Jennifer Alexandra Duncan
The New Pants

The doorbell is ringing and Kev struggles into his last pair of jeans, with their rip at the crotch that puts him at risk for an indecent exposure charge. Kev is peeping through the spy-hole. Not the bald head of the short, stocky landlord. Kev is pulling the chain loose from its track, rattling the lock open and opening the door. Kev is looking up at Patty's new haircut - a brown bob - and Patty is reaching out to grab the penis drooping out of Kev's jeans, giving it a firm shake, saying, "Hi, how are ya, pleased to meetcha."

Kev is stumbling back, slapping her hand away and she is marching in with a briefcase, letting it barely bounce on the raw foam that Kev sleeps on. Patty is sitting and crossing her nude-stockinged legs. Sitting on the old plaid armchair, leaning back against the spray paint spelling out "Mr. Chair" across the rough fabric. Dust is rising and falling, moth breath. Kev is bending to open the briefcase, finding glossy travel brochures and a photo of Bugs Bunny advertising Reg Hartt's cartoon revival. On the back, a scrawled outline of all the steps of their khat run to England tomorrow morning.

Quickly, across Kev's inner landscape, a toy plane circling the ceiling, an empty suit saying, "Bond. James Bond," and his lips catching dark stars in the constellation of freckles on Patty's shoulder.

Kev is running his hand through his new short haircut, his fingers twirling in their surprise at avoiding tangles. Kev is saying, "I don't know about this, I don't know."

Patty is saying, "Look under the brochures and files. Look."

Kev is letting his fingers do the looking, pulling out a clip-on tie, a button-down striped shirt and tan pants.

Patty is saying, "Try them on, go on."

Kev is laying the clothes out on the foam, first the shirt, then the pants over it so that the shirt looks like it is tucked into the waistband of the pants, then the tie covering the shirt buttons. He is trying to see himself lying on the foam inside of these clothes but he is falling. He sits cross-legged on the floor, absent-mindedly squeezing a zit on the hairy thigh exposed by another tear in his jeans.

Patty lights a cigarette for him. Then one for herself.

Kev is picturing himself in a natty gangster suit, a fedora shadowing his thick-lashed blue eyes, sucking on a cigarette held between the first fingers and the thumb, it tasting first of burnt marshmallows, then of fried bacon, and finally of dank radiator steam. Patty in a tight red dress with a marcelled wave framing a white face with a cranberry pucker, saying, "How about it, big boy?" and blowing him a cherubic kiss.

Kev is bending over to pick up the shirt and Patty is getting a full view of the dark hairs on his ass frowning over his red-rimmed googly balls. Patty is laughing and Kev is biting his lip as he buttons his shirt all wrong and reaches for the pants, throwing them over his shoulder as he bends again to unzip and struggle out of his jeans.

Those new pants, what pants they are. A firm waistline, gently pleated, rippling into generous pockets. Bagging with saucy insouciance at the crotch and ass. Narrowing evenly down the legs to the perfect width of crisp, stalwart cuffs. Pants that say Clark Gable, Ernest Hemingway, African safaris, French fishing villages, stream-lined curvaceous automobiles. Patty gets a new picture of Kev strolling barefoot on a clean, white beach, blowing his nose into a clean linen handkerchief, rolling up his sleeves to hurl smooth pebbles into surging ocean swells. Kev saying, "How about it, Patty-pie?" and picking her up to wade them both into the lapping blue water.

Kev does not know what Patty is picturing. Patty does not know what Kev is picturing. And so, in this moment, they do not know each other. For each is only the reach of their respective desires and the frustration of the impossibility of those desires. In this time, between staying and leaving, between the defined past and the indefinite future, between former selves and selves that they will become, they don't even know themselves. They know only that they desire selves that will come to them easily, without the slightest effort beyond the range that their limited purchasing power will allow.

"These are some fine pants," Patty is whistling, "Let's go get a jacket and shoes and then go celebrate your new pants."

Patty is leaving the dark apartment with a forty-ounce bottle containing only two fingers of scotch. Sighing loudly. And yelling, "I'll pick you up at six and you better be ready, asshole."

Kev is dreaming. Dreaming of Patty the way she looked before this week. Long, thin, green braids. Purple lipstick. Overalls cut into shorts. Black long-johns. Grey work socks with flirtatious red stripes. Patty with yellow teeth and chapped lips, licking his clavicles. Patty squatting to pee on broken glass in the alley behind the bar. Patty shaving her legs in the fountain at Queen and University, her legs bright silver and dorsal in the sprays of light cascading a lacy swath through the darkness.

Kev is dreaming beyond memory, dreaming of a Kev unknown. A Kev in black cowboy boots and hat, lying in the back seat of a black Riviera and drinking Jack Daniels. Patty singing, "I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die," and shooting out the driver's seat window into vulnerable cacti. A Kev in black leather pants straddling a mike stand and howling. Patty butting the neck of a red guitar into his hip. A Kev in a black turtleneck, slouching in a smoky cafe and writing words like "Fellatio grin of the moon" in black scrawls across damp napkins. A naked Kev, rolling in black paint across a white-clad Patty and signing his name on her palm.

Kev is dreaming beyond Patty, dreaming of a woman unknown. A woman with bristling red curls and a carnivorous smile. Pouring martinis and plopping olives into them. The spray hitting her sharp cheekbones. Kev drinking martini after martini in the blue velvet lounge. Reaching into the pocket of his plaid suit jacket for change and tossing it like darts into her downy cleavage. Singing, "You are my sunshine . . ." and swallowing the olives whole. Laying his head down in the ashtray and snoring.

Kev is snoring, he is beyond dreaming. Beyond desire. Beyond his self.

Patty is pounding on the door. Screaming, "Wake up you fuck, you fucking fuck-up."

Kev is sleeping, fresh vomit on his face, fresh vomit on his new pants. Kev is dreaming again. Dreaming of fins cleaving through clean water, through fine sand, and through pressed tan fabric up to the crotch.