THE KILT - A Reluctant Husband Poses
By Laura Hartley
27 May 2008
"It's very hot," he kept telling me. "I am smothering, and my skirt is wrinkled." But I am relentless. I would not budge.
"My ass itches," he uttered in a particularly manly and classy statement intended to move me towards wrapping up the shoot. But no, I clicked away, moving him about with abandon, shouting commands: "NO, to the left. No, the OTHER left..." ignoring stares from curious passers-by down that tragic, dwindling Highway known world round as Route 66. It's a curious highway, with missing spots long vanished to the elements, to industrial and metropolitan expansion, to bigger highways. To time. Some spots along 66 still exist for tourist dollars, and some still just exist. This is where I had him, at an abandoned stone shell of a building, along Route 66. It's near Oklahoma City, and it's 94 degrees. But the building's setting, with its orange stones and hacked up cement walls, struck me as about as close as I could get to an old stone shed as any other place I'd seen lately.
The heat had intensified as we made our drive there, and he was not yet clad in his chosen attire. Picking the outfit was easy. It was choosing the coolest car that bothered him. Not the coolest visually, but literally. He needed a frigidaire on wheels. "I need a car I can dress in, and I need the AC set on hurricane," he insisted.
"So, let's take the Jag, " I said.
"Great," says he, "the one that consumes the most gas."
"Well," I retort, "It is also the car you can dress in."
"SO, you want me to wear, basically, a skirt, in Oklahoma, in this heat, AND you want me to drive the car people hate the most?"
"Yep," I countered, "That's the ticket." In sympathy, though, I added, "OR, you could wear the kilt NOW, and just drive in it, and we'll take the truck."
"Nope," says he, "What if I get pulled over?"
Ah, birthdays are the best! A time for bribery, for cashing in on favors earned, a time for abject selfishness for the sake of one's art. Jake owed me the shoot. He's become a photographer now, too, and is doing very well. He's always had an excellent eye. But his number one subject is, conveniently, me. And, frankly, he enjoys snapping bare breasted shots. Naked buttocks. You get the picture. It's what we ex-art students call "the fine art nude." This is putting a lot of pressure on me, of course, to drop shirt, bra and trou at a moment's notice, whenever and wherever we are.
This I do, as I am an artist as well. But I chalk the moments spent half naked in strange places onto a slate board in my head called "HOW MUCH JAKE OWES ME NOW." Each naked incident is charted as a series of points, and I had found the number had reached a rather lofty high. And, luckily, this culmination of points coincided with my birthday.
So, I decided to call in my number, and got him pinned down to a day, Memorial Day, May 26, 2008. And that's from whence these photos come. However, one small detail I had overlooked is this: It is impossible to spread the joy of one's idea; the delight with one's notion of the perfect shoot, to a subject who is posing by favor-owed, alone.
The photos speak volumes. Could the man have looked MORE grumpy? Mind you, my husband is a very intense man. He frightens small children, even our own, and some dogs run immediately upon seeing him. Animals at the zoo whine and quiver. I AM kidding; rather, exaggerating. He is actually a very lovable and generally happy person. But he is very, very tall, with a stern countenance and he has, indeed, always been the big fella at the bar that all the drunks engage in fights because, if they could win, they can say they whupped the big guy.
This look he carries around him makes him the perfect candidate for kilt wearing, in my estimation. For what average-looking bloke on American streets can pull off the wearing of a kilt outside of St. Patty's Day, without expecting a certain amount of ribbing? Plus, in my romantic notion of our shared Celtic heritage, I see him as the quintessential kilt-wearing warrior in the image of, say, that beloved bad-ass Scott, William Wallace, who was also a mighty tall chap.
I had the kilt made for Jake several Christmases ago as a tribute to the Scots Irish gene pool that spawned him. For many Americans, I believe there is longing for older things, for the past, for a heritage and historical reference to identify whom we have become, as a people, as well as, as individuals, and also to indicate from where we all began. Neither Jake nor I have family to speak of. Dead relatives and memories exist, but little else. So I believe we, and many others, share a near primeval longing to be a part of something, to belong again to some kind of family, to a clan of familiar people, even if it takes us back to a time as broad and ancient as to where our roots originated, pre-US of A. This is certainly true of me. It is likewise true of Jake.
So, we got him the kilt, and he has a link to the past; a link to the past that by now was chafing at his legs and scratching at his nether regions in the heat. Oh yes, that could have been remedied somewhat by the simple act of wearing boxers beneath. But he would not have it, nor would I!
So, we drove to the spot. We sweated. Jake dressed into his kilt and put on the socks and boots. He sweated worse. He was forced to leave the car, and walk roadside to the rocky setting. I chuckled sadistically as I watched from the sanctity of the building, where I had already settled in, awaiting the arrival of the fully dressed model. Cars that passed slowed some, and a few drivers waved. But he marched on towards his fate, and I might add, looked darned rugged doing it.
So, he posed for me, grumbling some, frowning a bit. He looked fairly formidable, and that's okay since he's donned a kilt. I can only congratulate myself for not having asked him to dress as a clown or something cheery. The demented irony of that would have been hard to shake, seen as such in photos. I realized we had forgotten his big belt, and the pin with the thistle and the yellow stone in it, and he adamantly refused to carry attached one of those "purse things" the manly Scot's have. But he looked pretty cool and I was filled with admiration for the men who wear kilts.
At the point at which I realized it might be nice for him to sit for a few shots, it became apparent we'd have to do so carefully. The swaying and swinging of the "bagpipes" got a bit carefree, and I had to warn him of the gift he had peeking out from the wrapping paper. Then it came to me to make a public statement about the proper wearing of the kilt by simply showing what is done. This proved difficult, as well, for no sane magazine editor allows the depiction of male genitalia in a magazine such as JPG. So, I had to show the sight, but hide the statue, as it were.
So down I go, groveling at the feet of the Scottish Statesman, who was prepared to make his speech, but unable to utter a certain word. I shimmied through twigs and dirt, got my hair tangled in cement cracks, and ripped my blouse, but I finally got just the right shot. It indicates the situation without shrieking to the band. A word of note - that photo in question, found here as numero quatro, is NOT for men! It is out of allegiance to women like me worldwide who have wondered, but never dared ask, or who have asked, and been rebuked because the Scot wasn't drunk enough yet to proclaim the truth.
As we wrapped the hot, steamy shoot, Jake had me gather the things we'd brought, and headed to cool off the car. I took the second-to-last photo of him as some bikers cruised near, slowing to ogle the dude in the skirt, man, whereupon he casually waved, by now unconcerned for gawkers and the ignorant.
A side note is this. That rat of a husband took the opportunity of his having paid off his points by asking me to strip! How could I turn down this sweet request from a worthy model? As cars whizzed by, I did drop trou and blouse, and I did pose for a few pics for Jake, around the traffic. I figured the point system must endure, so why stop now? Fortunately for me, most of these nudes taken by Jake from the car were from too far away to do much good, becoming too blurry in the enlargement process, but for two. (I'm sure he'll post them. He feels he earned them.) On our way back home, we stopped for drinks at a scary-looking establishment and I expected Jake to saunter right on in with me, as usual. But he said, "Hell No. Look at all these trucks here. I am too tired to fight, and this place is full of red necks..." I told him, "Fine. But when I get in there, I am going to tell the first men I see I have a hot mate in the car in a skirt with no underwear!" He laughed weakly, and threatened to leave me there, with my own kind.
Here are the photos of Jake, getting his kilt, on Route Sixty-Six.
