by Marty Skeels
The seasons are in flux. Yesterday I spied a weeping child searching for the sun: “when will it return?” he bleats, like a Portsmouth lamb. I kneel in the faded turf, wipe my brow with silk (Harrods £35) and tap him on the shoulder with my cane. “It is gone,” I whisper, “never to return.” His trembling voice is barely audible over the falling leaves, our tears: “who did this?” There is no answer… or is there? “Let me tell you a story, boy, about change, about brotherhood and sisterhood, about fashion…”
“Look upon BETA. See the summer innocence of plaid t-shirts, rugged jeans (Emile Hirsch, Into the Wild). Yet the witches of Cannabis and Keystone seduced them: their apparel is a now metaphor for the unending feedback of blissful, filthy, despair in which they slumber. The winter will only heighten the closeted, stale warmth in which bacteria and Beta thrive. Beware their ultra-realistic Earth tones, unspeakable stains and indefinable odors. But we shall always love them for misguided bravery, youth prematurely cut short and cuddle-ability.
“The SIG. In summer we knowingly deceived ourselves, desperately hoping these shirtless men-children to be the energetic cast of a low budget film adaptation: The Rodfather or Assablanca. Too late came the horrifying realization that their irrational anger towards the Shirt was but the precursor to a full crusade, a Jihad, against all ‘real’ clothing. In these cold days they grudgingly don blood-stained sweaters and worship the wife-beater in the dark recesses of their cult-manor, biding their time until darkness when the steal forth to rob Lyman of its girl-folk.
“My gentle THETA. In the golden summer age you frolicked in clothes that both fit and mildly pleased the eye. Alas, that which sustained you, the naïve hope of sex, has faded; once again, fate dashes your tender dreams against the cruel rocks of reality. Now, with your sweatpants and overlarge sweaters… but I cannot go on, it is too painful to describe.
“Lost KAPPA/DG. Applying eyeliner for Geology class, 7-Jeans with elastic waistbands, knowing seven words of Arabic. They have everything, yet they possess nothing. In the drowsy evenings of the summer, content to lie upon silk couches in their Prentiss opium dens, they regaled each other with stories of bold purchases from Anthropologie and dangerous forays made into “totally awesome” Buffalo Exchange warehouses where, their breath catching and heart racing, they fearfully dabble in the fierce, heavy musk of the proletariat. They are irrecoverable. Only the mythical ‘Tokyo Treatment’ might cure them of their nameless disease, but for every mind the experience frees five are broken beyond repair. The odds are tempting.
“Beware the TKE. Five-day old beard, clothes exclusively from Goodwill or J-Crew, wearing a TKE shirt, his hubris will destroy us all. If you fuck him he will try to get you to play Mario Kart with him, and vice versa. His whispered lies are coated in the finest sugars and most expensive silk. He says he will protect us… at what price?
“PHI. Weak and doughy, the exceptional breeding bull proves the rule. The South Korean gaming parlor of an Oakland Chinatown, their heavy investment in Japanese sex-paraphernalia precludes any expenditure on clothes besides Cheeto stained bibs and maternity wear. We pray that the early onset of this harsh winter does not force their premature slaughter. They must feed Jewett for six weeks, or all is lost.”