It was the summer after I graduated fifth grade that my father took me to my first car show. The extravaganza took place in the parking lot of our local McDonalds, and was a main attraction for fat, shirtless men, crack whores and people will less than half their teeth. It was far from a typical Sciortino family outing (we were more the church fair / bake sale / sober knitting circles type of people), but the event offered a change in the normal routine of our mundane suburban lives, so my father dragged me along.
I wasn’t into it at first—drunk men, car engines, cheap hamburgers, whatever! But then suddenly, in amongst all the fuck-ups, I spotted the most shockingly beautiful thing I’d ever seen: car models.
Who are these mystical blonde goddesses? I thought. They were like Barbies, only bigger and with fewer clothes. I had never seen anything so beautiful, so perfect. They looked so happy in their hot pink bikinis—their white teeth glistening in the July sun. Everyone around them was smiling and taking their photographs. It was the closet thing to celebrity that I had ever encountered, and I wanted to be one of them more than anything.
“I want to be one of the car girls,” I said to my grandmother over spaghetti dinner that evening.
“What’s she talking about?” my grandmother shrieked, glaring at my father. She has a habit of referring to everyone in the third person, even when they’re seated directly in front of her.
“I mean one of the models who sits on the cars,” I said, my face covered in red sauce. “You know… in a bathing suit.” The thought of me growing up to be someone whose job was to wiggle my half-naked breasts in front of a bunch of drooling perverts was more than my grandmother could bear.
“Those people are scum!” she shouted, her fork was raised in the air like some sort of trident. “You hear me?! Scum! Look what you’ve done! She’s scarred for life!”
* * *
It’s twelve years later and I’m lounging on the hood of a 1970, tangerine-colored Dodge Challenger. I’m dressed in a hot pink bikini top, denim short shorts and a pair of knee high Dr. Martins. The car belongs to the artist Richard Prince, and is parked directly in the middle of London’s celebrated Frieze Art Fair. The people surrounding me, starring—they’re different people than those I encountered that day in the parking lot of McDonalds. They have less back hair, for one. They’re also probably more likely to get a hard dick from staring at a Damien Hirst than they are a souped-up car. But then again, when it comes down to it, is there really a difference?
I’m being paid £500 a day to strut sexily around the car looking hot, wax it repeatedly, and smile seductively every time a slimy art tourist wants to take a photo. Admittedly, I’m finding it kind of fun. At times anyway. I mean, who doesn’t love being the center of attention, especially when the majority of it is complementary? Although I can’t help but worry that my thighs look fat in these shorts…
“I hope you’re getting paid a lot of money to be here,” smirks one man dismissively as he passes by me.
“I am actually, you bald fuck,” I hiss. “Now piss off. I’m trying to look hot.”
Yesterday Hugh Grant asked to take a photo with me. The day before it was Jarvis Cocker. I couldn’t help but wonder if they knew I was “in” on the joke. (Or am I?) An hour ago I was violently attacked by a woman with armpit hair. “I won’t let you do this to yourself!” she screamed as she ripped me from the hood of the car. “It’s degrading!”
“No no no,” I responded, trying to explain. “You don’t get it. It’s art.” Fucking philistine.
***
It’s the next morning and I get a phone call from my mother. “You’re in the New York Times darling,” she says. “I’m so proud of you! You look amazing. But maybe it’s best we don’t mention this to your father. Or your grandmother for that matter. They’re both close enough to death as it is.”
Slutastic!you ahve to be my favourite human being, after me of course…
i cnat wait for the part two about the perv and the postal with llamas.