A Man Alone

Originally Posted Sunday, May 12, 2013

I've not quite recovered from my night of drunken debauchery (you know that means more than the average drinking night) because despite my resolve, I had a few the next.  Plus a Xanax.  But in spite of all that, yesterday I was fairly productive in the few hours I was ambulatory.  I cleaned up some Polaroids (I still have a few packs left) and partially cleaned the studio.  The air conditioner has quit working at the studio, so I called the maintenance man on his cell phone (was worried about that on a Saturday) and got a promise to have it replaced by Monday.  I looked at the yard and made plans that I will carry out today.  And then. . . I made the big mistake.  I went to the Outlet Mall on a Saturday. 

Holy shit, my friends.  Every freak with storage units full of drugs and stolen car parts, every badass  with a car that has tiny rims and things to make it go up and down on command, every couple or family with no idea what else to do but eat mall food and wander from store to store on the weekend--all of them without exception--were there.  I had gone because I made the decision to wear nothing but polo shirts to work this summer.  It is to be my uniform.  I'll wear pants of some sort, too, but we'll get to that in a minute.  This particular Outlet Mall is one of three in a fifteen mile radius to have a Ralph Lauren store.  When you say Ralph Lauren, don't you think "Polo"?  That was the impetus.

Because I was slow and hung over, I guess, I took the traffic in stride better than I normally could.  I just followed a lane of cars that moved once in a while toward some destination I could barely remember past endless filled parking lots.  Young couples holding hands, families with lots of kids and baby carriages, large groups of people in their late twenties acting like teenagers all crossing the street, leaking out of shrubs and bushes meant to be barriers, slowed traffic to a crawl. 

I didn't care.  I turned into a lot away from the mall across several lanes of traffic and fortunately found a spot as a car backed out.  See what happens when you chill, I thought.  I can do this.  And then, like all the others, I made my way through a hedge row and watched the traffic part to let me cross the street illegally.  Just like crossing the southern border, I thought. 

All I wanted was a big handful of polo shirts, but shopping is never that easy.  The Ralph Lauren store was not like any other I'd ever been in.  This one served a sort of hip-hop crowd.  One thing I've noticed in life is that Euros don't mind traveling solo whether it is to the top of Everest or to the mall.  Western Euros, anyway.  For the most part, Asians are like that, too, I think.  And to a significant degree, Russians.  I am like that and am attracted to that, the lone traveler or those who travel in pairs or small groups.  But Jesus Christ on the Cross, this wasn't that crowd.  This one was composed of herds.  They would disperse across the store then come together again like a flash mob.  They never lost track of one another because they communicated like whales, constantly calling out at the top of their lungs.  The babies were learning early how to communicate.  They screamed and yelled for no reason at all other than to keep touch with the pod, I think. 

"Julio.  Julio.  Julio!  Do you like these?  Do--You--Like--These?" 

Don't think of this as a line of dialog delivered.  Think of twenty or thirty voices like this going at once while kids ran and screamed and played hide and seek among the clothing wracks and displays. 

"Hey Dawg!" 

The sales help were all standing around in clumps, too, laughing and snapping their fingers to the music--I swear this it true and was surprising to me, too--and everybody was (dare I say it). . . happy.  It was a kind of happiness, I'm certain.  They were out, I guess, out of the trailer or apartment or rental housing.  There were vistas here, and pretty things. 

I wondered, though, given the abundance of shoppers and clothing, why everyone was so poorly dressed. 

In case you are thinking I'm being a racist prick, I have to point out to you that I have spoken quite often of the hillbilly stock from which I've sprung.  They would not be here at this mall.  They wouldn't feel comfortable and wouldn't spend this much money even on outlet clothing.  I'm just observing from my peculiar vantage point.  Trust me.  I can get along well in this crowd. 

It took me awhile to amass an armful of clothes to try on.  Sizing at an outlet store is the problem unless you are a small or an extra extra large.  But I managed to find some things that might make my summer more comfortable and headed for the dressing room where I was greeted by a pretty young African-American women.  Girl.  I don't know.  A Beautiful Negress.  She looked at me and smiled. 

"Listen," I said.  "A fellow, one of the sales help out there, is going to bring me a shirt.  Will you tell him which stall I'm in?"

"I will.  Do you need any other assistance?" 

I wanted to tell her I did.  I wanted her to come assist me so very badly.  I was feeling semi-attractive after so many hours in the beauty salon, and my hair looked fairly awesome even though it was on the same old beaten up face.  But coming off the long, much needed seduction of the night before, my confidence was somewhere out of the negative for once in a long while. 

"I guess not," is what I managed to say.  But she was so pretty and kept smiling and staring at me like she was helping me out anyway.  I wished I was the kind of man who could say things, but as always without exception, I was exceedingly demure (can that word be applied to a male?). 

Now. . . here comes the hard part.  You might know how it is.  You take off your clothes in front of the full length mirror in the bright florescent light and see yourself as you are right then, not like the photographs of beautiful models wearing the clothing, but just you with your poochy gut and the beginnings of fleshy dimples, and you begin to despair.  I quickly slipped on one of the shirts I'd brought in, a short-sleeved madras thing, and pulled on a pair of khaki trousers of the size I always wore.  They were tight, of course.  They fit, but I wouldn't want to wear them with a shirt tucked in all day. 

I stepped out of the dressing room.  I needed another size.  And there was the beautiful girl to help me. 

"Oh, I love that shirt on you.  It looks great."

I couldn't ask her for the larger size. 

"Could you bring me another pair of these?  Something seems to be wrong with the stitching in the fabric in the waistband." 

"Of course." 

And then. . . and I swear with my hand to whatever deity or devil you wish ("why are you always the hero of your stories?"). . . as I turned to walk back into the fitting room, she said, "Jesus, you are a handsome man." 

It's true!  I mean it's true that she said it.  My friends will ridicule me, tell me I'm full of shit or that she was just trying to make a sale, but it wasn't that, I know.  I saw the look in her eye. 

And in a moment, I was in love. 

I have been a lucky man in my life, luckier than I deserve to be.  The luck has taken its time coming often enough, and it takes longer and longer now, and the victories are small and smaller.  And I am one foolish enough to take joy in such smallish things. 

I bought nothing.  But I may go back.  I thought too late how much I wished to photograph this girl.  I will go back.  I want to show you.  She IS beautiful. 

You may think the moral of this story is that other people are ridiculous figures and I am a handsome hero.  But that is not it (at least not in toto).  The moral is that I am fat and do not deserve what I have gotten this weekend.  And the outcome is this.  I am going to lose weight.  I am.  I'm changing my workouts so that they are full of cardio and movement.  I will become a piece of strong rope, a cable, long and lean.  I will stop drinking and quit eating.  I am going on a Masai diet of milk and blood.  You will see.  There is truly only one thing to live for and one place to live.  I like to live there.  I am inspired.