Extreme Elvin Read Free Page A

and Tall shop, get you outfitted. ...”
    We had magically gotten to that place where a person’s life becomes so pathetic it isn’t even embarrassing anymore. I was enjoying it.
    I allowed myself to be tugged toward the shop, each friend pulling one of my hands.
    “I better duck on the way in,” I said as Mikie held the glass door open for me.
    “Better pull on your boots too,” Frank said. “It’s gettin’ deep.”
    Mike elbowed him in the chest.
    “Yes sir, what can I show you?” the very big and not so tall salesguy said. To me.
    I frowned at him. “How do you know it’s me? There are three of us just walked in, so how come you came right up to me, huh?”
    The guy flinched. Then he looked at Mikie, who got way up on his toes, pointed at me, smiled and nodded at the guy. Frank, who was about three inches taller than me, slouched dramatically and gave the guy the high sign.
    Good friends. Knuckleheads, but good friends.
    “Oh, well, you’re the tall guy,” the salesman said to me. “Obviously.”
    I suppose he’d served a neurotic defensive fatty or two in his career.
    “He’d like to see some of your finest tall-people pants, please,” Mikie said.
    The salesman looked at my waist. “Thirty-eight, right, Stretch?”
    “You got it, cowboy,” I said, and we followed him to the racks.
    It was a pretty silly scene, actually. Mike would select a shirt and Frank would select the pants to match, nobody would ask me anything, and then I’d try on whatever they pushed on me. “Right this way,” the salesman said; then he’d shove me into a snug-fitting dressing room where I’d wrestle with the ensemble, trying to get it on and get a look at myself in the mirror that was practically rubbing up against me and trying not to expose the glory of me too soon as the skimpy curtain that served as a door insisted on attaching itself to me with all its static clingy might.
    I know, by the way, that they do hide surveillance cameras in dressing rooms. It’s against the law and all, but we all know they do it. And it’s not to catch shoplifters half as much as it is to catch scenes like this one. I’d do it if I were them.
    “Come out,” Mikie called the first time I took twenty minutes with an outfit.
    “Cripes,” he said when I came out wearing my own clothes. “What the hell, El?”
    I mumbled. “Try thirty-nine.”
    “Jeez,” Frankie said. “Whatja do, Elvin, bring snacks in there with ya?”
    I retained all my dignity. Fortunately this didn’t take long since I didn’t bring all that much with me in the first place. “Thirty... nine, please.”
    “There should be a law,” Frank grumbled, snatching the pants away from me. Frank takes fashion issues very seriously. “If your waist number is bigger than your inseam number, you should be forced to wear corduroys that thigh-whistle at you every day till you get your act together.”
    I didn’t have to take that kind of crap off him. There are moments in life when even us even-tempered guys have to spout. This was one of those moments. This was where I needed to draw a line. When the going gets tough and all that, right?
    Right?
    “And bring me back a Coke,” I yelled.
    That would have been funny, huh? If I were trying to make a joke instead of a stand.
    It was a real boys’ day out though. I tried on seventeen combinations without even counting the hats and socks. The guys were very patient with me.
    “Cripes, Elvin, just wear a toga,” Frank said.
    “Hang in there five more minutes, Elvin,” Mike cracked, “and that outfit will qualify as secondhand and you’ll get it cheaper.”
    “Five more minutes and you’ll owe me rent/’ the salesman snapped.
    “Sheesh,” I said. “What a grouch. Maybe a year from now when I buy my next new outfit I’ll take my business somewhere else.”
    “If you’re even out of the dressing room by then,” he said.
    “Hey, wait a minute,” Mikie said. “They’re wheeling in the spring collection.