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“I don’t ever want to see either of you in here again,” said Officer Sanderson, the straight-out-of-70’s-porn, it’s-part-of-the-uniform-ma’am moustache barely moving above his lip. “Now, beat it.”
And there we were, banished from The Gap for life. The Roman Polanskis of middle-class fashion. The Andrew Dice Clays of pretentious, overpriced, “pre-weathered” jeans.
Alisia and I had stopped that Wednesday evening in search of a belt for me. We were attending a company function at her office that coming Friday to which I’d be wearing my black suit, and the only belt I seemed to own was brown, although we were pretty sure we’d gone on this same shopping trip for a black belt the last time I’d had to wear that suit. But whatever.
We arrived at 6:50, knowing full well that The Gap closed at seven o’ clock. But how long could belt shopping take? As we entered the store, I nodded in greeting to the police officer stationed near the door—Officer Sanderson, I would find out later—in that way that people tend to act with unjustified familiarity with the police, firefighters, military personnel, or really anyone who might make a person feel a twinge of guilt for not having done something more “heroic” with their lives. Or, perhaps with police officers, that look is meant to convey something more like, “See? You don’t have to worry about me. What are the chances that I’ve got six kilos of heroin hidden under the upholstery of my car if I have the gumption to nod to you in salutation? Pretty small, I’d say.” Either way, I did the macho head bob thing, feeling slightly like an idiot, and headed into the store.
As Alisia perused women’s tops and jeans, I looked quickly through the men’s belts, wrapping a few around my waist trying to find one that fit.
Now, one would think that if one’s waist size is thirty-six inches, one’s belt size might also be thirty-six inches, but that isn’t the case, is it? Through some feat of metric-to-American conversion, or in some strange parallel to women’s vs. men’s shoe sizes, my belt size is some non-36 number, like 42 or 44 or 21, which I can never remember. So, I just grab belts off the rack by the handful and wrap them around me until one fits. Makes sense, right?
Anyway, once I found one that was to my liking lengthwise, I quickly made sure that it fit into my belt loop while hoping that the belt loops on my jeans weren’t bigger than the loops on my suit’s pants. What could be worse than purchasing a belt that fit comfortably around my waist, only to find that I’d have to, I dunno, staple it to my pants or something? Hardly anything.
Finally satisfied with a particular belt, we paid for it and were on our way out the door, just a minute or so before seven. Officer Sanderson was now out on the sidewalk, leaning on the hood of his cruiser, and I could feel myself preparing to tell him to have a “good one”—we’re old pals, remember?—as Alisia and I passed him on the way to our car.
We stepped out onto the sidewalk and as my mouth started to form the words, he said to us, “Okay, now, why don’t you give me what you took?”
The white plastic toilet seat is somehow tacky enough with the left-behind goop of its previous occupants to chafe my thighs at the same time as it’s almost too slippery with my own cold sweat to prevent me from sliding right into the bowl. A wave of teeth-grinding abdominal pain has just passed, and the feeling returns to my fingertips as I gradually relax my fists. The occasional derelict pocket of rank air squeaks its escape from beneath me, and the churning cauldron of foulness burbles listlessly from within. It feels like the worst may have passed, but I’m hesitant to trust that notion as my two previous attempts at standing only brought on new floods of paint-peeling horror.
It’s my mom’s fiftieth birthday, and she and I are in Manhattan celebrating. We’ve already spent the afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art, we’re at a swanky restaurant for dinner now, and we’ve got tickets to Cats afterwards. The bread and salad courses had come and gone, and our entrées had just arrived when I realized just how urgently I needed to meet with the proverbial man in reference to his proverbial horse. I had ordered filet mignon, and when the waiter set it down in front of me it was perfect and juicy and thick. I can just imagine its current condition. It’s probably quite room temperature, and its accompanying butter sauce has likely congealed into a tan-yellow lump of aged Elmer’s glue, petrified parsley flakes suspended within.
I shift my weight from one slippery cheek to the other, and the disturbance is enough to send my innards back into full spasmodic fit. The pain fades my vision to white, and I’m acutely aware of the ticklish sweat dripping from my hairline, down my forehead and neck. My sport coat is folded and draped over the stall door, my dress shirt is hanging from a rusty metal hook, and I’m clutching my undershirt in my fists like a security blanket. Here I sit, shirtless in the interest of preventing wrinkles (and, in fact, splattering), with my pants around my ankles, as I spray rancid hell into the porcelain chasm beneath me while my mother eats her fiftieth birthday dinner alone. It will be another forty or forty-five minutes before I’m sure it’s safe to hoist myself up off the commode and drag my damp, accordion-pleated undershirt back over my head.