Exiled to Iowa. Send Help. And Couture

by Chris O'Guinn

  Keith came back out with a bag in hand. “Needed some more paint for my airbrush,” he informed us.

  Together, like Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow, we made our way down Canterbury, passing the soda shop for which Keith was so effusive in his appreciation. It fit in with all of OBT’s old time ambience, but how could I be expected to eat at anyplace that looked like a diner from the fifties? The milkshakes would have to be out of this world.

  It was no wonder even the locals didn’t know about The Grab Bag. It was crushed between a massive antique store and an equally gigantic art and framing shop. Making things even less obvious, The Grab Bag had this tiny storefront with only two mannequins wearing vintage couture. It looked very hip to the keen observer, but to the casual eye, it would look like it was just part of the antique place.

  Inside, the store was very deep and impossibly narrow. The register was to the left as you came in, and Jack was there, reading a magazine. His store was not exactly packed with people, but there were some shoppers scattered about. My little troupe and I were definitely the youngest, though, which was a grim fact to contend with. How could I find anything to blend in with if no one in my new school shopped here?

  Keith headed towards the back, where the men’s clothing seemed to live. Becca saw something she liked in the women’s section and made a beeline for it, leaving me standing there drinking up the soft lighting and pop music of the place and letting it take me away back home.

  “Hey there,” Jack said, looking up. “How is your day going?”

  “So much better now that I am here,” I replied with a bright smile. “Good thing you have a website. No way I would have spotted this place driving by.”

  Jack nodded, his lips quirking in an annoyed frown. “My parents own the antique shop. They subdivided the place to give me my own space, but they weren’t exactly generous.”

  “I look at it as an oasis in a flannel desert, myself,” I replied.

  He took in my unique couture. I took in his different but very upscale clothing. Our eyes met and a subtle acknowledgement passed between us. The day was looking better and better.

  “Where’d they ship you in from?”

  “L.A.,” I told him. “And where did you go to break from the flannel addiction?”

  Jack smirked at me. “I was never addicted. No matter how much this town tried. I did go to college in New York City, though, so that helped.”

  “You were in New York City? And you came back? On purpose?”

  Jack laughed. “Aw, Buford’s not that bad. The people here are good people and there’s a certain charm to it you won’t find in a big city.”

  “Ah, I see. Student loans?” I smiled at him.

  “Up the wazoo,” Jack conceded, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I thought I would try and bring a little New York culture to this town. So far, it seems to be scaring the locals.”

  “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

  He eyed my shirt again. “Don’t really have anything from Christian Jerlee, I’m sorry to say. Way too expensive and no one here would be willing to wear it anyway. I do have to compliment your taste.”

  I wasn’t alone in my love for couture. God had granted me some small mercy with this one fashion rebel. “Well, for one, this is a knock-off. I couldn’t afford a Christian Jerlee to save my life. For another, I’m actually here to get something a little tamer.”

  “Oh, going to stealth mode? Probably not a bad idea. I’m Jack by the way, though I guess if you went to my website, you got that much.”

  “I did. And I’m Collin. Do you offer store cards to minors? Or do you just take a written I.O.U. for my soul?”

  Jack was openly amused by my silliness. “No, but we are offering a ten-percent discount to all new Buford residents … today only.”

  “Oh, really?” That got my attention. “Will you excuse me, I think there is couture crying out for me in the back.”

  “By all means,” he said graciously.

  There was so much to look at that I hardly knew where to begin. My magpie senses locked on to some fashionably glittery belts and some exquisitely colorful shirts. It would not be hard, I saw, to spend the whole day in here. It was a good thing my parents had not handed me a credit card, or I would have ran up a debt like a third-world nation in a heartbeat.

  I found a few things right off that I liked, and I grabbed them for trying on. Then I went to look in on my companions. Keith did not seem to be shopping so much as organizing, which I did not quite understand. He was meticulously picking clothes off of the rack and putting them into different places, his face a mask of concentration.

  “Uh, dude? What’s up?”

  Keith did not answer for a moment, continuing to move things around. Finally, still working at it, he gave an explanation. “Doctors don’t know what’s wrong with me. One thinks I have OCD. One is sure I have Aspergers. There’s even this one guy who thinks I’m schizo something.”

  Keith finished with the one rack and started to turn to another. It finally became clear that what he was doing was putting everything in order according to size. I stopped him and shook my head in determination. “No. None of that. Not unless Jack puts you on the payroll. What are your favorite colors?”

  Keith’s eyes were already scanning another rack that was in need of sorting. “Um, green and black.”

  “Excellent choices. They would look great on you.”

  I sized him up and quickly found a couple of tee shirts and one button-up with short sleeves and shoved them into his arms. “You go try those on and leave the racks alone.”

  Keith took the items and went off to the dressing room. He was a sweet guy. Broken, clearly, but we all are, when you get right down to it. His open nature and lack of duplicity was kind of refreshing. I decided to take my Queer Eye and go see what Becca was up to. I love shopping, for myself or for others makes no difference. It’s the hunt that I love.

  She was no longer in the store, but outside for some reason. I joined her with a confused look on my face, since it’s hard to shop when you’re not actually in the store. She was looking bored and a little irritable. Something had gone wrong in the few minutes I had left her unattended.

  “What’s up?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing in there for me.”

  “Wow, even I can’t figure out there’s nothing good in a store that fast, and I’m a professional.”

  “Okay, nothing that would look good on me, all right?”

  It occurred to me that there might be other people my age that had body-image issues, and some of them might even have breasts. The sudden appearance of vulnerability within her caught me off guard and I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Tact is not something I am great with, and she had a huge minefield around her that I dared not prance through.

  Still, I did want to help, if I could. “Come on, let me see if I can find something. I mean, it beats waiting out here for us, right?”

  Becca rolled her eyes grudgingly. “Fine, but I don’t want to spend all day trying things on like some stupid Barbie doll.”

  “Right, gotcha.”

  Once back inside, I took her to the girl’s section. And this is where I will just say how envious I am of girls in one respect; they have like a gazillion more choices for clothes than we boys do. Granted, not many of us males give a damn what we wear, but for those of us who do, we would like some options. Jeans and a few different tee shirts do not a selection make; which is what makes a store like The Grab Bag special—options.

  I found some jeans with rhinestones on them (oh, glittery jeans, you make me wish I didn’t look absurd in denim) and showed them to her. Becca eyed them dubiously. I got several sizes for her and handed them to her and then went in search of a few tops. I found some nifty spaghetti-string halter tops that I thought would look good on her, picked an assortment of sizes and colors and then bullied her into trying the stuff on.

  Keith was back to organizing racks, but he was at least wearing one o
f the tees I had picked out for him. It looked like a good fit, and he seemed happy wearing it. I had to wait until he was finished putting everything in order before I could get his attention again, though.

  “This one’s my favorite,” Keith told me of the shirt he was wearing.

  Using that as a model, I found a bunch more for him to try on and then went back to find out how Becca was doing. She came out of the girl’s dressing room wearing the jeans and a deep blue top, and I have to say, I am good. She looked stunning. The tomboy had been replaced by a real live girl person, and if I were the sort to be interested in women, I would have been floored.

  “I feel stupid,” she said, folding her arms uncomfortably.

  “But you look fabulous,” I told her honestly.

  “You think?” she asked, now with a trace of coy shyness to her.

  “Oh, honey, for real,” Jack said with exaggerated campiness, coming out from behind the counter to reinforce my opinion. “You look amazing. And that ‘tomboy’ thing is so over.”

  Becca looked skeptical and a bit abashed at being the center of attention, but she also had the faintest spark in her eyes. It was the same spark I had seen on several of my friends when I’d helped them find clothing that made them look great instead of homeless.

  “Can you take over here, Jack? I have to keep an eye on my friend in the back or he’ll start rearranging your stockroom.”

  “Of course,” Jack told me.

  I left her in his capable hands and went off to supervise Keith and to perhaps do a little shopping for myself. It turned out to be a lot of fun. We all took turns showing off various ensembles like we were some fashion runway rejects.

  I actually found several shirts that would work well to disguise my gayness from the world at large while at the same time not make me want to scream from how ugly or boring they were. With the good prices I found and the special discount I was getting, I was able to afford quite a number of things.

  The only downside was I could not afford the fun, fabulous stuff as well as the more conservative items. It was the first time I had ever had to choose between what I wanted and what the responsible fashion choice was, and I can’t say that I cared for the experience.

  Becca did get a couple new outfits, but only after Jack, Keith and I all teamed up on her. When we had just about bankrupted ourselves, we decided to head off to the soda shop for food and to sample these allegedly perfect milkshakes. I had had some fantastic ones in my day, after all, so I was not expecting to be impressed.

  Three words: Best. Milkshakes. Ever.

  “So, what grades are you guys in?” I asked as I gave myself a chocolaty, peanut-buttery brain-freeze.

  “I'm a sophomore,” Becca told me. I liked the way she didn't talk for her brother, even if it did take him a second to respond to things.

  “Junior. I almost got held back once, but my Mom went nuts....”

  Keith explained this as he worked at a word jumble puzzle that had come on our placemats. It wasn't that he wasn't paying attention so much as that he was easily distracted. He just had one of those brains that needed to put things in order. Whatever medical term there was for it, I didn’t need to know.

  “Wow. That's cool. I think if my school wanted to hold me back, my parents would just give me those long looks of disappointment they're so good at.”

  “Mom saves those for Becca.”

  “Hey now!”

  Their closeness reminded me of that which I had with Shawn, which was nice to see. None of my friends in L.A. had any sort of friendly relations with their siblings and I had been the lone freak. I couldn’t deny liking them and my need for friends is pathetically strong. Even if making friends this quickly would make my parents think that I was fine with the move (an unacceptable misapprehension) I decided not to fight it.

  As we ate and joked with each other, I slowly started to feel like maybe life in Small Town America wouldn't be so bad.

  Chapter 3

  I SAT THERE IN MY sauna of a room (what the hell with all this damn Iowa humidity anyway?) staring at the computer screen and struggling to interpret what I was seeing in a positive way. I had left L.A. a week ago. Before that, I had been unavailable for days. In time as measured by teenagers, therefore, I had been AWOL from my friends' lives for a century.

  I pressed my cold bottle of water to my cheek and tabbed through my social networking pages once again, as if the hundredth repetition of the same action would suddenly give me new and happier results. Predictably, it did not.

  Facebook. MySpace. Friendster. My blog site. My email account. They were all as silent as the proverbial grave. No one had tried to find out how I was doing or what life was like in the cornfields. Nor had anyone responded to the last comments I had left before having my lifeline to the internet forcibly removed for a miserable two weeks.

  If there was an explanation that did not add up to “Thank God Collin's gone” I could not come up with it. I didn't want to be a drama queen about it, but it was hard to not take personally. Insecurities that I usually kept locked away suddenly slipped out of their cages and jumped on me. Questions I did not want to ask were suddenly inescapable.

  The worst part about it all was that if they were relieved to be rid of me now, then what had they felt about me when I was still there? Had they only tolerated me to my face while secretly hoping I would go play in traffic? If so, why?

  What had I done? Sure, I was flighty and a bit of a smart-ass. But I was always there for them when they needed me. I had taken care of Dave's mangy little rat-dog (despite how much the canine and I detested each other), when he had gone on vacation with his parents. I had loaned money to Sergio whenever he had asked and had never nagged him about it. Sure, that money had gone into parts for his car, which had then come back around to help me later, but the principle was still there.

  So what they hell had I done?

  Pettiness leaped up within me, like an angry watchdog pulling at the chain holding him in his yard. I was halfway through the process of dropping them all off my friend lists before I stopped myself. I’d known enough prima donnas who had pulled similar stuff that I did not want to be counted among them.

  I was angry and hurt and confused, but I wasn't that far gone. I considered sending off some really bitchy e-mails, but that didn’t seem any better. It wasn't likely that I would make them like me again by throwing a fit. Since they had been my friends, I wanted to see if there was something to salvage. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding.

  I finally decided that my only real choice was to just call Jen. She had been my friend the longest and we had never kept secrets from each other (with one notable exception on my part). If anyone knew what was going on and would actually tell me the truth about it, it would be Jen.

  Instead of talking to Jen, however, I spoke to her voicemail. I kept my tone as even and empty of accusation as my righteous indignation could manage. I may have let something catty slip, like “I noticed I don't seem to have any friends any more” but I kept my tone of voice light and inoffensive.

  After that, there was nothing for me to do but lay on my bed with my headphones on and listen to angry, emo music. It didn't cure my bad mood, but at least it made me feel less alone with my misery. Sometimes, a person just needs a good, solid mope.

  Tomorrow was the first day at a new school—a horror I could not escape. I debated wearing something grungy, like the jeans and tees I had already rejected. Since I was inevitably going to be tossed into a Dumpster by the jocks, it would be risky to wear my good clothes.

  However, first impressions are important. My mother had pounded that into me enough times that I was never going to forget it. If I looked like a homeless kid, my status at the school would be locked at just below the urinal cakes and above the cafeteria food. I decided to make a brave effort to be liked before accepting my place as the school weirdo.

  * * *

  Herbert Hoover High was larger than the one-room schoolhouse I had exp
ected. It wasn't nearly as big as my old school, but it did have some substance to it. The main building was huge and blocky, with narrow, glazed windows dotting its surface. Beyond it, I could make out buildings that had to be the gyms and workshops.

  Of course, the football field stood in its pristine, manicured opulence off to the left. I suspected that one could see it from orbit. Schools had an inordinate love for their football teams, I had always felt. HHH took that love to new and glorious heights.

  I trudged inside, joining the queue of students filing into the halls of learning for the first day of a new year. I noticed I was getting odd stares, but I just chose to ignore them. They would get over it, I was sure—or I hoped, anyway. There was nothing I could do about it in either case. I had dressed in very conservative black slacks and a striped white and blue shirt, so I wasn’t screaming “Homo in the house.”

  Homeroom was dull enough that I almost nodded off. Mr. Lundquist, my English teacher, was such a crazy man that I couldn't avoid paying attention to him, however. He started off telling us that he did not grade on a curve and that he didn't care if we all failed. His job was to teach, but it was ours to learn.

  Then he walked over to some poor fellow who had mistaken class for naptime and kicked the leg of the offender's desk so hard the student nearly fell on his butt. That woke me right out of my half-doze. Fearing for my life, I made note that I would develop a coffee addiction very soon if I had to in order to stay awake.

  I paid strict attention to Dr. Jekyll as he lectured us on what the first semester was going to cover. Thankfully, I had already read several of the books that he named, so there was a greater chance of escaping the whipping post. The last thing I wanted was to gain his attention, especially the negative variety.

  There was only one thing to distract my attention from the lunatic whose wrath I dared not incur; a roiling miasma of misery and bitterness occupying one of the rear corners of the classroom. He was a row back and to the right of me, so he existed in the periphery of my vision, nagging at me constantly. When I dared to shift my gaze from the crazy man to the huddled and glaring figure in the eye of the maelstrom of unhappiness, I found I could hardly manage to look for more than a few seconds. It was like the wall he had built around himself (consisting of anger, resentment and a few empty desks) just repelled a person's gaze.