Uniforms continued

My brother, being a high school student now, goes off with my father in search of a suit jacket. No longer restricted to the uniform of St. Theresa and the Bleeding Sisters of Chastity he can get something more stylish, more trendy. He also gets to pick the clothes out himself, with Mom’s final approval of course. He trails behind the slim salesman and my father with his newfound high school swagger. As my mother and I mount the stairs, my hand turning white from gripping the faux brass banister so tightly, he turns and catches my eye. Quickly looking around to make sure that no one is looking he winks and then flips me the middle finger. He is so cool. He’ll probably find a Z. Cavaricci jacket. My eyes well up with tears. I stop on the middle of the staircase and try to control myself. Choking back sobs and rubbing my eyes furiously to stop the tears from falling I tell myself that Indiana Jones would never cry, not even if his girlfriend died. My mother, on the second floor by now, turns and looks down at me.

--Let’s go. We don’t have all day.

I nod and once again look at my brother who is laughing hysterically now as the salesman slips a handsome tweed jacket that perfectly hugs my brother’s slim adolescent frame over his shoulders. My father, oblivious to my emotional state at the moment, is heatedly discussing the pros and cons of buying an all-white sedan in the city. I take a deep breath and continue up the stairs.

To the casual observer the second floor of Silverberg’s in the same as the first. Suit jackets hang along the walls and on racks along the floor. But as we head to the back corner of the room I try to prepare myself for what is about to happen. A sweaty, fat man sits on a stool in front of a mirror, smoking a cigarette. In shirt sleeves, a half undone tie and gray slacks that more than hug his ample frame, he looks like a poor man’s Santa Clause – gone to the dark side. He looks up as he hears my mother and I approaching. He gives us a defeated smile, takes a handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and wipes the sweat off his forehead. Sitting and smoking takes a lot out of a guy. He stubs his cigarette out in the ashcan next to him and then begins the arduous process of raising himself off of the stool. How the little stool is able to hold his weight is a mystery to my unscientific brain. I hear it creaking and cracking as he sways from side to side trying to find his center of gravity under all that heft. If stools could sweat this one would be drenched. This exertion only causes the salesman to drip even harder. His breathing becomes short and heavy and, in an instant, he reaches out his stubby, hairy, sweaty arm. I watch in horror as my mother unconsciously reaches her own petite arm to grab him and with a show of strength that I would have though impossible she heaves him up onto his feet. Unfortunately, neither the man nor the stool expected this to happen. The stool topples over to its side, miraculously unscathed and seeming to enjoy the rest. The fat salesman tries to find his breath and his legs while staring at my mother bewilderedly. Her show of strength is pure adrenaline. She wants this over and done with. Finally, the man pulls himself together.

--How can I help you?
--Yes, I need to get my son here a uniform for St. Theresa and the Sisters of the Stigmata.
--Right. We can do that. As he says this he begins to take the long measuring tape from around his still sweaty neck with his big, sweaty sausage link fingers. This man produces more water than anyone I’ve ever seen in my life. He starts to walk toward me, all the while huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf. The sweat is once again glistening on his forehead and I can see beads of it forming on his too hairy chest underneath his unbuttoned collar. I look around for some sort of escape route but my mother, knowing better, has miraculously appeared behind me to stop me from bolting.

--Let’s see what we have here, the salesman says as he wraps the tape around my chest. We are now eye to eye. I can smell his cigarette breath as every sharp intake of air hits my face as he kneels on the floor in front of me. The combination of his sweat and cigarettes is making me nauseous. I feel myself begin to swoon so I try to distract myself. The only place I can look though is directly at him. His skin is yellowing and long lines have formed on his face creating a map that leads to his eyes and his mouth. As his hands reach around to measure my waist I can see a look in eyes permanently trapped somewhere between insanity and indifference. Maybe they are not so far away from each other. The corners of his mouth hold crumbs of something or other in the creases and his teeth are yellowed beyond repair. In a second I flash forward thirty years and see my future right in front of me. I become this fat, unhappy man kneeling on the floor of Silverberg’s measuring some fat, ungrateful kid for his grade school uniform. All of my dreams reduced to cigarettes, pizza and chocolate and a job that pays the rent. I come back to myself and start to cry. I can’t hold the tears back this time. They burst forward like water out of a dam and I can hear my mother, as if from a long way off, asking what is wrong. How can I explain that I just saw my future and it scared the shit out of me? I try to find some words but the only sound that comes out is a choked sob. I cry even harder. The salesman drops the tape and pulls away as quickly as he can almost falling backwards as if my tears sting his bulging, polluted skin.
--I didn’t do anything, lady, he cries out desperately to my mom while struggling to get onto his feet. He stumbles and begins to tip forward in my direction. Through watery eyes I can see a look of panic cross his face and I imagine his body landing on top of me, smothering me underneath mounds of wet, smelly flesh. I cry more. Some force of God lets him recover his balance preventing his fall.

--I know you didn’t. He’s very sensitive. She says this with a certain amount of exasperation and uncertainty. Sometimes he just cries and we have no idea why. This is followed by a short, constricted laugh.

My mother revealing this particular, undefinable weakness of my character to a complete stranger sets me off again. She shoots a quick glance my way and then puts a hand on the salesman’s shoulder to put him at ease. How can she touch him? He has sweat his way clean through his shirt and I can see the hair on his back straining to break free of the light cotton, polyester white fabric.

--Now while he finds some way to control himself, I assume you got al the proper measurements so you can go pull out a few uniforms.

The salesman looks uncertainly between my mother and me. My eyes are red and swollen, snot drips out from my nose. My mother is calm and collected, clutching her purse in her right hand and smoothing the hem of her skirt with the left. The choice is obvious, he walks off with my mother. I can hear them talking as they leave the wounded animal to heal itself.

--He’s a big boy, ma’am, but it’s early enough in the season that I should still have some jackets available in—

I hold my breath and wait for the word that I’ve been dreading since the moment we got in the car to come here.

--husky sizes.

The tears come again.

When I think I have myself properly pulled together I take a deep breath and prepare to go try on my “husky” sized jacket. I turn around and find my brother standing directly in front of me, a box of Lotto’s clutched under his right arm. I try to smile casually and walk around him but he blocks my way.
--Crying again?
--No. I snivel.
--You cry too much. You cry more than any girl I’ve ever met.
I look at him as if he was the priest at Christmas Day Mass uttering the most profound guidance of God himself. I’ve never had anyone talk to me like that before in my entire life. I have spent my entire life looking for a sign, a gesture, a word from my brother, anything that would assure me we were friends. This is it.
--Yeah? I ask.
--Yeah, he says not unkindly. Stop it.
He throws his Lotto box at me.
--Dad says come down and he’ll get you a pair too. Where’s Mom?
He grabs my head and gives me a noogie while pulling me down the aisle. I laugh and begin telling him about the fat salesman and how he almost fell on top of me, leaving out the cause of the situation. We follow the smell of cigarette smoke and find my mother standing impatiently next to the salesman. She looks bored and restless and if I didn’t know any better I would have thought she wanted a cigarette herself, any sort of distraction. She darts daggers at me and if I hadn’t just had a nervous breakdown she would most definitely be putting me in my place. However when she sees my smiling, laughing face her entire body softens and she reaches out her arms encircling me in warmth and safety.
--You OK, boo? She asks sweetly.
I nod and give her a peck on the cheek.
--Can we just hurry up? I ask.
She smiles and the salesman starts lumbering toward me clutching the husky-sized jacket in his fat, sweaty hands, a newly-lit cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. My body tenses and my mother, noticing this, reaches out and pulls the jacket out of his pudgy grip.
--Here, I’ll do it.
As she slips the jacket up my arms I see my brother standing behind the fat man, puffing out his cheeks, smoking an imaginary cigarette and pretending to fall over. I bite my tongue this time trying to hold back the laughter but I can’t help it. Soon my brother and I are in hysterics and my mother, having caught sight of my brother’s antics, is soon laughing as well. The three of us are convulsing with pleasure as the fat salesman stands bewildered in the middle of the three of us with smoke pouring out of his nose.