Hipster

The thickness of his thighs was not being accommodated by the skinny jeans. The proportions were off, rising from the stick ankles and calves - underdeveloped thanks to a decade-long neglect of physical activity, and, possibly, some blame placed square on the shoulders of childhood malnutrition cause by a single-mom who was an outspoken proponent of a Vegan upbringing - to the burgeoning of those meaty drumsticks that now seemed to suffocate behind the fabric.

"My thighs ate my ass," he would sometime joke. But it was true. Head-shakingly true. The back of the jeans was one loose flap of fabric sinking into the tightness around the legs.

But I didn't have the heart to tell him. This was something new, this adoption of the hipster style. First the skinny jeans obsession, then the "vintage" Converse with the pre-worn soles, followed by the tweed jacket with elbow patches. A conglomeration of the mismatched throw-backs.

"These colors, they're all of."

"I know! Isn't it awesome?"

I didn't understand why it was supposed to be this way.

"It's all about randomness dude. Like there's totally a philosophy behind it. I'm valuing the 60s and the 70s for what they meant to this country. But at the same time, I'm a disinterested observer. I recognize but I do not contemplate long enough to bother with coordination."

"That's really philosophical."

"Trust me, it's about more than just buying some old clothes."

I wanted to believe him but the elbow patches just didn't do it for me. I wanted to rip them off that stipid jacket and use them as insoles for my shoes. When you have flat feet insoles is often all you can think about.



"Should I get these?" he asked me once, as we walked down St. Marks. He turned around to show me a pair of Ira Glass-esque black frames.

"You wear glasses?"

"No. But They look cool, don't they?" He put them on and looked at himself in the tiny mirror on the side of the rack. One his ears was lower than the other, which forced him to keep repositioning them in the center of his face.

"I guess."

"I should get them."

"No. No, come on," I said, finally understanding the proposition. "Why would you wear glasses if you don't need them. That's sort of lame."

"People wear sunglasses indoors all the time. That's lame. With this, no one knows whether or not I actually need them. You're just lucky that you need glasses. Really, they're just an accessory."

I touch my own glasses and contemplate the idea of Lasik. Neuroses prevent me from believing that I'd come out of that with better eyesight than I had going in.

"Don't be a tool." I walked away.



"I live in Williamsburg now," he said, "I have to fit in."

He didn't say this to anyone in particular, just sort of to the world, out loud, almost as if he needed to convince himself that his wardrobe was justified.

"A friend of mine, he's a stylist, and he came by and threw away half of my stuff. See this?" He held up a button-down striped shirt. "You want it?"

I decide not to mentiont hat its a few sizes too big.

"Cause I'm probably going to toss it. I can't look like those corporate douchebags here."

It looks a little like a shirt I own.

"No thanks man, I'm cool."

"OK. Suit yourself. Away it goes." He threw it into a pile in the corner of his room. "Flat front only," he added, burrowing deeper into his closet.

"What?"

"For pants," his head emerged from behind a folding door. "Flat front only. No pleats. Never wear anything with pleats. I wish someone had told me this like in college. I probably would have gotten so many more girls."

"Is that one of your friend's style tips?"

"No. That one I read online."

Still, I'm curious to meet this unnamed arbiter of fashion. I wonder what he'd say about what I've gote in my closet.



"I don't get why you have to change everything so drastically just because you moved." That's me being sensible, pragmatic. Let's not get carried away here.

"It's not that simple," he suggests between sips of his espresso, fair trade beans, skinny jeaned legs crossed, his whole body shifted uncomfortably to the side to compensate for the oppressively small table we're at. Our jackets are on the floor. The steamed windows of the coffeeshop remind that there is life here, even asyou can't tell whether it's open, whether there's anyone inside, as you approach it from across the street. "I have to be accepted into this society. It's like a club."

"So you're taken seriously now?" I look him up and down with an expression on my face. I do it without realizing that I'm doing it, and I don't even know exactly what that expression means.

"Almost. I feel like I'm almost there. Baby steps, you know?"

"Right."

"Like yesterday, I felt like I had a breakthrough. I was over in this bar playing baci - did you know they have a whole indoor league for this? It's awesome - and this girl comes up to me and goes like 'sweet pompadour,' because, you know, I had my hair up in this, like, pompadour."

I contemplated the thinning mess on his head, coming down long and stringy onto his face.

"So it was like she got it. I was sort of in the zone."

"How did you get it to look like a pompadour?"

"Palmade. Amazing stuff. Like cement." He ran his hands through his hair and pulled it up and back. "Sort of like this."

I watched a few strands fall onto the table.

"Yeah man, now I just need to get some new friends."

Taking a sip of my coffee, I nodded and smirked politely.



I got off at Bedford and climb up towards the street in a torrent of thrift store-clad bodies. One girl who I almost ran into focuses on me and considers tossing me a smile, but ultimately decides against it. Hands in her beige pea coat pockets, she scurries away, carried by her green tights.

I find the apartment he tells me to meet him at. As I try to open the front door, a crush of people prevents me it from swinging back. I slip in and immediately a woman is towering over me. She's pushing 35, and with at least 4 inches on me, I'm a little intimidated. I wonder if she's really a man, because she has that heavy bone structure, but I decide that she is indeed female, as I originally figured.

"Hey you."

The way she smells, like peppermint schnapps, tells me that clearly the party has been going on for a little while now.

"Hi," I say, confused.

"How've you been!?" She tips onto me and places her hand on my shoulder, pressing me down with a mass I expect from her size but which still surprises me. She looks at me expectantly.

"Good..." I look around for my friend. "How have you been?"

"Oh, you know, so busy!" The pitch of her voice is a little exaggerated, adding an accent of unconvincing girlishness.

"Yeah."

"What do you do again?"

I finally spot the the figure of my friend making his way over to us.

"Hey man."

He gives me a good-natured slap on the shoulder and hands me a half-finished Blue Moon as he opens a new one and takes a swig.

"This is great," he suggests, passing his hand over the room like a magician. He takes in a dramatically deep breath and looks around. "There are my people. I feel like I belong here."

"You guys know each other?" she asks. I had forgotten she was even there.

"Me and this guy," my friend says, with pride, "we go way back. Way back. Like before Giuliani." Then he pulls me away without another word and I follow him into the next room. I shrug back at her innocently.

"You know her?" I ask. "Does she live here?"

"No idea. But she's old!"

"Dude, you're old."

I shouldn't have said that. He's a little sensitive about it these days and he acts like he didn't hear it. I don't say anything for a few moments, watching him drink the beer, when I spot the pin on his lapel.

"Mondale?"

"Yeah man. Ran against Reagan. We hate Reagan."

He spills a little bit of his beer on his draw string linen shirt and dabs at it.

"Shit. This is dry clean only."