Bob liked his showers. He liked his naps but they were only weekend naps. He was not home enough during the week for there to be time for a nap. He generally got home around dinner time, just around dark most of the year and an hour after dark in the winters. I don’t think he relished working after dark. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out why. It was considered too dangerous for a white man to be in Perrine or Richmond Heights after dark. So, no nap after dinner. Just TV and maybe it might be bowling night (Monday?) But a shower was pretty much a given every evening and maybe in the morning on weekends. He’d shave and splash on Old Spice, which was the only fragrance he used, the only one I associate with him. He was a clean man and shaven and groomed. It never dawned on me to ask how he developed these habits of neatness and hygiene, and he never offered. He liked his clean, cotton boxer shorts in powder blue or pale green or buff. He wore white tee shirts but never “wife-beaters” or under shirts as we used to call them. He put stuff in his hair like “Brillcreme” or “Wild Root Creme Oil” but never so much that he’d look greasy. He trimmed his finger and toe nails unfailingly and he brushed his teeth. He had a “bridge” because one of his teeth was missing but I can’t remember which one. Am I right on this? That he kept it in a cup or glass at night? Time is making things a little foggy on the edges. And then there was the clothes.
He loved his clothes. I think he was making up for not having much in the way of nice clothing as a kid. As an adult he was not extravagant but he was fussy. He demanded a crease in his pants that looked like a knife blade. He had starch in his shirts, even the ones he wore to work. He sweated all day driving a car full of merchandise or commuting to his store in Homestead. In Miami, in the heat and the humidity of 100% he would drive without the benefit of A/C and his clothing had to arrive creased and crisp no matter…that was a given. His shoes had to be polished, a chore that fell to me (and maybe Jay when he was older and capable of duplicating the perfection that his older brother had demonstrated). And this brings me to a twisted detail that I had not intended to get into.
My Father…he was the whole package looks wise, and it kept on going until the knot in the tie was perfect! That is how he dressed and that is what he thought about appearance. So, it is a mystery to me how he expected that particular genetic trait would skip a generation? Was I not to be a ‘little Bobby’ in that respect? I really wish I could go back to him now and ask him about that. Didn’t he want me to be as comfortable in my skin? Comfortable in the clothing I put all over that skin-as he was? Didn’t he want me to value appearance as he did? This is why I ask.
It was just about when I entered high school that I became overwhelmingly concerned with my appearance especially as it applied to girls. I mean I was horny as a toad and I’d never had a girlfriend. Never played spin the bottle. Never been on a date. I was still dressing in shorts or jeans and high-top sneakers. I was fishing and delivering newspapers and mowing lawns. There was nothing in my world that involved women but nothing in my brain that was concerned with anything else. I didn’t understand why but there it was. I lay in my bed and night and alternately salivated and then flagellated myself for thinking about the image of my friend’s mother who had big boobs and enjoyed displaying them on synagogue picnics. I was a mess. And then there was school. Cool kids and redneck kids from south Dade farm lands and jocks with muscles and smart kids with brains and then…me. What could I possibly do to distinguish myself from this crowd? The answer: Dress Cool!
So I researched in the magazines at the barber shop. Waiting for Steve, my barber, the one Dad said was the only one I should use and the one who Dad told exactly how to cut my hair, I checked out Esquire to see how I should look. What should I wear. How to be Cool! Then I went to the newly opened Dadeland Mall and boldly sauntered into the coolest men’s clothing shop there was at the mall. It was on the second floor. The only shopping for clothing that I’d ever done was with my Dad. Once a year he took me to his wholesaler downtown and outfitted me for the school year with socks, jeans, a pair of dress slacks, a couple of short-sleeved white shirts, whitey-tighty underwear and some tee shirts. That and a pair of shoes (lace ups) and a pair of sneakers was the wardrobe for the year. At that mall, that day, with sweaty hands and thumping heart I made my first bold move into retail America- alone. I rode the escalator up and marched into the store that sold the stuff that would make me cool. Gold Cup socks. Canterbury belts, Gant shirts. Weejun shoes. And the largest selection of chino/beige pants south of Atlanta, Georgia! I had ten dollars in Miami Herald newspaper boy money burning a hole in my pocket and a burning desire to dress cool.
After looking at every button down shirt in the entire store I left with nothing. I sat outside for an hour and then I went in and bought the one that I could not live without. It had white faux bone buttons and a button down collar. It had the little hook of cloth at the back pleat that was never used but absolutely requisite for coolness. It was on sale. It had all the cool of the Gant shirts but at half the price and I absolutely scarffed it up. It was the happiest day of my life. When I got home I put it right on. I had to . I couldn’t help myself. And an hour later Bobby came home and told me to take it back. Oh! It was more convoluted than that but I don’t, even to this day, have the heart to record the details. It was the first of many, many knock-down-drag-out fights to come. It was the beginning of my revolution. It was the prelude to long hair, bell bottoms, jeans with holes and desert boots and beards. It was where the road forked. I took it back but I brooded over it. I went back to the store in the mall a week or two later and bought a different shirt. Bolder and more expensive. One I was sure Dad would have at least as much trouble with but screw it, I just bought it. It was a complicated plaid that looked like madras but was not. It was a rough weave with vibrant colors the likes of which I had not seen in any other shirt in school.
Everyone seemed to notice me when I wore it the first time. They all asked, “Is that Madras?” and I said “No.” Madras was very cool at the time. At first I was sorry I had not bought a Madras shirt but after a while I became more and more sure that being different-just a little bit-was actually cooler than being just like everyone else. Tucked into the nicest pair of slacks I owned and with the Thom McCann loafers that were shined like mirrors and close enough to Weejuns so that no one noticed that they were not Weejuns, I felt like a million bucks. I felt taller. I felt significant for the first time in my life in school. I knew this was how I always wanted to feel. It has taken me sixty years to realize that these kinds of feelings do not skip generations. It has taken me this long to see that this the way Robert M. Gartman wanted to feel too. To be noticed. Dad was not well educated or athletic or a born leader or a hero, but he had friends who were educated, athletic, leaders and heros. Dad just wanted to be one of the guys. So did I.
