The Magic of Macy's

A face like light, so much so that nowI wonder if he was albino or had vitiligo,except that he had freckles and his hairI remember was pale red, and his eyespale blue: and tall, a good foot tallerthan I was—am—with an unnoticing grace.

I am nineteen, standing behind the Coachcounter at Macy's Herald Square.This feels like my first real job: I takea bus to the city; I wear a suit.I ask strangers if I can help themeven though I actually can't help them

since I know so little about leather goods.But I want to help. I am clean shaven,virginal, terrified, thrilled, alternatelyself conscious and dazzled into out-of-bodyexperience. I float above Coachto see before me the grandeur

of Herald Square, and myself, tie knottedonce by my father, then carefullyremoved each night to preserve the knot.Around me is Men's, around meis Macy's, around me is Thirty-Fourth,and Manhattan, and I lean forward,

over the glass, breath held, waitingbecause I have an inchoate sensethat this is life, and that New Jerseyis not, is in fact the holding penbefore life, where life—bull with its ballstied too tightly—somehow doesn't yet buck.

And yet nothing happened that summer.I was initiated into nothing.I knew enough to understand there wereother experiences, places nearbyI could legally walk into, where allmanner of consumption was possible:

there were hours after hours, spacesto spend the night that didn't involvetaking the bus back to New Jersey.Let's be clear: we're talkingmen, multiple men, and drugs,night time as a method of operation

with a range of textures that still,twenty years later, I have admired onlybehind glass: the price tag, the softnessof the leather, the "grain" as we called it,as if it were a kind of wood: the once-livingskin that, cared for, lasts decades.

Truth is, I waited behind that counterfor life to walk up and extend its long finger—the three-jointed bones of a skeletal hand,or something simian, the dark, knucklydigit of an ape—tap down hardon the glass, then turn swiftly, drawing me

Pied Piper-like after. My supervisor,a portly fifty year old with a lisp and a gapin his front teeth, did ask me to dinner,and I refused with a silent, emphaticshake of the head. But aside from that,summer wore on showing me nothing.

Except once. The day he walked in,my nearly elfin redhead. But he is not elfin:though impossibly tall and graceful,his chest is wide, defined. He doesn'tlook at me, just down at the glass, his longred eyelashes falling over his eyes—

just barely blue, like watercolor dilutedto the point where it runs down the page.A man is with him, also impossibly tall,also with a wide chest, small waist, thoughdarker, and as the redhead looks throughthe glass I stand before, the second man

leans softly against him and smiles.Do I desire them? At first glance, you mightassume we are different species: fleshy,awkward thing that I am, my bloatedtie knot and bar mitzvah suit, awkwardtrundling thing smearing the counter glass

with his palms; and them, like palm trees—cool, tropical, a sure sign you are somewhereyou can't long afford to stay. I do speakto them, I ask if they want to see something,I ask, are they shopping for an occasion,then I try to think of something else, but

the red-haired one shakes his head slightlyand turns away without ever makingeye contact. His companion follows,and they stroll off together, in love,as I imagine, together from some countrywhere men are all built on that scale, where

skin is that clear and lashes always auburn,a mountain-top place where humans growlonger and more graceful in the thinner...