About the Author John Castlerock is a writer from LA. Fashion Police is his first story in Nuvein, and is "About coming of age, certainly, but more like the real discovery of self, like the detachment of all things not you, to find that 'you' are all that is left over."

The room was about to collapse, the poor drywall unaccustomed to this sort of psychic weight; everyone felt it, everyone stood poised to gun down the first man to do anything about it. Here's the reason those old spaghetti western movies were so popular, at some point in the film, the first guy who tries to weasel his way out of anything got shot by one or all the others; once they had that one guy out of the way, the fight could resume, the movie would unfold and reveal the true villainy. While there were many other crucial formulaic elements to spaghetti westerns, that was the one that, to me, always stood out as being the most relevant to everyday life. Of course, that was all before I became a man and began to assert myself, as a man would, and often does; as I grew older and more mature, I cautiously revealed to myself that movies are stupid, television rates slightly below that, that the only real media worth its weight were propagandist pamphlets strewn about the countryside in war-torn countries. My tastes changed after awhile, and I got into kung fu movies; its pretty much the same thing, just no guns. I also hated magazines and books, I loathed the evening news, I had the paper delivered simply so I would not have to go outside for kindling; but I did read various photo journals. I preferred to see a narrative spread out before me, to hold it, to see the beginning and end of something, to see the balance of stimulation offered me by the photo, not demanding that I understand its underlying motive; not to hear it or read it or live it, I just wanted to see what it could offer me, instant gratification, plus one, and decide whether it was worth my bother. I know how everything ends up; it's over, then that's it. Shit. Shit, because nothing is refined, because nothing's truly learned, unless you go through things, unless you suffer. Even so, it's all shit in the end. Yet strangely fitting. If I'm to turn out dead in the long run, regardless of my status, position and title, even my class, what's the difference if I'm buried naked, or finely clothed?

I felt I had that advantage going for me that night, frozen there in the suburban bungalow, watching the whites of every eye in the room, the pulse of every man rippling the space around him, waiting for them to loose composure and run; then the rest of us would shoot that guy in the back. Maybe some poor bastard thought he actually had a chance to escape with his life if he dropped his weapon and ran; this guy obviously hadn't seen very many movies. It could very well be, however, that this one guy had a very legitimate reason for leaving, but defiance like this, in this sorted company, it was not excusable; the comradery that exists between villains tightly binds; the rest of us sort of look around the room at each other, like "Who da fuck is dis guy?" (Actually, I must confess; I've never seen a goddam spaghetti western; I think I've seen maybe two movies with Jack Palance in them, and one of them was all one-arm push-up contests. I guess, I always sort of assumed that they ended like that, with a big gunfight at the end, and seriously, the first guy to run away got shot in the back.) From the moment my father first leap to his feet, reaching for his pistol with that smooth long hand of his, like a slow motion pan across a landscape, it was on, searching for the first body, the first to die, to get the other heads rolling. My father smelt something funny, he said, like rats; like goddam rats. I was thinking about other things. I was daydreaming; in the midst of all that tension, I felt good in my clothes, I felt lean and tall, like my limbs could slide through the air, parting the space with a ripple.

Now, I'm a handsome man, and I'm quite tall; my father always told me, I would wear clothes well. Tall people wear clothes well, he'd say. I didn't quite believe him, as I was enduring, at the time, a most dreadful, depressing, short-statured existence of pre-pubescence; plus, I was a late bloomer. But when my senior year hit, every girl at my school had been dealt a rather rude awakening, opening their eyes to bear witness to a walking sex pot such as I had become; I was the tallest man at my school, and I had filled out thanks to a summer working in the lumberyard. Walking through the courtyards surrounding my high school, at an easy gate, my chin low, peering slightly ahead of me yet keeping my peripheral open, I watched countless times as young women, who ignored me only a brief summering ago, would stop and pivot on uniformed shoes; they would watch me go by. The dress code required a shirt and tie, and though it permitted short sleeves and did not specify a coat, I was never without sleeves and a jacket. And since my legs could carry me, I could take these long strides, watching me was like instant slow motion, and it was easy to get caught in the act of staring. I have to admit, I looked good, though my garments themselves suffered. They were old, out of sync with the times, and since I was new to the garmentry game, I didn't really know what it was I should care about. But school uniforms were not for me, I had bigger fish to fry and craft boots and belts from. I would add luxury to every item of clothing I would ever come to own, over time; it didn't come from the clothes; they say the clothes make the man, that's not entirely true. Enough of it came from the clothes to give me my reputation, but what made me legendary that could only come from within myself; admittedly, I'm a goddam arrogant bastard.

Since the seventies, my father was the most highly sought after fashion consultant in the business; at the twist of his cokenail, trends waxed and waned, the waistline raised and lowered, hips widened and narrowed. As the frames of his glasses went from plastic to wire to sheer to contacts, so fashion mirrored him, worshipped him. He could go nowhere without being mobbed, and I don't mean youngsters ripping clothes from well chiseled rock star breasts; fashion derelicts and connoisseurs, reporters for every fashion journal across the world would simply glare, transmitting a language of lust, jealousy and admiration, all for what? Peering through monocles over cheesed wineglass rims, we can only assume it's the pleats; pleats were back this year, in a major way; they would base their entire fall collections, depending on the way trousers hung from my father's hips, the way he let his collar breathe. While I knew of my father's influence, I never knew the extent, the depth to which all this penetrated his life. He never spoke much about the business, he and my mother were constantly the guests of honor at various engagements around the world; when I was very little, and again when I was a bit older, they would bring me along with them, but for a period of about twelve years, in fact, my adolescence, they left me at home, and I barely saw my parents but four or five nights out of the month.

Naturally, my father's wardrobe consisted of garments that kings were not fit to be buried in. My father, a giant among most men at 6'5" (even amongst professional basketballers he would seem tall, it was the way he carried himself), would seldom wear any piece twice; if he did, it was to say something. Other men feared and worshipped him; women adored him, his charm, his style, his confident arrogance that made it appropriate that he, above all others, he should preside over all things pertaining to fashionable attire. But to call it arrogance, that's a little too salty a word; it was his gaze, where it came from his face, how his features settled themselves; his eyes like two points of light rising from the sea; when he looked at you, all you wanted was a chance for him to put his trust in you, just to win his favor. You wanted to feel that extra weight from his gaze as he raised his lips to a smile. His smile! and that was more than needed to make anybody blush.

Well, as fashion often dictates, and fashions change, so did my father's wardrobe; every few months, he would clear out his closets of most everything he owned, and bring in a truckload of brand new clothing; only occasionally was something missed, and some pieces were able to outlive themselves, while being slightly anachronistic, various socks and shoes, the occasional dress shirt. When it came to be the nineties, unearthing some sort of ancient tomb in his closet depths, almost like a time capsule that begged being found, my father came across a large collection of suits, dating twenty years back to that magical decade of decadence and disco; yeah, these are garbage, he said. Standing in the doorway, I leapt with all my might, to slap the box out of his hand, carefully tucking my knees into an impressive shoulder roll, never on the neck or spine; I came up on one knee and whipped my head, turned my vision behind me the way I've seen it go in so many kung-fu movies, I was expecting an attack, but my father just looked at me, his head cocked to the side, an eyebrow up, I was too old for Ritalin by that point, he was cautious to proceed with me for several days following. I saved those suits for myself; while my father's opinion was coveted amongst various magazines and purple haired ladies in salons all across this great land, he never gave a shit about what I wore; that was entirely up to me; he had no time for nonsense.

And so began a period in my life when I wore nothing but suits, whether it be for a school's uniform, a particular smoking jacket, a running or reading suit, suits for all occasions; the feel of the garment, a pair of pants that fit snuggly, revealing just enough of the goods to not be tasteless. The starched shirt, high and tight on my neck, and a dapper tie adding an extra flair, possibly reflecting my personality, possibly reflecting the world as it stood, proof positive that culture and fashion do not mutually reflect one another. And finally, a jacket; the jacket was my favorite piece, how it hung on my shoulders, broke just below the seat; my father and I were exactly the same height, weight, and proportion, since I hit puberty that is; actually, he was still a little bigger, I had some filling out to do yet, in my middle twenties; I intended to ask my father, the next time I saw him, if he got a lot of women this way, dressed in a suit, the coat open, a hand in the pocket, did a woman ever walk up and grab the chain of your watch stretched across the solar plexus, and peer up at you without raising her head? behind the cutest little "fuck me" look you ever saw?

When I asked him, he stared at me puzzled; "Where the hell did you get that idea?" My father, not the womanizer I fantasized him being, he and I did not speak much, which was a good thing, I presumed, because I was always convinced that he did not care for me; I had no real cares about fashion, or about him. My mother and I would converse from time to time, when she would wake up before eleven, and toddle down the stairs in her slippers and lush robe, her ankles swollen from her heels worn at the previous nights' festivities; I was already decked in a splendid two-piece, single breasted, a period piece, more 30s than 40s.

"Your father's won another major award!" she would start off saying, balancing her coffee on the pads of her fingertips, rotating the digits when they became uncomfortably warm; she'd make announcements like this from time to time, and I could never figure from the tone of voice she used, was she happy and gloating, or was she dimming her nose at the whole goddam establishment for weighing so heavily on my father's opinion? It made me take an interest in her from time to time. I never took a real interest in the actual words she said, my nihilism for my father's fashion empire was stifling; but she spoke in technical terms, assuming I was well versed in such practice; she finished gloating, and I afforded her the smirk I offer everybody, and simply diverted my eyes, returned them to the book I was leafing through.

"We're off to New York again for about five days, and then your father's off to Europe for two weeks, and I'm coming straight home to spend some time with you!" She wanted to look at me, she wanted to touch my shoulders, she just wanted to see me in clothing she could do something about. I was leaning on a countertop, a cup of coffee in my own hand, my opposite elbow holding me above a gleaming picture book, photos of monks in another country, living in a monastery, who practiced kung fu, who could lift cinder blocks with ropes snaked taut around their balls. She stood there, trying to put her hands on me; I usually don't say much; I just smiled and pushed myself upright, and slowly I walked across the kitchen, I set a coffee cup in the sink, I closed a photo journal I was reading, I took a sport coat from a chair's back, I walked so smooth, through the gated entry of the kitchen, into the hallway, the clop of my boots echoing through the house, and my mother stared, over a period of time consuming over 43 seconds.

Five days later; she was following the maids around the house, pointing out little details of smudgeoning that needed attending here and there. She spent the whole afternoon by the poolside, the servants constantly fanning and dosing and frantically rehydrating her luxurious lizard skin; she was getting older, and we were all noticing. She came in and cleaned up; at the dinner hour, when she descended the staircase, she was dressed in a fabulous gown, of the fairest silk; it embraced her in the most appealing places, my mother was always beautiful, it made me smile in spite of myself; I had never been proud of her before. I almost wished my mother had been my date, and smiled at my own Freudian reference, smiled at my Oedipal deficiency. I wished I had been the railing her delicate hand traced as she lowered herself, step by step, to the level of mortals. But I never would reduce to admitting to feelings such, even if it were permissible to feel, even spoken as a charming compliment from an adoring son. But I did not adore my mother, all I wanted to be was enigmatic, to treat her like any woman, so that she'd never know what I felt, even if I was fully aware, even if I wanted to share. I wanted my mother to see me as the object I had become, nothing more than a tight piece of ass, puckered up in a pair of slacks; I wanted her to realize that she had failed in seeing past an image, just as every other woman had.

"Darling, why are you wearing that old thing?" my mother had noticed my suit, one of my father's discards; the silk was of crushed grays, enlivened with a trace of gold and burgundy, a three piece garment, the pants stacked with the tightest pleats in the western hemisphere, the jacket's cut was precise, tight across my shoulder blades, yet supple to movement; this suit, it made me feel proud to be defying both fashion and my parents, and I was looking good doing so; a garment worn out of style, out of its time, is very difficult to pass convincingly; in fact few can really pull it off past the level of kitsch. I smiled at my mother; she looked again, she had me turn around, she smoothed the back of the jacket, lifted the shoulders a touch, she had never touched me so gently.

"Well," she started, but stopped for lack of words, her head motioning slightly side to side, up and down my body, her lips pursing into a smile: "Where are you off to tonight?"

"Date," I said, aware of the word as it came out of my mouth.

"Oh," she seemed surprised, a little relieved, I think. She smiled, a little sheepishly, "I didn't know you had a girlfriend." Her weight shifted one-sidedly; she wanted to sock my arm, give me the old "atta boy" my father would have certainly offered me, had he been there.

"I don't," I adjusted my torso in my jacket, her jaw hit the ground. "I have several." I took a step towards her; "I might not be home tonight, mother," I looked at her, my eyebrows raising just the touch they needed to, to brand the statement into her mind. I had wanted to do that for a while; I frightened her terribly by saying that; I was twenty years old. While she thought I was gorging myself on three females all at once, a surging snake heap of an orgy, fluids conveniently draining in the floor of the sauna, I would actually be where I spent most nights, driving my car at very fast speeds up and down the coast of California; only once had I been pulled over, clocked at well over one hundred and twenty miles an hour, I totaled my parent's car not once but twice; but since then, I have developed a sixth sense for cops and for high speed antics on crowded freeways; my skills have sharpened as of late, I am much more sure of my talents behind the wheel. Most nights when I go driving, my tie thrown back, a picturesque windsock tucked in an eddy of wind behind the driver's seat, the cops know me, they leave me alone; sometimes they get antsy, around quota time; its usually a newcomer to the beat, one who doesn't recognize my vehicle. I have never lost a race, and I relish evading the police for as long as possible before pulling over, turning off the engine and headlights, and watch as they unknowingly rip past me, lights blaring needlessly; I drive home at the speed limit, the stereo filling the space between me and the car with pulses of sound, changing to light in front of my eyes; inside I'm on fire, I'm on autopilot. Let's face it, I'm a filthy rich bastard, I can buy and sell most of these beat-walking motherfuckers, but the purpose of my wealth is not to waste it needlessly; the purpose was to accumulate more, so that larger quantities could be deemed "excessive;" I delight in knowing, that it is the fruits of my mind that make me money (some photos are more lucrative than others); what's more, I delight in being blamed for enjoying my excess, to be accused of greed and arrogance, to be told that, despite the fact I earned every dollar I spend, I don't deserve any of it.

I embraced my mother ever so slightly and tenderly, kissed her brow and gently squeezed her shoulders, and I turned and left her there, picking up an overcoat on the way out. It was again, the slow motion parting of the air, the beating of hooves on the floor as my heels gave way to toe; the sound, combined with the vision, I was simply a shadow, a man from another era, out of place, but in no way less diminished; visions of the gallant stranger leaving your life flash through your mind, you've seen it in a movie, and now you can't remember which one, in it contained a notion of a sunset; you spend the rest of the night pondering why they put people like me in movies. I left the house without looking back at her again, and she hadn't moved the whole time.

I dropped my date off at her house; she wanted me to come in, so she could admire my suit in better detail; but I declined, eager to enjoy the road alone. I pulled out of her drive, headed straight for Santa Monica Blvd, west toward the beach. I may have enjoyed the encounter that was just offered me, but at this point, I saw no advantage to observing various romantic rites and encounters; I knew she had mapped out the best way to get me out of my suit, and the terror rose from there, the idea of the suit leaving my body while still awake, whilst still capable, being full aware of facing people without clothing, even in bed with a beautiful woman. She was disappointed; in her mind, she was detailing a fictional recount of our date, though I couldn't hear her narration, I knew her to be describing my body to her friends, and her friends wouldn't believe her, and strangely, it would not have been the first time. Not the first time, that I was referred to as some sort of masked stranger in a dark suit, to whom a romantic interlude meant nothing, who would drive away, a desperado in a sports car, one whose name, or lack thereof, would echo throughout the mountains, in the deserts outside of the city; it would not be my face or voice they remembered, only the clothing.

I stopped in a parking lot, and stood looking at the Pacific, wondering if anybody could see me, in this suit, next to this car; wondered if they had a camera. The phone rang, somewhere; the phone was in the car; it was my father, he was not in Rome, not in France, but home in Los Angeles; he gave me an address, told me to meet him there in one hour. Having never received a direct order from him before my curiosity certainly had been snared; but I was feeling strangely melancholy. I didn't know my father well enough to care about his affairs; an invitation from him to do God-knows-what, sounded closely akin to torture, sticking ice picks through eyelids, bamboo under toenails. I felt tired, I felt my loins shift inside my pants, I realized my father had worn these very pants; it was not duty, it was not love, but it was hope that I may witness my father's demise that drove me to the Valley, past most of the glamour and glitz of the porn industry, to a city secluded, surrounded by the mountains, to the house he gave me an address to.

The world of fashion, the hierarchy of fashion elites that my father had such a way with, unbeknownst to me, was actually a criminal organization, not quite unlike the Mafia, not nearly as dangerous. And, my father was the boss of this union, it was he who determined which directions fashion could take for years to come. It was sort of honorable; he did manage to create and ensure a great deal of work for American laborers during many tough periods of economic drought, he worked closely with other labor unions, with outlets in Thailand, Mexico, the Philippines, and many more. But above all, unlike his predecessors, my father had approached his position with his flamboyant sense of style, much to the dismay of several rivals.

Everything was in balance; there were entertainment mafias, culinary mafias, mafias that presided over grocery outlets, mafias controlling many facets of the healthcare industry. So it was not such a huge surprise to learn of the existence of the fashion mafia. But it was a shock to gaze upon their headquarters, at least, their hangout. A shitty house up in Sylmar, a rental. But the line up of cars in the drive was something else; flags with various colors, blasting diplomatic immunity, chauffeurs waiting in a line, long overcoats probably concealing guns, or mace, at least, for the less threatening mobsters. No attempt at secrecy was made; the message was loud and clear, big wigs inside.

And when my father saw me, as I parted ways through the crowd to get to him, his face warmed considerably; he approached me, embraced me. He asked me to sit while they finished going over some of the finer details surrounding the new spring line-ups. I noticed the corners of eyes being focused on me; more than once, I saw some ambassador whisper through cigar smoke, inquiring, if I was the guy, the tall man, the man who drove a car; he'd get a response from someone in glasses, and I would be cased up and down, my clothing like armor, like a beacon casting a warm glow of security over the vacant eyes; the look was genuine, "So, this is the guy," and they couldn't take their eyes off me. The get-together was a huge success; many people, dressed in all sorts of finery, smoking, drinking, sampling delicately the little tidbits of rich fancy finger foods. A very cozy atmosphere for the mafia, and who would expect anything else; it didn't seem that dangerous, or even illegal, to me, the cheery air, the laughter bubbling from couches, bouncing off of ceilings, piercing the clink of silver and fine glassware as various dignitaries dined and negotiated; and for me, I was thrilled that my father had noticed the suit I was wearing, one of his older pieces, hanging from my frame as if it were cut for me that afternoon; the look he gave me was slight, and while I don't know my father that well, I think it meant he approved.

When my father was at his feet a few moments later, his gun trained at the damp face of the Malaysian Textile Delegate, I didn't catch on right away that something was wrong, I was imagining my father and I on a great big catwalk before all the world, and the President would be there, too, asking a little advice about his wardrobe, and my father handed the query over to me, it was my time, now, I was the new man on top of the fashion game. Had I known that my father was actually engaged in terrible labor disputes with many factions with controlling interests from around the world, I would have been a little more attentive, I might have even carried a gun, at least mace, but I just stared; I didn't feel all that startled, even when I finally was able to take stock of exactly what was happening. The room froze, my father, with the gun still buried deep with the folds of the Malaysian's face, stepped lightly over the crowd, through the mess, the smoke, the sour stink of alcohol left uncorked, to my side, and he whispered to me, outside, the car, don't let them out of your sight. I was not afraid, in fact, I took a small moment to look at my father's eyes, just to show him how I had complete control of things, that because of my gaze and the way I wear my clothing, no man would ever take a shot at me for leaving the room first. When I gave him the look, his eyes already had a response on them: "Yes." In the years to come, when he and I spoke about it, he said it was at that moment he first realized I was taller than he was, but he didn't let it show. With his gun trained at the crowd, my father had the shot, he could remove the face and fillings of any thug in the room, should that thug try to stop me from being the first me to leave the room. Nobody, not a soul, could bear to move as I walked, slow and deliberate, my eyes up and piercing into the person of any in my way, I had no trouble; it was not I that moved, but the suit around me, here was transcendence of fashion, at last; the suit had made one man, my father, but as I wore it, the suit moved as one entity, myself as quite another, not to be confused. A peculiar precedence had been broken; the car glimmered in the night, and chirped as I approached, thankful that I was back to drive.

My father sank densely into the leather seat; "Drive," he said, "very fast, to the ocean." I pressed the accelerator down, and the vehicle sang against the asphalt; my father turned and took a long look at my suit. "That old thing? It's all about you," he said, convincingly, though there was little emphasis in his voice; the way he sat in the passenger seat, he trusted me enough to drive fast, I even watched as he closed his eyes, exorcising a bit of the tension away, some of the ache that comes from having to pull a gun. I smiled, in spite of my oath to always hate him. "Did tonight freak you out at all?" he questioned, not looking at the road or the water but the sky.

I shook my head no, "Why did you want me there? Why did you call me, to see that?"

"Your mother called when you left for your date," he winked at me; "She wouldn't stop raving about how good you looked. I knew, that one day, you would make a choice, for yourself, about fashion, about my business, about what I do, about the clothes you wear. I never wanted to get involved with that decision; I wanted you to be your own man.

"When she told me about that suit, she described it; you have no idea about that suit. It's the first suit I ever had tailored for myself, when I about was your age. When your mother saw me in that, well, its the suit I wore the night I asked her to marry me," my father was a good mobster, I could see, he was tough, demanded respect, but could keep the conversation light enough, that everybody always felt good talking to him; and this slightly nostalgic tone of his was quite charming. My father was one of those cosmetic mobsters they make movies about.

"I had just made my bones and all, and they told me to go out and get measured, get the suits that only a made man could buy. But I didn't go to their tailors, these half-blind, mothballed basement hacks, they couldn't make me a suit, they couldn't give me the suits I needed to unlock the true potential I had in inside myself." The car ripped around a corner over a bluff, and a brisk breeze lipped around the windshield, tossing our hair, shuffling our ties, cooling our heads in the process.

"I had arrangements, my own thing, you know?" He wasn't looking much at me, he wasn't looking much at anything, just a point of light in his memory. "I knew of a tailor, probably the most revered man in our thing. Well, nobody knew where he was, if he was around, no one even knew if he was a real man." He did look at me then, enough to cast in stone, in my mind, the notion, the weight of what he was about to tell me. "Understand, that in our thing, its all about what you wear, at least, that's how it was in the old days. Then, this whole notion of duty, of bureaucracy, came into play. You had to have permission to get a suit from a certain tailor, and if that tailor wasn't part of our thing, he either became a part, or he went away. Well, this old tailor I'm telling you about, he knew all about this bullshit. And so, this man, he never had a home. He traveled from city to city, country to country, putting himself up in different hotels, and secretly, his clients would visit him for a fitting. In his suitcase, thousands of samples of his fabrics, such things you have never seen,î my fatherís speech was digressing, to the point it was almost jargon, slang. I looked at him once, with a short glance, he didnít get the point; he inhaled deeply a cigarette. ìHe could make you anything, you just gave him time and the money, cashierís check, deposited to his account.

ìI remember the walk, I crossed the street, I stood before a building, knowing I was about to complete a very large portion of myself. I remember, the doorman holding the largest single-paneled glass door Iíve ever seen, he asked me, ìWhat room?î as if he knew every guest, and I believe he did, and I told the name. Even then, right there in front of that hotel, even there that doormanís face went cold, he knew I was a dangerous man, about to commit a dangerous act. Down the hall was my destiny, walking, it was that moment I came into my own, I felt no fear, I felt no hesitance, I had made no mistake; my eyes knew what they sought, I was holding my head in a new way, tall and sure, nobody ever did that anymore, and time itself seemed to bow at my approach. When the tailor finally opened the door of his suite, he took one look at me, he looked me up and down, looked how my head rested on leveled shoulders, and he knew what I knew, that I was about to become the finest dressed man anywhere.î My father had a way with words, they were words with which you would describe your own feelings.

At the beach, we stood like mirrors on either side of the car, and my father spoke after a great length of silence: "I did this, because I believe it is the clothes that make the man. I wore that suit so proudly, within the confines of its layers, I felt complete; I had taken the final step into manhood, by choosing what clothing defines me. I wanted every man, poor or rich, short or tall, fat or thin, to have that chance. I saw the worst, most vile fashions being pushed, simply because the labor and materials were cheap, and they could come away with a higher profit; shirts that held no press, could barely reflect a tie, much less offset the trousers; seams that never held. You see, son, what was happening was wrong, these people trying to impose fashion on people, just by removing the variety from the marketplace. Do you see how wrong that is?"

"But isn't that what you do? Make peopleís choices for them?" I asked scornfully. There was always a hole in his speech, and my valley girl of a mother certainly never caught onto it; it seemed I was the only one who could find it.

"Son," he looked at me, honestly, "what I did was to listen to the people of every city, of every state, everywhere, and I gave them the fashions they wanted. What do you think it is I've been doing all these years, gone away, on the road? Listening to people, catching their little voices on the wind, everybody has needs when it comes to clothing, and I need to provide for all of them. You think itís easy to make this happen; well, I wanted to show you tonight, that, in my own little way, I was trying to change the world. For the better, son; for the better.î I looked at him, restraining myself from correcting him, I knew I would never follow my fatherís footsteps, simply because his morality did not resonate with mine.

My father and I stared at the ocean for a while longer, and back in the car, it was almost dawn, as usual, I was driving away from sunsets. The drive home; I decide to drive through town. First south off the coast, then east on Wilshire, a continuous string of stoplights. The city was slowing, few people mingled about; all the while, I was expecting a dark sedan to round a curve and block my path, I was sure every red light harbored a bum's rush, but it never came, and I figured in as much. My father had his eyes closed, though he was not sleeping. Thoughts worked through my mind, I'm confident but not stupid, and leaving that house was far too easy, even for my father and I.

"Nobody followed us from the party," I mentioned.

"They're a gutless type, those mobsters," my father casually replied; "They would never follow me home," he added, though a little too scripted.

I heard the last words and continued driving, keeping my next thoughts to myself: if gutless as to follow him home, why not gutless enough to set that trap for him back there? I noticed an odor in the car, a pungent smell, hot in the midnight hour. My father hadn't opened his eyes.

"Where was your staff tonight?" I asked him outloud. I referred to the staff of assistants, designers, lawyers and bodyguards that followed my father around the house and elsewhere. There seemed to be a quick pulse of tension throughout him, and he was calmed again, though still at a loss of how to respond.

"I had them out, on other assignments," which was as good as any excuse he could of given me, he knew I had caught him in a trap. Rather, he had set a trap for me, using himself as bait, and I had fallen only part way in, as bait for my own trap, exposing my father in his age, and his need to tap into various youth markets. His staff, seeing him in any sort of danger, would have intervened for him, he never would have had to lift a finger, they were almost too delicate; he handled the gun like a bitch, rather, like an actor holding a prop. And it dawned on me, that the scene, down to the last, was scripted, my actions included. I was expected to come to my father's rescue, and I recalled for the first time that night the looks I was given while inside the house, looks of jealous approval; it was like looking at a young Elvis Presley, what a gold mine.

"I'm sorry," he said, I truly believe he meant it. "But I have to reason with you; either you're with us, or you are threat to the whole industry; and that means you are a threat to me. Can you imagine what will happen if I allow you to continue like this on your own? To be the best dressed man, anywhere, but defying me in the process?" A moment while he looked at the floorboards: "You've got to come with me, son. Because I can't let you jeopardize what I've built." He looked everywhere but at me. "Honestly, you don't know anything about this, you think people walk around wearing what they like, and you, you of all people, the most talented man out there! you just take everything for granted. Wearing what you want, turning every head, wearing that which I discarded, wearing it to spite me! And you think you're doing something different, something for yourself, and never once do you pay me that which I deserve; the recognition, that you look the way you do because of me! How dare you?" And here he tried to look at me, but seeing my eyes focused on the road, he faltered. "You'll do what I tell you, because the man you are, the man you tried so hard to become, to be so far removed from me, never was! You are simply me, all over again! And until I say so, your tight little package belongs to me, to pimp all over the world as I see fit. Did you really think it was you that turned everyoneís head? It was I, incarnate in you; those people saw only me wearing those clothes! You will understand, you're nothing until I say so; you don't look good, until I say you do!"

I thought of the most hurtful thing I could say to him: "Dad, I never thought about what you wore, it made no difference to me. And honestly, even to this day, I still don't give a damn about how I look. That's why I look so good, I could wear jeans and a sport coat, and it still wouldn't matter. Because when people see me, they don't see clothes; not at all." I kept my eyes focused on the street, devoid of life.

His hatred for me was so complete; I felt what could only be a pistol pressed into my belly, as he faced me as best he could in the cramped quarters. I pulled the car over; "Get out," I said evenly.

The aforementioned odor, it was my father, he had broken a sweat in the midst of his tirade. He trained the gun to my heart, and he looked at me fiercely behind his angelic sheen; he pushed the barrel hard into my chest, hard so it bruised me. He held my gaze at the utmost tension, the pressure riding on him to fire. Finally, tired of the whole affair, I grabbed his wrist and threw him and his gun off of me, and I looked at him disgustedly. He fell back against the door, still with that look that suggested his dominance, only now I could see that it was merely male cosmetics. Looking at his hand, the pistol heavy, the fantasy of child killer now played out, he pulled the trigger, and the firing mechanism popped harmlessly, it being an unloaded weapon, and he laughed, sort of as a snort. "How did you know it wasn't loaded?" he asked embarrassed and poorly hiding it.

"I didn't," I lied. I repeated the command for him to leave, he opened the door, and in the soft glow of the dome light, I saw the first real lines of age in his face, and I felt real pity, for the first time seeing him as an aging man. He stood on the side of the road, leaning down, looking in the car once more, as if in a plea, an apology to his life, wanting only to not have to walk. But he was waiting for a command.

"This is mine, all of it, from now on," I spoke. "You are finished. And don't you agree?" My father half-smiled, looked at his shoes as a ghost rose from the V in his jacket; it was like the relief felt in settling your burial arrangements; it was like a great weight being lifted from his shoulders.

"You tell those old farts back there: from now on, nothing happens unless I say so." And I replaced my hands to the wheel, I saw his head drop slightly; he stood up and shut the door. I drove home, and there was no further incident that night.

I drove home slowly, parked the car, went inside and hung up my suit. He wanted me on his side of the family, joining his so-called struggle to manage fashion from the underground, but I felt no need for that type of responsibility; I would just prefer to keep my wardrobe to myself. I would throw these old suits of his out tomorrow; tomorrow, I would have a suit tailored for me. The vanity my father displayed, the ignorance, the misconception that the clothes make the man himself; it gave me such an illness. Only the framework, the skeleton, that which holds the suit up on the man, that makes the clothes visible, and nothing more; a walking mannequin, such an image; there arose in my mind a new idea of my character, a sorted detachment from life as I knew it-I wore clothes that served a purpose, that purpose being to elevate myself above those who consider themselves well-dressed people, for me to do so without having to try. Against that weighs the notion, that some men wear a suit better than others, and that distinction is an unnamed object. What makes me different, from other men, that I may wear my garment more convincingly? It is that, which is only defined within me, as of yet, undefined by my mother and father, undefined by an international fashion conspiracy.