SILVER DADDY AT UNIQLO

                                                                                                             

They play Big Band music here.  It’s ironic, to these giggling kids, this bombastic sound of  an America at the height of optimism.  Glenn Miller is In the Mood. A girl in a floral flirty dress does a bouncing Lindy hop with a mannequin in casual cruise wear. Spring is in the air.

Ostensibly, I am shopping for something to wear for a weekend trip to New York, where I am reading at the LGBT center. I need a nice jacket, some cool jeans. My friend Jett recommended this store, as it caters to those of us of shorter stature looking for inexpensive, stylish fashion. “It’s where Asian rich kids shop for disposable clothes,” he said, adding with a vaudevillian wink, “the eye candy is not too bad either.” So, I am browsing the merchandise. The store, and the people, are very easy on the eyes.

This crowd is young, easily half my age. They are wealthy, easily double my net worth.  The purse one chickadee carries goes for what I make in two weeks. Her perfume alone would be a day’s pay. It smells heavenly, lemongrass and lavender, as she breezes past me, with a linen shirt for her boyfriend. He is adorable, with shaggy razor cut hair, and a mouth of gleaming teeth. His slim suit, sharp and somehow casual at the same time, gives him the ease of confident, beautiful, trust funded youth.

Jazz clarinet still soars through the air as my fat paw messes up the neatly folded  stacks of rainbow hued polos. I hum along to Begin the Beguine, a sinuous, sensuous tune, and even the plastic palms seem to be swaying. The dancing girl does a twirl, her skirt flares like a pinwheel, she laughs and her girlfriend laughs, they take a few selfies of them laughing.

A group of slouchy highschoolers finger the softness of cashmere sweaters in pastel easter egg blues, pinks, peep yellows, grassy greens.  Mesh shopping bags, emblazoned with the red characters of the store logo, are stuffed full with desired things: soft khakis and canvas belts, cartoon socks and light weight sweatshirts, funny ties, straw hats, sunglasses, boxer brief underwear, all to be had with the swipe of a parent's Platinum Visa.

Next to these reedy, smooth boys, I am a big ape, with the broad forehead and splayed peasant feet of my people, potato-eating people, low to the ground, hairy.

My beard is longish. My hair is wild, windblown.

In my fiftieth year, about mid way through, I had a melodramatic, tele-novella existential crisis, sadly banal now, in hindsight. Not only was I feeling mid life, but my relationship of some years had come to an abrupt end. I suddenly felt old, and alone. The most outward manifestation of my inner turmoil was my facial appearance. I stopped shaving.  I eschewed all male selfcare. I didn’t have the energy to keep up the precise schedule of haircuts, manscaping, plucking, trimming.  What was the point, anyway? I stopped caring.  I let my hair grow. It was part protest, part performance art.

 Now mature, silvery, resolutely hirsute, I am what they call a Daddy. This brings with it not altogether unpleasant consequences. To my surprise, being wooly has gotten me some attention. I get lots of compliments on the beard. People want to touch it. They come up to me to tell me they love it, which at first discombobulated me, not being used to these kind of advances from much younger men, some as young as their 20’s, but since, I have come to ease into it.   When a cute guy wants to pet my face, I usually let him.

I’m learning to roll with it.

The young boys of today are bold, far bolder than I was at their age, back in the Ice Age of the gay 90’s. In my youth, we went to bars and hung around. We smoked cigarettes, drank cheap, piss warm Rolling Rock beer. We danced to Madonna songs when they were new.  We eyed men shyly. There was a sense of play, a flirtation, a meeting of the eyes, a smile.  Maybe there’d be an offer of a drink, a dance or two, followed by casual groping in a darkened corner. It was all very fun, and seems innocent now.

Today is a whole new world, a digital, cold world of Grinder hook ups, and I am not prepared as I take these first, tentative steps.

It’s ridiculous to think about dating, at this age. I never expected to be single, again, not now. I was sure this was all behind me.  But here I am.

Still, in these last few weeks of winter, with the promise of a new season, there is a buzz in the air like the twittering of the birds, an excitement that shimmers in the clear air, a pulse of life in new green tulip shoots.

When a handsome sales person approaches in silent gliding steps, I eye him cautiously. He’s pale in the glaring white light, practically luminous.

He smiles. “Is there anything I can help you with today, Sir?”

I smile back. “Yes,” I say, casually stroking my soft, silver facial hair,  “ I hope so.”

this story was accepted for publication to Potluck magazine november 2016
www.potluckmag.com