Getting Noticed, by Adrian E. Glass

from Issue 12

I forked over the annual fee for the Amex. I’m no jet setter, but I want to hear that metal card cling on the plastic tray when I take a bimbo to dinner, though she probably wouldn’t understand the significance anyways. The real goal was simply to be noticed more.  

Membership used to include a free subscription to Departures, a high-end travel glossy with masturbation-quality female fashion model advertisements. Instead of a print copy, now they just send an email. I still click some of the articles; this month it was “The Fall Menswear Essentials You’ll Wear All Year.”

The piece’s imagery featured the stock, conventionally attractive black guy with the high cheekbones and rapist boy-soldier stare; his skin and hair color’s hue were unsettling enough to suggest he may have been East African. Though my biological fear-the-other instinct caused an innate revulsion on site of this multiculty poster-child, I had to admit the stylist had him dressed immaculately. I needed to know what particular item was essential to my wardrobe, this would help cure the funk I’ve been in, brought on by what I deduced as sadness from essentially being a nobody.

The male model was posed in front of a bridge. Is that the Brooklyn Bridge? That’s where I live, Brooklyn. Yea, I’m paycheck-to-paycheck, zero savings, but I’m thirty-six now, so it’s time to start looking the part of a J. Crew model with an Amex in his wallet and Departures in hand… well, in his inbox at least. This aesthetic will help me attract the right people (women) as I saunter around the city, not necessarily going to Amex people locations (airports, airport lounges, luxury hotels, Michelin-rated restaurants, boutiques, rooftop swimming pools), but to gay book stores and gay coffee shops.

However, I’m not sauntering right now, I’m sitting at the computer in my pajamas (basketball shorts though I don’t play basketball and a stained t-shirt) and reading this article about what to wear this fall. As it turns out, the article isn’t an article, but merely a link to other articles featuring stories about fall menswear; apparently, every item listed is more or less essential: $500 button-downs, $5,000 watches, wool sports jackets (I already have one), designer sweatpants. I frown, legitimately dismayed there’s not just one item that’ll give me the attention I deserve. 

I settle on the Todd Snyder cashmere hoodie, priced $428; I even picked the same color worn by the black guy in the photo. Normally, the purchase of an item this expensive would be something to revolve a day around. I’d take the forty-minute subway to Midtown, stroll up 5th Ave to the Todd Snyder flagship store (Do they even have one? Where is it?), steal glances at the gorgeous store clerks while simultaneously avoiding the gay ones, triumphantly slide the metal Amex across the checkout counter, cross over to Madison Ave and strut Saturday Night Fever-style with a designer logo proudly displayed on a shopping bag, then inevitably eat a garbage lunch at a Shake Shack or, if I’m feeling authentic, maybe a non-chain, Middle-Eastern-owned deli that doesn’t even know what a reuben is. Not today, though. City shopping districts have been quasi-ghost towns since COVID and, though no one wants to admit the real reason (including me), the Summer-of-Floyd and its aftermath of near-continuous lawlessness. This doesn’t directly bother me, I almost feel as if the bums, street defecation, and random assaults make the city—and my presence in it—feel more authentic; still, I don’t go out. I merely type the numbers of my Amex into the Todd Snyder website’s checkout page and click “PURCHASE.” There’s a flash of excitement, but it fades quickly—in seconds—and I’ll have to wait for the sight of the package on my doorstep to get it again.

***

Nothing happens for a week. Fuck, I should’ve just gone out and bought the Goddammned thing. Pussy faggot. I quell the disdain by purchasing more items of lesser importance online. Finally, on a Tuesday arriving home from work, it's there. That plastic bag with the quick-tear edge that I’m always afraid will rip in transit. Already holding a pile of junk mail addressed to me and the previous three tenets, I scoop the package and excitedly scurry into my apartment. The mail and my murse get thrown onto the coffee table before I lay the package on the foot of my bed like a bride of yesteryear about to be deflowered. I tear the seam and carefully inspect the bag’s contents; not just the sweater that has pulled-off-a-warehouse-shelf creases in it, but the Todd Snyder tag as well as the little thank-you-for-your-purchase note that looks like the wedding invitation of a 90s club owner. As a kid obsessed with skateboarding, I used to save clothing tags from all my favorite brands—Spitfire, Independent Truck Company, Toy Machine. I’d hang them on a cork board in my bedroom. I contemplate doing this with the Todd Snyder tag, especially since I paid $428, but there’s nowhere to display it/I’d feel like a tool doing so as an adult. After the unveiling-my-purchase high fades, I stuff the wrapping and receipt back into the plastic bag and try on the sweater. Much to my dismay, it's a little snug. Though there’s no one to try and act nonchalant for in my apartment, I pretend to not care about the ill fit, knowing that I’m too lazy to send it back for a new size; instead, I convince myself that I’ll avoid putting it in the dryer to prevent it from shrinking, a measure I’ll surely forget in a few months.