Pompeii, Peanut Butter, and Stephen

August, 79 A.D.

Mount Vesuvius erupted, casting the fossilized figures of Pompeii. Fleeing the mountainside, Italian citizens were caught by rivers of fire, permanently sealed in sarcophagi of stone. If you travel to Pompeii, you can see the figures on display. If you visit in late August, you can attend the annual festival, celebrating and mourning this extraordinary disaster with the descendants of those who escaped.

Summer, 1986.

Stephen, a photographer and the object of my affection, had found success as a portrait and fashion photographer. Back in those days, before camera phones or digital anything, Stephen would patronize photography studios for printing. Too in demand to have the luxury of developing his own work, Stephen ordered sheets of proofs and enlarged photographs in color or black and white.

He lived in a large loft on the tenth floor of a building on West 26th Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. A good portion of his unit was cordoned off, requisitioned for shoots and equipment and dressing rooms.

In the time we were together, I occasionally accompanied Stephen on location, usually as a second assistant: balancing a large reflector, supplying cameras stocked with fresh film at the right moment.

He once took me to Washington, D.C., for a shoot of important black figures in the area for the now defunct magazine MBM (an acronym for Modern Black Male). Among others, he photographed the now infamous mayor, Marion Berry.

I don’t know what was wrong with me (or if that’s even the right expression), but I wasn’t jealous of other men while Stephen and I were together. Looking back, I probably should have been. Not only because of the gorgeous, nearly naked male models who came to his studio to strike endless poses, but because Stephen himself was an exceptionally handsome man. I like that I didn’t feel insecure. And I don’t think it was naiveté either. Only that as long as we remained committed, I didn’t think about what he might be doing when we were apart. From the evening we met, I never looked at another man. I can’t know for sure, but I doubt that was true for him.

Autumn, 1986.

Stephen was invited to exhibit his photographs at The Palladium, a chic New York City night club, in the Michael Todd Room — upstairs, elite. While lying in his bed one night, he asked if I would be one of his models. It required being covered entirely — face, full body — in peanut butter. He would shoot using black and white film, so the peanut butter would resemble dried lava. He envisioned a contemporary Pompeii of living figures.

I didn’t take to the idea.

To begin with, I don’t like being photographed. An odd fact, perhaps, given that I was dating a man whose entire life was photography. I also did not want to be covered in peanut butter. I told him I had to think about it.

He asked me again after a couple of days, but I still didn’t have an answer. A few weeks later, he showed me a series of eerie yet fascinating photographs of his female friend, Ronnie, frozen in what looked like caked lava. In some poses, her mouth gaping, she appeared to be screaming. In another, she seemed dead. In still others, she aped the two-thousand-year-old figures of Pompeii, permanently petrified in a moment of movement.

Ronnie was, in Stephen’s own words, his best friend. Ronnie was tentative around me and we never grew close. I believe she was waiting for the end of Stephen’s “gay phase” before he settled down to marry her. I don’t know if her infatuation was one-sided or if Stephen gave her reason to hope. I was so deliriously in love, I never even bothered to think about it.

It was a bit early in his career for a curated retrospective, so Stephen had chosen an eclectic combination of varied artwork for the Palladium installation: images from fashion and beauty magazines; erotic photographs; celebrity portraits of Liza Minnelli and Miles Davis. On one wall, in black frames behind glass, were five images of Ronnie, naked and rock-like, covered in what resembled stagnant lava. It was, to my eye, a spectacular series.

One of the fashion models, Jean, attended the opening reception accompanied, to my surprise, by my cousin, Jonathan. It was odd to experience the collision of my two worlds, an accidental connection between the suburb I’d abandoned and the man I loved. Jonathan ended up being the only family member of mine to ever meet him.

Back at his apartment that night, I told Stephen how brilliant I thought the exhibition had been and just how impressed I was with his Pompeii series. He reminded me, with a hint of indignation, that I could have been the focal point of that series.

In all honesty, I wish I could remember if I regretted my decision. But I don’t. In theory, perhaps I should have, though learning about the shoot — four different kinds of peanut butter, one of them chunky — likely just filled me with relief at my narrow escape, especially upon learning it took Ronnie three full hours to wash all the peanut butter off her skin. Despite her best efforts, the peanut smell still stuck around for a few weeks, ruining any appreciation she might have once had for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

January 11, 1989.

Stephen died from AIDS. He was 33.

I still have a copy of MBM, Miles Davis on the cover. I also have two books that credit Stephen as editorial photographer, and a single self-portrait sent to me by his sister, Barbara, after the funeral. But I have none of Stephen’s original artwork. He was successful in his day, but is no longer considered valuable in the contemporary art world.

About fifteen years after his death, I discovered that one of Stephen’s pieces was in a gallery in New England.

*Photograph by Stephen Aucoin, circa 1985*

A posed, editorial shot of a young boy standing next to a vintage automobile. Not exactly my favorite, but I tried to buy it anyway. The gallery never responded.

I think my primary regret, in refusing to model, is the knowledge that my choice deprived me of owning an original example of Stephen’s work. Not possessing one piece of his art, a single memorial to the career to which I bore witness day after day, splinters a private piece of my heart, even after all this time. Even if things — meaning “we” — didn’t end well. Though I don’t think the word closure is correct here, there can be (and is) a sort of acceptance.

I do hope someone has his photographs, his negatives, his collected work — even if there isn’t a public audience to enjoy and appreciate them for what I know they’re worth. I still search for a piece of his art to call my own, a silent reminder of the artist who, for a brief time, was mine.

Andrew Sarewitz has been fortunate to have several short stories published (links at www.andrewsarewitz.com). His play, Madame Andrèe, garnered First Prize from 2019’s Stage to Screen New Playwrights competition in San Jose, CA, and his sitcom, The White House, was a Finalist in the 2019 Pitch Now Screenplay Competition.

Andrew SarewitzFebruary 12, 2021