From then on everything began to move so fast.
Nothing from the shows sold, but I was able to adapt those twelve looks into a knitwear line that could be produced by two Chinese cousins out in Sunset Park. Ming and Lei. Strong seamstresses who followed directions. Ahmed found them for us. The knitwear we were able to place in consignment shops downtown and around Brooklyn. Some boutiques in Los Angeles got onboard too, and before you knew it, things were selling out. The shops and boutiques were finally asking for more.
Unfortunately, with each new stride my line made, the heavy drag-ass feeling I’d been suffering with Michelle only worsened. Your work takes all of your soul, proving it difficult to come up with another energy reserve, that which is needed to sustain a serious relationship. Now that my label was a full-time job, being asked to travel out to Sarah Lawrence was nothing but a hassle. I don’t want to cheapen her feelings for me, but it seemed like I was under pressure to carry two loads, my label and Michelle’s mental state. In fact, I was beginning to suspect that Michelle suffered from manic depression. The occasional staring off, the tears after sex, the unmarked bottle of pills in her YSL handbag, the obscenities that came out of her when we fought, like a seasonal Turrets5—“faggot,” “gay bastard,” “twat.” She had some mouth on her. It was all related. I came from a family of doctors, remember. She had to be bipolar.
These bouts took a severe turn around the time of her beloved nana’s death. The old bugger had made it to ninety-one, nearly a full century of toil. And Michelle didn’t think Nana had been given a fair chance. I was by her side during the wake for two full days at the Montauk Club on Eighth Avenue in Brooklyn, forced to come up to the casket with her to view the body. “She had just begun a new chapbook of poems,” Michelle said. “She was so happy writing again, looking back on her life. Why now? Why couldn’t it happen after she finished them?”
“Maybe you can finish them for her?” I said. “Like a collaboration.”
“Not while I’m grieving. Let me grieve, you miserable twat. Just hold me.”
Ahmed tried to help me through the small crisis of guilt I was having in wanting to leave Michelle. “Go, have this fling. It’s a cure-all,” he swore. “How do you think I got over my second wife so quickly?”
“I thought you were only married once.”
“That was Sheela. I was married again for six weeks to a dancer in Lahore. Yasmin. She ran off to Bollywood and I never knew what became of her. I like to imagine she contracted some horrible skin disease and had to have one of her legs amputated. What beautiful legs too! I know—cruel and unusual, but that’s love. Anyhow, it was a blonde with big tits who got my mind off of her. A prostituta. Go out and get your ramrod sucked, and don’t feel like you owe anybody anything.”
“That’s not exactly what I wanted to hear at the foot of temptation.”
“Consider this. During both my marriages I remained completely faithful. It’s true. Now I’ve told you some stories about my adventures in the sheets, but it’s time to come clean. The truth is, I never strayed. Not a slipup. This was at a time when I was dining with the world’s upper classes. Lady Di, the Prince of Wales, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. These were the circles that your Ahmed ran in, beby. And I grappled with temptations on more than one occasion. Real propositions, Boy. These weren’t the models you’re so fond of, but some real sexy gels. Now what do I have but regret? I was a complete fool. I think back on that free-loving time—the early nineties—and how I should have done everything differently. You’re young, Boy. You should be having fun. Don’t do what I did. Don’t be a fool. Fuck around a little. If this new gel is a mistake–”
“Rudy. Her name’s Rudy.”
“—if this Rudy’s a mistake, you go back to Michelle. If Michelle finds out, she leaves you, and you’re free to enjoy all you want. What you won’t have is regret. Guilt comes and goes. Regret looms.”
“I don’t know.”
“Just listen to what I’m saying. What is it you want to hear?”
None of Ahmed’s advice ever stuck, but he did make me realize what I needed to do. I would have to change my good-natured self in order to get what I wanted. As children we do this. Perhaps to fit in with the right crowds, or the wrong ones. Things don’t change much by the time we become adults.
Our finale would be quick, but not quiet. I would choose one of those warm September nights in the city when the moon still made an otherworldly appearance at dusk. A gallery hop in Chelsea. Unremarkable art. Cheap white wine to work up the courage. Once I felt I had enough courage, I would complain to Michelle about a headache, a migraine. She would take my cue and suggest we head home to Brooklyn. Once there I would gently extract myself from our two-year relationship, during which time that word, “relationship,” was never uttered.
The breakup went pretty much according to plan until we got back to my place, where I was to drive the stake into the poor girl’s heart. And how could I not succumb when Michelle pulled me down on the bed and kissed me with a biting, taunting aggression? She sat up and undid my belt. We continued to kiss as she worked me in her hand. Guilt barged in only when she took me in her apathetic mouth.
I had to stop her.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“I’m a bastard, Michelle. You don’t deserve me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was with someone else.”
“What?”
“Today. I was with someone else.”
“Who? I don’t understand.”
“I was with someone. I cheated.”
By then, Rudy Cohn and I had been seeing each other, on a casual basis, but certainly not that afternoon. I wasn’t as disgusting as I made myself out to be. I was lying. But how could I tell her the truth? It’s you. The reason is you. I’m tired of you.
There’s no such thing as a clean break. It’s a whole process, breaking up—meeting for coffee or a drink at the right platonic hour, exchanging possessions, phone calls at two in the morning. I was looking at months. And I remember thinking throughout this excruciating period of my life: When will I just be free?
Funny, it has been two years, and I’m asking myself the very same question now.
1. It was Cain who asked this of God after Cain murdered Abel.
2. Secure Military Emergency Reaction Force.
3. A spokesperson for Barneys has publicly denied this allegation.
4. Natalie Portman wasn’t there. According to my notes, I was seated in the second row between Kelly LeBrock and Scary Spice of the disbanded girl group the Spice Girls.
5. Tourette syndrome.
The Enemy at Home
As of this morning’s reservation it has come to my attention that my ex, Michelle Brewbaker, the whore of Bronxville, has written a play about me. This play, conveniently titled The Enemy at Home or: How I Fell for a Terrorist, is causing quite a stir—as reported in the New York Post dated September 15 (over one month ago). Special Agent Spyro was kind enough to save me the article with a few redacted details regarding the play’s location. Due to the fact that I am neither an enemy nor a terrorist—soon to be proven at my tribunal—I’m hopeful that this little Off-Broadway romp1 will indeed go gently into that good night. According to the article The Enemy at Home, then in rehearsal, was set to open on the thirtieth of September, which means it is already a few weeks in the running.
“I would like a copy of the play, if possible,” I said to Spyro.
“I’ll see what I can do. As you know, getting you things to read can be quite difficult. They have to pass all sorts of clearances. You see what’s happened with this article. It’s from September. We’re now in the middle of October.”
“Please try,” I said.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Oh, isn’t this the ultimate betrayal! Even more conniving than the time Michelle cheated on me with her ex‑boyfriend, Todd Wayne Mercer. (She met him for “a drink” that turned into too many Ho
egaardens, but since I was already sleeping with Rudy Cohn, it made no difference to me what Michelle did with Todd Wayne.) How could she turn her back on me when I am in here? She is the only one on the outside who knows the truth. For she was there on the night of the Overwhelming Event! And why should I have to pay for a failed love affair when I’m already paying for everything else? Why can’t I be spared just this once? Maybe it is like the Qur’an says: I was placed on this Earth to be tried with afflictions.
All I’ve done is love America. Isn’t that the way it goes: Love somebody with all your might, and what do you get but a heartless backstabbing.
Onstage I am being portrayed by the actor Lou Diamond Philips of Stand and Deliver and La Bamba. According to the article, Lou Diamond plays Guy, the fashion terrorist, who turns gay for pay.
What a blatant attack on my sexuality! As I said before, I am a lover of women! My lovers back home I can plot out in my head, visualize them on a map of New York and metro Manila as needles, little pinheads, all of them, stabbed into my brain. Some still puncture the nerve to my heart. Isn’t that one of love’s prisons? To walk alone with a stabbing migraine of heartbreak. Oh sure, the hurt may lessen, but never does it completely cease. It’s only a matter of time before you see her dining across from you with some Chinese guy who works in finance. And then the excruciating text exchange later that night:
—Stop texting me DRUNK
—Who is he?
—A friend
—Fuck u. I fucking luvd u
—U nvr sed it
—Yes I did U bitch
—Whn???
—Dat time on fire island, member?
—U nvr sed it
I nvr sed it. Oh, the salt on the wound! I did say it, to so many lovers, countless times. But to Michelle I never did. I withheld that intimate bond, those three one-syllable words. (I lied to her about Fire Island, in fact. See above.) Is this why I’m paying for all my sins?
In the lead role of Freedom is the abominable actress-singer-songwriter Chloë. Where’s the justice? This is the same actress-singer-songwriter responsible for putting me on the fucking map. The young starlet who just last year walked down the red carpet at the Grammys in one of my dresses. I watched the whole thing on VH1. When asked about her dress—a deadly evening gown—Chloë looked right into the camera and said, “This is by Boy.” My God, I thought, I’ve made it.
I can only deduce that Chloë has taken the role of Freedom to repair her image. After all, being connected to me now via the Grammys probably hasn’t done much for her career. And what better way for Chloë to repair her image than to star in Michelle’s copious opus, The Enemy at Home? For an artist of Chloë’s stature (“Don’t you want my chas-titty? / Don’t you need my chas-titty?”), a debut on the New York stage Off Broadway2 seems far below her level of celebrity. But in the war on terror, a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. In this political climate, better to be a patriot first, a legitimate actress second, and a pop star third, in that order.
Chloë. Thou who made me! I toast the day she ends up in Us Weekly, photographed poolside with stretch marks!
I’m beginning to think that Michelle’s view of humanity—constantly deeming everything “so ironic”—was spot-on. We are drowning in irony. Every last one of us! You, me, even Lou Diamond, because after my tribunal comes around, and this play is unveiled as the farce it truly is, Lou Diamond will go right back into obscurity.3
My greatest fear to come of this recent development is that Michelle might actually have the influence to sway public opinion. That is the power of entertainment. Sure, when the government spins a story like mine, you will always have your believers, those dumb enough disciples who follow their leader no matter how much of a stuttering fool he is; but you can also count on a good many doubters, those citizens who question what is being force-fed to them through the media test tube. And it is this group that I am worried about. For no one is immune to the force of good art when it is disseminated through the mass media. I know this better than anyone, for it is this foundational essence of the human condition to which I owe all of my own success.
Many more runway shows followed my debut. Again we set up catwalks in dance studios and art spaces. But even as my own work began to sell on consignment, it would take two more seasons of hawking my collections before Chloë would appear at the Grammys in my dress just last year.
Yes, Philip and Vivienne were integral to my mounting success. In fact, Vivienne and I had an unsuccessful love affair in 2004 that grew out of her efforts on my behalf.4 Vivienne was a spark plug, a woman of influence, with a boutique on Mercer Street down the block from Marc Jacobs and, before I went away, two more stores planned for Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Without Vivienne and Philip, my label would have become (B)oy bridal for sure.
But it was Ben Laden who took me to the proverbial next level. Only when Ben got Vogue, Elle, and even Glamour to sprinkle my clothes in their “what’s new” spreads did celebrity stylists come knocking. Rudy Cohn, who I continued to see on and off, had introduced me to Chloë, but the actress-singer-songwriter wouldn’t touch me until my line got play in the media. It was no coincidence that she showed up at the Grammys in my inside-out dress after it had popped up in the Trends sidebar of Harper’s Bazaar. And that’s when the custom orders started rolling in. Most notably from one junior senator’s wife. (Think of a state bordering Wisconsin and Lake Michigan, rhymes with Hanoi.5) But I never delivered on that dress. I was captured in the Overwhelming Event before the sketches could be approved.
At the start of 2006, (B)oy finally had enough buzz to make it into the fashion week tents for the New Designers’ Showcase.
It was my Bryant Park debut. My Strange Fruit collection, that bildungsroman, was sandwiched between Jeffrey Milk and Proenza Schouler, the meat between two slices of white bread. I got to hire all of my favorite models in New York: Olya, Dasha, Kasha, Vajda, etc. The clothes were more ambitious than ever, and yet they were tremendously simplistic. The style I had been aggressively molding all my life had finally taken a leap into the next realm.
And yet for all of our hard-earned good fortune, the label still wasn’t turning a profit.
(B)oy was in its fourth season, and I was under immense pressure from everyone to produce a hit, something to take the label out of the red and into the black. Most labels fold if they can’t get the funding. The loan Ahmed had taken from Hajji, the so‑called Indian gangster, had supplemented my consignment sales for more than two years, and for my debut in Bryant Park I received a grant from 7th on Sixth.6 However, that one night in the tent ended up costing us seventy thousand. Ten thousand we spent on models’ shoes alone.
Once again Ben came to my rescue. The coverage he got for my show ensured several buyers in attendance, and who should I hit it off with but Lena Frank, Barneys’ artistic director. She fell madly in love with my clothes and expressed a deep interest in collaborating in the future. She offered me a large advance for several modified looks from my Strange Fruit collection, a sum that would cover production costs, show Ahmed a small return on his investment, and take care of my living expenses for another year. Then, armed with such a red-hot new deal, Ben was able to get me a profile in W magazine.
For all of the press and buzz, however, (B)oy was coming apart at the seams. Dick, our accountant, was impossible to please. The Barneys advance went over modestly at best, despite the fact that it would cover every expense I needed to claim. Any time I made a decision on my own that would cost us more money I was met with resistance, no matter how much I was bringing in.
Dick Levine: “There isn’t any room in the budget for an assistant, are you crazy? How much are you planning to pay this person?”
“Twelve an hour,” I said.
“That’s too much. I’ll send you a girl for six.”
“The girl you’re gonna send me won’t have the right look. I need someone fashionable. Great with clients. Maybe she has a bob.”
“Well, well, look at you. Thinks I’m going to send him Chanah from Crown Heights. I’ll overlook your anti-Semitism just this once to remind you that until your Barneys advance is in the bank, we still haven’t made a profit.”
“Be nice,” I said. “It’s a miracle I’ve come this far without an assistant. She’ll be part-time. Just someone to manage my calendar.”
“Fine. When does my opinion matter anyway. When she sues us for benefits, I’ll tell Ahmed it was your fault.”
“Where is Ahmed?”
“Moscow? Madrid? Tupelo, Mississippi? I can’t keep it straight anymore. I don’t think he can either.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Just stay out of the cookie jar for a while.”
“I never know what you mean.”
“I let you have your assistant, now leave me be. Listen, I gotta go.”
“When you hear from Ahmed tell him to call me.”
Maybe I had suspected that Ahmed was using me in some way. But they were suspicions of what merit? That he believed in the label and in me as a designer? That he wasn’t around enough? I dismissed any suspicions I had as erroneous. The accounts were in the name of my business, and after my debut in Bryant Park, the whole world knew all about (B)oy—well, the only world that I cared about. The little fame I was acquiring would be my safety net. If I fell, the industry would catch me, I was sure of it.
Clothes were real. Suspicions were an invention of the mind.
I found a textile major at Parsons willing to work for free in exchange for clothes and four credits toward an internship. Ecstatic about saving the business some money, I called Dick right away to gloat.
“I beat your six dollars an hour. Try nothing. Ha!”
“Tell me,” he said.
“I got an intern. She has a bob and everything.”
From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel Page 15