TWO JEANS FOR TWO BROTHERS
THE TYPE OF SHAME THAT WISES YOU UP
How long did it last, my brother and I sharing those fucking Wranglers?
Too long.
But if we’re being technical: a year, plus a minus a month or two.
2
This was in middle school and I was delivering newspapers, all three of Jersey’s dailies, two in the morning, one in the afternoon and so it wasn’t like I had no money. I had a little. knew I had to buy pants — problem was in those days I was cuckoo for books, for owning books, not just getting them from the library — books and Dungeons and Dragons was all I wanted to spend my money on.
Plus my father who had run off (and I hated) was a Caribbean dandy, 50th level, and I’m sure that had a lot do with my reluctance to drip out.
Plus I was so caught in the anoxic currents in my head I wasn’t exactly thinking straight, thinking socially.
The few times I forced myself to the mall to buy myself another pair of Lee — because come on, bruv — I always ended up leaving the Lee on the counter and buying books instead.
I don’t remember what a pair of jeans cost at that time but I can remember all the books I bought instead.
God Emperor of Dune.
The Claw of the Conciliator.
Fiend Folio.
Yes, Fiend Folio.
3
You would have thought my brother would have jumped in but cat was just back from a year long hospitalization for leukemia, dique in remission (not for long). Brain fried from the radiation, wearing a wig that even a wig would have second thoughts about, the immobile curls like paint brush bristles in my fingers.
4
My mother not much help either though who could blame her. A single mom trying to pray my brother healthy (fail), trying to learn English (fail), trying to find work and her government money stretched tight as a monofilament, what with four kids (and a fifth one gone missing). My sartorial problems were the last fucking thing on her mind. That she despaired a lot and often announced that she was despairing, couldn’t really blame her for that either. Shit was not great and there were days when she looked at us boys with those achaemenidian eyes of hers and said simply, Today you don’t eat, and we didn’t.
5
One night I jumped the fence into the pool and thought for a second that I’d ripped my jeans (I didn’t) and was so scared that I’d have to go school in shorts that afterwards I swore that I’d do the necessary, no fucking fail.
That Saturday I took the bus Woodbridge Mall, picked up two pairs of Lee, brought them to the register and of course I fucking hesitated.
See, as luck would have it, Waldenbooks was right across the hall. I’d already scouted it and was overflowing on the front display? A fresh hardcore pile of Donaldson’s latest Thomas Covenant novel The One Tree.
The cashier was like: What’s the matter? You don’t have the money?
You would have thought I was trying to give up heroin or the One Ring. I walked out, went to Waldenbooks, picked up The One Tree, put it down, walked back to the jean store. Must have done that back-and-forth three times before I finally I locked my jaw, handed dude the cash, took my Lees and left.
6
You never saw anyone so pissed at a pair of pants. I acted like that denim had robbed me on payday in front of my girlfriend, or kicked me in the nuts. Of course the suckers were stiff and color fresh which would have been fine if I’d had something new to wear with them but all my t-shirts were raggedy as fuck. So flow this was not.
As soon as I got on the bus that Monday the eight-graders started in. I guess your shirt is still on layaway.
His layaway on layaway.
7
All shame sucks, all shame hurts. Some varieties though follow you for your entire life; other swear que no existe until until they jump up out of nowhere and snaps all the bones of your heart. Other shame, once you shake off the initial blow, wises you up.
I guess I was mad because I knew what I had to do and hated that I had to do it. Hated it because books were my thing — the only thing that made all the rest of the shit tolerable. And maybe because buying clothes felt like father crap and I had enough father crap to last me a last time. Nevertheless, over the next months I resisted the bibliomania, saved up the loot I wasn’t using for food and eventually I bought jean number five, no more repeating in school. Would be a few years before I had five that I didn’t have to share with anybody but it was a start. I even bought two new t-shirts shirts too but I left it at that. Two was all the dandy I had in me.
Fortunately by then my friend H— had gotten The One Tree as a gift and after he read it he passed it onto me and you know what?
That book sucked but like really sucked.
Writing like this is a gift. Thank you.
The detail of the eighth-graders and "his layaway on layaway" — that's the kind of specific cruelty you don't forget forty years later. Grateful you're willing to put it down on the page.