Check Point

 

Not all lessons were learned in the classroom at Bishop Amat, and not all knowledge was imparted by the good nuns and priests. Sometimes, lessons were learned within the hallowed halls themselves, with knowledge being passed along by none other than the ASB President, himself.

Back in the day, you could identify a Bishop Amat student by the sunlight glinting off the shaven sides of his head or by the length of her skirt. Facial hair was strictly verboten, as were short skirts, because school officials were determined to create the prototypical clean-cut student image. This meant no sideburns, and skirts were to be worn at knee length or lower. School officials wanted community members to be able to identify a group of high schoolers as Amat students from a block away, simply by looking at them.

Just as desperately, students wanted the opposite: We wanted to be normal. The angst-it was great, as we looked around and saw schools everywhere relaxing their grip on dress standards. There were even high schools with administration-sanctioned smoking walls.

Amat’s dress code had no impact on me because I was required to be clean-cut to work at Sunrize Market anyway, but clothes were an entirely different matter. No Levis or cords meant we had to wear dress pants to school, which is why my cut of a phat paycheck from Sunrize Market, found me down at the local strip mall, spinning clothes racks inside Greene’s [Fine] Menswear.

Ah, Greene’s, where I bought those flashy yellow, corduroy bell bottoms I found so styin’. Greene’s, where a dude had a fighting chance to cruise out with some serious threads, if he could afford the price of poker. Well, I wasn’t working at least thirty hours a week to help support the household, contrary to Mama’s beliefs. I was working for menswear.

My hand paused in mid-spin on the clothes rack, working in cahoots with my eyes, as a pair of checkered brown sports slacks derailed my train of thought. I know now it was derailed because like a magnet, my eyes were then drawn towards a smartly styled dress shirt, yellow, but not bright like my bells. And oh, yeah. It was also checkered. 

They matched splendidly, I thought. Look at me go!

And so it was that I appeared at school the following Monday, decked out in my new duds, desperately trying to embody an air of nonchalance. As one whose perpetual goal at school was flying below the radar, this was heady stuff, and I was ready for some acknowledgement of my fashion statement.

Always at my beck and call, the cosmos responded accordingly, and what I wished for came true. Unfortunately, once the spotlight was upon me, I saw the light.

When morning break finally arrived, I headed out to The Cage to rustle up an ice cream sandwich On this particular Monday I varied my route to include passage through the wing of the school that housed the library. When I emerged on the other side, I was dead center on the girls’ side of the school, just as the doctor ordered.

I was a rainbow trout swimming amongst a school of minnows, but I tried not to strut, figuring I didn’t need to. I was right about that because I stood out like a halogen light, rendering the aforementioned spotlight moot. Danged if I didn’t spot Rudi Brutocao, someone who was no stranger to style, and the perfect person to validate my good taste. 

Rudi was a classmate of mine.

He was leaning back against the metal bar that ran the length of the sidewalk heading toward The Cage, flanked on either side by attractive coeds. I had never once dallied along this sidewalk, while leaning back against this bar. If only Rudi would see and acknowledge my fashion savvy, right in front of these sweet young things, I could feast on my ice cream sandwich with relish.

Ask and ye shall receive, smirked the cosmos. Rudi did notice me-I could see it in his eyes, which widened noticeably (appreciatively, I was certain) as I approached. Without actually moving his head, he surveyed me and my outfit-from head to toe-and back again. His look was speculative, pensive even. If I were worried that I wouldn't be noticed, I needn’t have.

Rudi made eye contact with me, and I thought to myself, “Voila! Here it comes, serious respect from The Man, Himself.”

“Check on check,” was what Rudi actually said, and he nodded, curtly, as though in approval. What else could it have meant? And then he added a single word, which I found, well, puzzling. “Interesting…”

And that was it. No big ups for a job well done and no hoot of derision or snide barb, just that single word. What the heck did that mean, I wondered? Interesting… What was interesting about-

Oh. It hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks, made heavier by the presence of the girls: Check on check was a fashion faux pas, an unqualified disaster, and I had just been schooled by Rudi, in front of all those girls.

Could the sidewalk just open up right now and swallow me whole?

But here’s the deal. As mortified as I felt, I could not help recognizing that the Big Guy had taken pity on me. Let’s face it, Rudi had no need to harpoon me; he was above that. I’d been skewered routinely all my high school career, probably for similar transgressions, and yet, this morning I had been spared.

Rudi had sounded the alarm, but so gently as to have allowed me to glean a critical piece of fashion sense, without having to pick myself up off the ground, metaphorically speaking, after being knocked down once again. 

Take that, Louis Vuitton: There is a God.