Sitting beside my friend Pete at the edge of my bed, I extracted photographs, one by one, from a pile inside the black lizard box on my lap. The years of Saint Elmo’s Fire-ish college group shots, the very frightening variations of hair and lots of vacation snaps. Throughout our years of friendship, Pete and I had traveled through numerous countries and had countless beach vacations—the locations worldwide and diverse. Yet each shot had one thing in common: We were modeling. One picture after another came out of the box like mannequins clomping down a runway: the Halloween in Miami, the trip to Spain, the summer getaway in Greece. Whether we were perched near the Acropolis or hanging off a pole on Bourbon Street, our lithe twenty-something bodies were contorted into s-curve configurations that would make any supermodel proud.
“Why do you think we modeled so much?” I asked, handing him a shot of us wrapped in sarongs and draped up the stairs of a Fire Island summer share.
“I don’t know, I guess it was probably an escape. Our coping mechanism.”
“Hmmm … interesting. I never thought of it like that. But, God, look at us, we were so much thinner— and all that hair!”
“Yeah—all that hair” he said, dropping another photo back on the pile.
Lost in the photographs, I forgot about my current worries, glad—25 years later—to reminisce with my old friend.
Earlier in the day I’d considered canceling due to some back pain I’d been having—the result (I suspect) of work-related stress. But as we chuckled over the pictures, I was glad I hadn’t. Once we’d made our way through the pile of pictures, we decided to go shopping and get something to eat. Hours later, as we left the mall parking structure, bloated on pizza and shopping, he announced to the windshield, “I wanna buy a pair of pumps! Where can we go?”
“What? Why?” I said, buckling myself in.
“Because. I just do! … So where is Payless?”
“Really?”
“Yep. Really. OK … where?”
Stunned, I gave directions. “Make a left at the light.”
As his manly jeep-utility-vehicle pummeled through Los Angeles traffic in pursuit of pumps, I silently surveyed his profile— searching for signs of logic. The 25 years that had passed since we’d met had brought him to a very different, albeit masculine, place. My eyes stared at his hairy knuckle— wrapped around the gearshift— and followed up the massive arm, through a maze of inky symbols that wove themselves into a complete sleeve of tattoos then disappeared under his T-shirt. His buzzed haircut only seemed to accentuate the hairy mound around his mouth and chin. His bulky frame had become a fortress of rocky muscles, the tufts of hair that poked out from under his clothes a carpeted warning of men at work.
“There’s the Shoe Pavilion,” I meekly offered. “You wanna go see what they have?”
“Sure.”
Barely three steps into the store, perched between a fuchsia wedge and a chunky, bejeweled turquoise flip-flop, sat a patent leather leopard stiletto.
“Hah! Look at that!” he announces. “Perfect!”
Before I could blink, he’d removed his hiking-boots and slipped into a pair.
“Too big” he said after a few steps, stopping to bevel a leg in front of the foot mirror.
“Take those off!” I hissed, feeling my face light up like a fire engine.
“OK,” he offered back in a mischievous voice, while replacing them with a smaller size.
“Much better!” And he took off down the carpeted aisle as if he were on the runway at Fashion Week.
Near the end of the aisle, he spot-turned, raising a bulky arm to his hip and posed.
The outcome was like a freaky science experiment. From the knees up, he was brawny—the epitome of masculinity. From the knees down, his hairy calves were twisted into an elegant configuration— the kind only seen in magazine spreads and on runways—on girls.
My emotions were the perfect accessory to accompany his freaky mixture. Part of me wanted to run, embarrassed to be seen with him. And part of me felt as if I’d returned home—to a place we’d constructed for ourselves as young gay men, apparently trying to cope with our sexuality and the inordinate amount of death occurring all around us.
Time passed. We continued shopping. He kept the pumps on.
Very few people seemed to notice his feet. But when they did, it went like this: a smile, the searchlight survey and then shock as if they’d been carefully following directions, only to discover they’d gotten lost in a bad neighborhood. Their eyes would begin at the military buzz cut, over the gerbilish mound of facial hair, past the massive chest and down the sleeve of tats. By the time they reached his feet—the leopard stilettos being elegantly modeled—they were so stunned, I could have stolen the shoes off their feet.
Twenty minutes later, once I’d found a trendy pair of dress shoes and he’d found a second, more masculine pair—chocolate-suede hiking boots—it was time to check out. Without hesitation, he wore the stilettos to the cash register. Another wave of shocking reactions appeared—along with my dormant sense of humor.
Later that night—in more sensible (boy) shoes—we went out for a drink. Something in me had changed. My back pain gone, I felt physically lighter. Twenty-five years lighter. Socially lighter. Have-agood- time-with-life lighter. And as I watched the boys buzzing around my hunky, über-masculine friend, I suddenly realized what he had done: At the expense of a $40 pair of leopard stilettos, he’d covertly taken me back to our old stomping ground—the runway of diversion. And I came to realize— throughout all those beautifully modeled trips and adventures— we were oddly searching for our masculinity. As young gay boys, horrified by the sexual landscape, we went on imaginary go-sees— a modeling term for seeking jobs. Instead of turning to men, we turned to women. Glamorous women. As young designers, all around us were models that made even the scariest trends appear elegant, stylish and sometimes unattainable. In hindsight, it was about becoming other people— freakish, albeit happy, boy-girls to be observed but not touched. Elegantly unattainable—and in our own world—we were trying to survive the ravages of the AIDS epidemic.
At the close of the day, as I kicked my flip-flops onto the pile of shoes in my closet, I was reminded of something long forgotten: not to take life so seriously, to rise above it all—four nail-heel-inches above it all. That prompted a graceful reminder of the importance of the journey and those who accompany you. Then came another, more stylish reflection: The most successful models, the ones that take risks, the chameleons, are the ones who stand the test of time. Why? Because life is anything but seamless— it’s even wobbly at times. And because—for us gay boys— as we search for our identity, our balance, there is no “perfect model.” So, try and remember, while you’re clomping along, doing what everyone else does, it’s important to elevate yourself above the crowd from time to time—to discover your best angles.
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