbs inside his waistband like some demented geek of a cowboy. He says, “We’re not interested in any damaged equipment. And we pay in merchandise credit. No cash.”

“But—” she begins, and he cuts her off with an annoyed shake of his head.

“Look, we won’t have an argument here. No exceptions. Store credit. No cash. That’s all I can do.”

Now she’s more annoyed than unnerved and she squints up at him and gives a mildly disgusted exhale. When he shuts up she says, “I’m not selling anything. I’m here to buy.”

His tones changes immediately. He brings a palm up to his mouth, goes from gunslinger dork to embarrassed schoolmarm.

“Oh God, I’m sorry. It’s just, we get so many desperation sales. You know. They just dump the camera on the counter and plead with you. ‘Whatever it’s worth,’ you know. ‘Name the price.’”

“Like I said. I’m here to buy.”

“Of course. Whatever you’d like.” He kind of steps sideways and his arm swings out from his body in a clumsy attempt to present the mishmash behind him.

“We’re not really set up for browsing,” he says. “Is there something specific you had in mind?”

She stares at him for a few seconds to show she’s not going to be placated so easily. Then she pulls out her notepad and reads, “One nineteen seventy Aquinas 50 °C/M medium format SLR. Fine condition. With original carrying case, instruction booklet, and Polaroid magazine attachment.”

She looks up from the notepad and stares at him.

He waits a second as if he thinks she’s going to continue and when she doesn’t his head bobs down and his eyes bug out and he says, as if mildly shocked, “Oh, the Aquinas.”

“Yeah,” Sylvia says, “the Aquinas. There was an ad on the bulletin board at the Rib Room. Is it still available?”

He seems to get nervous and looks past her at the door. She turns around and looks, but the door is still shut. No one’s come in. She looks back at him and gives a shrug and says, “Did someone buy it already? Am I too late?”

The hand comes up to the mouth again and this time the eyes close for a good ten seconds. When they open, he shakes his head no, but appears a little off-balance. He holds up his index finger to indicate she should wait a minute, turns on his heel and disappears through the curtain into the back storeroom. She hears noises, sounds like cardboard boxes being shuffled around. Then there’s the sound of glass breaking, followed by the clerk giving out a high-pitched, “Shit.”

Finally he comes back to the counter holding a boxy beige leather case against his chest, kind of cradling it like an oversized kitten. He puts it down on the counter gingerly, wipes dust off the top of the case with a studied sweep of his hand. Then he takes a step backward, puts a fist on his waist and starts to massage the back of his neck with his other hand.

She stares at him. She wants to get across that she’s not crazy about his act. That his weirdness is not endearing here. It’s not good for business.

“This is it?” she says.

“That’s it,” he says. “Go ahead, take a look.” But he doesn’t sound like he means it.

Sylvia steps up to the counter, takes the case in her hands, looks it over. She presses in the silver metal clips on the sides and opens the top of the case back on its hinges. Instinctively, she puts her face close down and takes a deep sniff, takes in the aroma of old, long-stored leather, a fragrance she always names age. And she’s surprised and suddenly thrilled by the wonderful, slightly sour, acidy bouquet of old film or wax, a closed-up smell, something you’d expect to come from a wooden cabinet in the dining room of an ancient and forgotten Victorian. She brings her head up and looks to see the clerk staring at her as if he were being forced to watch an autopsy, something terribly unsettling, some sight the squeamish should avoid.

She ignores him and takes out the main body of the camera. It weighs a ton. It has that solid, fixable quality of density, something that will never blow away. It’s beautiful.

Sorry Perry , Sylvia thinks, I’m in love .

She’s only held an Aquinas in her hands once before. Perry and she were spending a long weekend driving around the Berkshires. It was a sleepy Saturday afternoon near the end of fall. It was cold and they were walking the main street of a storybook town, this too-immaculate postcard street, where all the storefronts are weathered shingle cottages that house antique shops and gift boutiques that sell gorgeous quilts and handmade sweaters that cost a week’s pay. Perry went to browse in the window of a real estate office and Sylvia wandered into a homey little camera shop and got to talking with this old bearded man in a navy cardigan. He had one Aquinas in his display case and he was just thrilled for the chance to take it out and put it in her palm and give her the spiel, the showcase pitch that might nail down a single ten grand sale. Perry came into the store halfway through the lens-grinding section, just after the mini-lecture on the life of Pasqual Aquinas.

Perry head-motioned her outside and she had to hand back the camera and interrupt the sermon. That was over a year ago and she still feels guilty about leaving the way she did.

The pitch whet her appetite, though, and she started to do a little reading up on the Aquinas, started to tell herself that if she ever hit the lottery she knew what her first purchase would be. The camera is a five-inch-square black box trimmed in silver with a fat two inches of lens protruding off the front and a winding crank jutting out of its right-hand side. Placed on its film-magazine back, with the lens pointing upward, it resembles a kind of sleek and threatening jack-in-the-box.

She pops open the viewing hood, stabilizes the camera body against her chest and brings her head to hover above the hood. She looks through and focuses on the clerk. The light in the store is lousy but as she brings his image into clarity it’s clear he’s still hesitant, kind of upset. He’s staring at her, staring into the lens. And he looks like he’s watching a car accident beginning to happen.

Sylvia looks up from the hood and raises her eyebrows, hoping maybe the guy will feel self-conscious and give her some explanation for his wariness. But he just says, “Have you ever owned an Aquinas before?”

She shakes her head no instead of answering. She wants to keep the pressure on. She wants to find out what the problem is here.

He’s really squirming now. He looks down at his sandals and mumbles, “You don’t often find them used. I mean, you know, secondhand. They don’t come on the market too often.”

“I know,” Sylvia says. “The ad really surprised me. You must hate to part with it.”

He bites in on his bottom lip. “Oh, no,” he says, as if she’s confused him. “No, it’s not like that. It’s not my camera. It’s not a shop camera. I’m selling this for someone else. It’s a consignment sale. A commission … I mean, this is a …” then he just drifts off with a sigh and a shake of the head.