Who's Got Two Thumbs and Likes Easy Money--This Guy!

Late shift, Lakota Coffee Shop, downtown Columbia, Missouri. Students are winding down their summer classes, couples are sipping java and playing scrabble. In walks this super-humanly, New York runway, glamorous, fabulous gay man strutting his stuff on the catwalk--or rather Lakota Coffee's narrow walkway between tables. He orders his coffee and walks around the side of the counter as though looking at pastries. A few minutes pass and I look over absentmindly and he looks away startled. I go about my work behind the counter. A few minutes later I'm stretching and glancing around the shop and again I see him just staring at me.
"Can I get you something?" I asked, wondering if he needed my attention.
"I'm just watching the way you carry yourself," he said.
I cocked an eyebrow, somewhere between curious and disturbed.
"I'm in the fashion industry back east," he said, unabashedly pretentious, "I'm shooting a video in Columbia, and you have the look. That's a professional compliment, I'm not hitting on you."
"Well...thank you," I said, wanting to add an "I guess."
He darted off, never breaking his runway saunter, as though offended that I didn't take the compliment more seriously. My female co-worker and I had a laugh and I went back to serving up some joe. Thirty minutes later he comes to the counter again, this time with a portfolio of glamour shots.
"Here's my portfolio, I am a model in New York and I am doing a fashion video to Madonna's Vogue." He proceeded to tell me I had the look several more times (although I apparently needed to shave so I could look like "a million bucks") and repeated information about his video and what I would have to do.
Do? I thought. Am I doing something now?
This went on for my entire five hour shift, the customer flow waning and this guy telling me more about his project. Eventually he gave me a Madonna CD asking, "Do you have a CD player at home?" thinking, I suppose, that perhaps Missouri functioned on horse drawn carriages and Omish cheese. "There it is right there, number seven, Vogue. Go home and have a listen, or walk it through as we say."
Vogue? I wanted to say in my best hillbilly accent, what the hell is this Vogue you speak of. And Madonna, who's this? Is this some kind of religious video?
I bit my tongue.
By the end of my shift he was talking to me about contracts and I told him that was the only way I could consider doing anything. He assured me that he was legit, writing down his back-story on two pieces of loose-leaf paper and showing me a photocopy of his graduation certificate from modeling school. I suppose I seemed unimpressed because he continued telling me more and more information about himself and what he'd done, dying for me to throw my hands in the air yelling, "My God man! You are too fucking sexy for your shirt! Dance my friend! Dance on the catwalk!" I was sure that had I been so boisterous he'd have struck a pose right there on the coffee shop bar. But I wasn't, and so this game continued of convincing me I had "raw talent" and that I should dance and model in his video shoot for $100 bucks an hour. Eventually, I said sure. I said, "If you can show me a contract and I can verify it with a lawyer and the whole thing is completely legal and legit, I'll do it--oh yeah, and you can teach me how to dance."
He said it was no problem. He assured me his lawyer would personally present me with the contract and that a professional choreographer would work with me and four other brunette males, six feet tall (appartently the "look" I have--thanks mom!). So, we'll see what happens.
Life is so weird. I mean, honestly, what the hell? People do some strange stuff with their lives. I can't say I EVER in a my most drunken and delusional dreams saw this one coming, but you know what--I'll take what I can get. If this dude's for real and I can make a few thousand dollars in a week for posing in a 1940s suit and top hat, okay. It's no less degrading than cleaning a public restroom and taking out the trash at the end of the night. Me and the misses gotta eat. So, since I know you all follow the fashion industry like stock brokers, as do the rest of us here in the midwest, let me give you the inside scoop; top hats and 1940s suits. Go get yours today. Move over Dick Tracy, I'm movin' in on yo shizot.