From Behind the Camera: Shakeshift's Personal Story

I can remember once in 2009, we were coming back from a photoshoot in Clearwater (near the beach) and we were trying to cross over back into Tampa.  At one point there was a bridge that was all the way up in order to allow a few ships to cross the channel.  There was a long line of cars waiting at the base of the bridge and it was murderously hot that sunny afternoon because you could see the shimmering waves of heat coming off the blacktop highway.  At the time it was myself, two of the models, and my friend Joe.  Joe is a nice guy and had agreed to be our driver for the day (mostly to meet the two models, that's kind of how Joe was back in those days) and since Joe had a big air-conditioned truck that could carry all of our photography equipment with ease I was glad to have him around on days like today.

We were waiting for about fifteen minutes and the bridge had not yet went down.  I was trying to figure out what the holdup was when Joe craned his neck, turned to me and said, "There's a sailboat that's stalled under the bridge, it can't go back down until the sailboat either moves forward or back." and I remember thinking that a sailboat with a stalled motor was the silliest thing I had ever heard of.  It's a SAILBOAT.  You don't need motors when you're a sailboat.  Of course he hadn't been using the sails today, he was just taking it out for a short ride in the channel for whatever reason using the tiny motor in back for navigation and the engine stalled right as he was under the bridge.

So we're waiting, and after a while Joe cuts the engine because we're using gas like crazy.  It starts to get hot in the truck and the bridge STILL hasn't come down.  The models are starting to sweat in the back and Joe turns to me with a look of horror on his face.

"I have to take a shit."

I tell Joe that we'll stop at a gas station after the bridge crossing and it'll all be good.

"No man, I have to take a shit and I have to take it NOW."

He starts the engine and we try to do a U-turn, but we're right at the on-ramp for the bridge so we can't go forwards or back because of cars, and we can't go off the road because one side is a median divider and the other side is a ten foot dirt drop-off into a marsh-bank.  We're completely stuck.

Joe starts to squirm.  The models of course are horrified by everything that we've been through.  Also, their makeup is starting to run down their faces from all the sweating we've done for the past fifteen minutes and so even though the A/C is back on the girls now look like drunken raccoons crying in the back of Joe's truck.

"Joe!  There's NOWHERE we can go!  Hold it in!" I yell at him.

"I have to take a shit, dude!  I can't wait any more!" Joe complains.

We can't go forward in the truck, and we can't go back.  Joe is now squirming in his seat like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum, except that tantrum is with the three pounds of feces in his bowels now howling to get out of his body.  Joe's macabre dance in the driver's seat of his truck resembles something Zulu warriors did right before they charged off into battle.  Lots of wriggling and grunting, eyes closed tight in anticipation of the battle to come.

The models start to cry.

Suddenly, without any warning, the fecund smell of freshly-made crap fills the whole truck.  It hits me like an invisible fist in the face, involuntarily slamming my head to the side as the raw stench of crap (with the undeniable floral hint of Taco Bell wafting underneath the smell of feces) drops me like a seasoned pro.  My eyes water, my head swims, the whole world seems to take on a weird surreal quality as the awful stench gets endlessly recycled through the air-filtration system back into our faces again and again like a badly-skipping record.

Joe has just officially shit his pants.

Joe dives out of the truck and runs down the earthen bank towards the reeds and the marsh, muttering some sort of apology as he dashes away, the whole backside of his khakis with this nightmarish yellow wet stain on it like a huge failure-circle across his entire ass.  There's no sign of anything in the truck left behind from this feco-disaster.  No wet stains on the seat, no residue on the back of the door.  As far as we can tell it's all narrowly lodged in Joe's tighty-whities as he power-walks down the earthen bank with grim determination, drops his pants and then just lets it all shoot out of his ass into the dismal marsh in a failure-spray so epic that it would even make the Three Stooges proud.  Everybody on the on-ramp can see this guy let loose.  Joe thought he was out of sight of the other cars, but he was MAYBE fifteen feet away from us at most so everybody got a good up-close look at a big guy taking a massive pressure-sprayer projectile crap on the side of a major highway.

Just when I think that I can't laugh any more, I suddenly feel a huge bump throughout the truck.  It shakes me, it shakes the models in the back.  Joe is fifteen feet away spraying the Florida Everglades in a tawny-brown shower of Taco Bell residue, so I'm trying to figure out what just happened.  I look forward, and we have just accidentally rammed the teeny little 

Ford Focus five feet in front of us.

Joe had fled the truck without putting the transmission back into "park."  He had basically left it in "drive" and had been riding the brake the whole time when he dashed out to go take a shit.  Now we had idled forward and bumped the car in front of us.  Out of instinct, the Ford Focus pulled forward as much as it could, and of course Joe's truck idled forward obligingly and rammed it a second time, this time hard enough to crack the plastic bumper of the Focus with a sickening crunch.

"NO!" cries Joe, his fudge-filled khakis dangling around his ankles, looking up at the low-speed accident.  "My truck!"  He starts to hobble up the earthen bank without bothering to pull up his pants, and the sight of his shit-stained backside waddling closer and closer to the highway makes everybody honk their horns in panic.  I'll never forget it to this day.  A cacophony of terrified motorists honking their horns in panic at the crazy guy with the shit-stained backside hobbling up the embankment... completely bottomless.  They're not honking their horns to warn him of danger.  They're honking their horns to keep him away from their cars, the children, their grandsons and granddaughters.

And, at that point, one of the models in the backseat throws up in the truck.  Her internal limit has just been reached.

I wish I could tell you a happy ending to this story, but there is none.  Neither model would ever work with me again, and they both tried hitting me up for extra money for having to endure this horrible afternoon.  Joe ended up having to call his insurance agent and his $1000 deductible on the car accident made it an unforgettable afternoon in his eyes.  Joe eventually sold that big truck and by 2011 I had never heard from him again, partially because I think he blamed me for everything that had happened that night.  As his wife put it, if he hadn't gone to help a friend, none of that would have happened.

Every time I drive through the city of Clearwater though and I hit the channel bridge to go to Seminole I always think back to that day (no matter who I'm with) and it always makes me smile.  The best stories are always like that.  The great stories always make you smile, even when it's the worst possible circumstances, and even if the story is based on awful things happening to really nice people.

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Shakeshift's Superheroine Adventures by Dawnstar Productions