BILL ROORBACH is the author of 10 books, including the memoir Summers with Juliet, the novels Lucky Turtle and Life Among Giants, and the Flannery O'Connor Award-winning collection Big Bend. His work has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Granta, among other publications.
I am Fulton DeMarco, DeMarco Photography: NOTHING ESCAPES US. Or so it says on the van. Which I parked the other day in town and debarked only to be greeted by a dog on his own, tough little guy with blackened divots taken out of his brindle head in likely altercations. Not a pit bull, but stocky like that, handsome big jaw and the best grin, friend to man if not to dog. I gave him my hand to sniff but he was easy, couple of quick licks, and so I scratched his hard-knocks head a while: contented grunting noises, his ribs pressed hard into my knee. He torqued his neck back to grin up at me, this guy who ate well even on the mean streets of Wellspring, Florida, my kind of man's best friend. No collar, no human thing, all dog. I had business, lunch with potential clients, a bride and her mom. Yes, that kind of photographer, pretty jaded, formerly would have said artist, but make a hell of a living snapping drunks and nodding grandmothers, later sorting scans and making memories, your greatest day. They don't generally call me for the divorce.
I was halfway up Palmetto Street to the cutesy coffee shop there on the corner when I realized the dog was following me, 10 paces back like a slighted husband, humbly following but claiming me at the same time. “Not so fast,” I called. Just kidding, but the dog stopped and sat, just kept sitting as I continued on pitiless—later for you, toughie. In the coffee shop, the bride and her mom were efficient, just 30 brisk minutes, already on the same page, nice, some good gentle laughter at the expense of her groom, who was clueless military if you believed them. But you weren't meant to believe them, not at all. What they were conveying was that the groom was a good guy who could take a joke and who loved her with all his heart and medals and swords and would sit still for anything we asked of him. We signed my standard contract on the spot, one of the more deluxe packages.
They were meeting my pal the wedding planner next, right there at the same coffee shop, and after her arrival and some professional hugs and handshakes, I was out the door and onto the next shoot, a commercial thing at a former factory space
