Give Me Your Mutilated, Your Twisted and Your Sick
At Ross (“Dress For Less!”), men demonstrate an interesting shopping technique. They like to test apparel by flinging it across the room to see how far it travels. One walks between rows of dress shirts treading on a path of belts, ties, and underwear.
Combing through packages of dress shirts at Ross to find something my size is an occasional sport, on a level with playing “scratch” lottery cards. When I get tired of that, I vary the routine by looking for underwear my size. I don’t know what happens in that aisle, folks, but the remains are savage indeed. It looks as though savage apes used the underwear section to settle a turf dispute – and that might be close to the truth. At any rate, excavating the destruction wrought, I rarely find anything but XXL panties for guys. 34 years old, and I am still being pushed aside by larger males.
Back to the shirts. The choice of one style over another is not a consideration; not here. The first consideration is, “Is anything my size? Anything at all?” There are 14 ½, 15 ½, but nothing landing squarely on 15. The rare 15’s have sleeves that are too long.
In my head, I start drafting a letter: “To the General Manager, I have a proposal for you. Give me a call when you receive a shipment of size 15 32/33 shirts, let me come in before the store opens, and I will guarantee you a certain number of purchases per year. Not only that, I’ll wash your windows. They need it.”
* * *
A few blocks away from the ceremony where Los Angeles inaugurated our new alcalde, I sit in the county courthouse, ready for jury service. For some reason I am not selected for a trial. Maybe it is because I am dressed in full military camouflage and periodically shout, “DUCK!”
Eventually, I am ejected from the courthouse; but on Hill Street, I am greeted by every stranger as a hero. They clear a path for me straight back to my car, parked near the hideous Disney Concert Hall, from where you can faintly hear the applause from the inaugural speech by the new Mayor, who invokes the image of the Watts Towers to describe what he finds inspirational about L.A.
It is an interesting image for me, too. A body that seems solid that is actually made from shards, a cohesion of shattered things.
