The Gym Shorts

So when I was about ten or twelve or so I had to start taking gym class. I needed gym shorts. Since this was the mid-1970s a pair of gym shorts probably cost what, five dollars? That was too much for my dad.

Told I needed money for gym shorts he snorted that he didn't need to give me any because he'd make them for me and what did these schools think, that he was made out of money? Mind you, while we weren't rich, we weren't exactly poor either. He may have had a family of a wife, four kids and the Vietnamese refugee to support (yeah, I'll tell that one soon), but we didn't miss many meals.

Determined to beat the system, my dad grabbed an old pair of pants and proceeded to make cutoffs as I sat horrified at what I, already a nervous, isolated, self-concious and self-loathing kid, would have to parade around gym class in. Maybe if we still lived in Detroit I could get away with those shorts. For some reason even though I was the only white kid in school there I had won the respect of the black kids. But this was Montclair, New Jersey which in the mid-1970s was just becoming the snooty town it is today although there was also a strong contingent of angry Italians so one could either get laughed at by the rich kids or beaten by the other kids whose own world was vanishing before their eyes.

I didn't say anything while my dad, son of a laundry man as he always liked to remind us, kept cutting the pants. I kept hoping that my mother, sitting quietly in the other room sipping her wine, would come in and stop this madness or at least pull me aside, slip me a five and tell me to go by my shorts.

But no, she played dumb to this scene. My brothers knew better than hang around when the old man was like this. My dad hacked away at this old tan pair of pants of mine while I sat with the expression of a kid who was about to be handed a shit-filled ice cream cone.

He finally stopped cutting the pants and then headed to the bathroom. I was hoping he was finished and was prepared to grab the cutoffs, say thanks, and go back to my bedroom and try to disappear for the next eight years. Instead though, he came out with a razor blade in his hand. He then started to cut little triangle patterns into the shorts! He thought this would be stylish. I started to say I didn't need such fancy shorts but he wouldn't hear of it. Then he cut himself making the triangles which was great because now he got be a martyr.

When he was done, I mumbled my appreciation and vanished. The next day at gym class I put these things on and they looked even more hideous than I had anticipated. I proceed to roll them up to hide the triangles and they were practically up to my cheeks! Needless to say I was the laughingstock of gym class, which didn't exactly help my serve during volleyball!

You know, it's funny. I remember that night when he made the shorts and I remember the first day wearing them. I don't remember anything about the shorts after that. I know I must've kept wearing them because he certainly didn't buy me a pair. I'd recall if I shoplifted a pair. I do know that my parents soon split after that (for the first time) and somehow I must have gotten five dollars out of my mom to by a pair of shorts. I really don't know.

Another funny thing is that when I tell people this story and pace around and imitate my dad making the shorts and roll up my pants and go through all the other theatrics, it's the funniest shit in the world. But for some reason it doesn't translate to the page. It doesn't read as funny as it sounds. Perhaps its because I can do the voice and anger really well and that doesn't come across on the page. He was a cross between Tony Soprano, the father on Everybody Loves Raymond (Peter Boyle) and James Colburn in "Affliction." So either I'm not doing a good job writing it, or in telling it I bury the hurt and turn it into a big fucking joke. Either way, it ain't so funny after all.