The Swap(38)

“Hey, Low,” he said, as if he were genuinely glad to see me.

Unlike me, Thompson wasn’t broody and resentful, but chipper, happy-go-lucky. He clearly wasn’t right in the head.

“Hey,” I mumbled. “I’m picking up some prints. Under Morrison.”

“Right,” he chirped, pulling open a long drawer near his knees. He extracted a blue envelope and slid it across the counter toward me. “Your photos are awesome.”

“You looked at my photos?” I snapped.

“Umm . . . that’s my job. Cashier and quality control. I make sure the photos print out properly. You’d be surprised how often the printer will screw up. But yours came out great. You could sell them.”

“Who would want pictures of my brother?”

“People like babies,” he said. “They don’t care who they are.” He read the back of the envelope and punched some numbers into the till. “Four sixty-eight, please.

As I dug into my wallet, Thompson said, “Are you on Instagram?”

“No.”

“You should set up a page for your photography. You never know what might happen.”

I plunked a bill onto the counter. “Like what?”

“I don’t know . . . Maybe someone would hire you to photograph their baby?”

“Gross.”

“But what if they lived in New York? Or Paris? They might fly you out there.”

That was more enticing.

“You might get a gallery showing. Or free camera equipment. Or baby swag.”

“Why would I want baby swag?”

“For your brother,” he said, as he made change. “I manage a page for my cousin’s baking business. She’s got over three thousand followers now. She’s getting her brand out there and she’s starting to get a few orders.” He leaned toward me and I saw a few straggly whiskers under his bottom lip, an attempt at a soul patch. “Don’t tell anyone, but her food looks better than it tastes.”

He handed me some coins. “When you get your page up, let me know. I’ll give you a shout out in our stories.”

I wasn’t sure why Thompson Ingleby wanted to help me. I’d never been very nice to him. On the other hand, I’d never been overtly mean to him, either, and maybe, in Thompson’s world, that was enough.

“Thanks.” I grabbed my prints and left.





33


For an outcast like me, social media was a fresh kind of hell—somewhere between livestreaming your Brazilian wax and being disemboweled and having your entrails set on fire in front of you. By avoiding Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, I could almost enjoy my complete lack of a social life. During my previous sojourn onto social media, I had realized its sole purpose was to make me feel bad about all the fun and frivolity I was missing out on, all the typical teen experiences I would never have. Though I hated fun and frivolity, and didn’t even want those clichéd experiences, seeing my peers drinking and partying and declaring their undying love for one another with hashtags—#BFF #timeofmylife #memories—made me want to hurl.

But this Instagram page would be faceless. It would be about my photography only. I might actually enjoy having a bunch of strangers fawn over my work. Freya said it was the best feeling in the world . . . until it became the worst. It was all fake, she had said, and the people who adored you one minute would turn on you the next. There were bullies out there, empowered by the anonymity of the internet. Depression, anxiety, and negative body image were just some of the side effects of a diet of social media. But that wouldn’t happen to me. Because this wasn’t about me. It was about sharing my art with the world.

The name I chose was “Hawkeye 61.” (Actually, I had to use The_Hawkeye_61 because someone already had the other label.) The moniker was derived from the town of Hawking combined with my eye for photography, and the fact that I was six foot one. I had always related to hawks. They were loners, watching, circling, waiting to strike. Over the next few days, I uploaded some of my favorite photos—of Eckhart, of nature, of the pig and the goat. I DM’d Thompson Ingleby and he worked his magic. Within the first few days, I had over four hundred followers.

I had conditioned myself to view social media platforms as evil, but I was beginning to see the beauty in them. Instagram didn’t care if you hadn’t grown since the ninth grade like Thompson, or if you had grown to a near-freakish height like me. It only cared about the facade, the pretense you chose to share with the world. And that worked well for me. My talent was being appreciated without the distraction of my unfortunate physicality. My confidence bloomed.

Freya had taught me the tricks of the social media trade. How to build my following, when to post to receive maximum exposure. The photos of my sleeping brother were the most popular, with the goat a distant second. In fact, Eckhart’s images garnered a lot of attention from other photographers, mommy blogger types, and baby-clothing companies. One morning I woke up to three hundred new followers. Another day, I gained over five hundred!

As soon as I set up my account, I searched for Freya Light. I was thrilled to find she had reactivated her Instagram page: Frey_of_Light. So clever! Her account was public, so I followed her. She posted mostly selfies, all focused around her pregnancy. She and Max had spent much of the winter in Mexico—Sayulita, Nayarit, according to the geo tag. They were on a “babymoon” sponsored by a five-star resort. Free accommodation in exchange for posts of the photogenic mother-to-be in her high-end quarters and around the scenic property. One photo offered a view of Freya’s tanned belly and shapely legs, the ocean in the background. There was a shot of her round tummy floating in an infinity pool; a pic of her in a white robe eating fresh papaya for breakfast in her suite; one of her maternal cleavage bursting out of her bikini top, with the caption: These babies are ready for baby! #breastfeed #mothersmilk #noboobjob While I was thrilled when I got a hundred likes, Freya got thousands. Scrolling through the comments, I found them to be largely positive and supportive.