Melvin I and the Skates
Melve was nine and a half when he smoked his first cigar. It was at his mother’s charity banquet, the third one that year, something about seals in Antarctica. Melve’s true babysitters were the drunk husbands of their absent-minded wives, every allowance went to either a Chanel bag or one of Melvin’s mum’s banquets. The men treated him like something else, helping forget all of the cheek pinching and pulling from the women he spent every single day with. Except for the days Mel spent with his father, Jeffery McCormick but there were still the gangly women sprawled on the patio that he couldn’t escape.
It was then that Melvin had to turn to the only other thing in the world that’s satisfaction came close to passionate love: his roller skates. 1961 red and gold movie star classic. It was sure that there were only two of these that had ever been made, the other one belonged to Micheal Jordan. Unable to find any other Hollywood treasures that compared, Melvin had a replica made by a state of the art shoe technologist over the course of his freshman year summer.
In fall 2001, Mel walked through the old brass doors of his New York Catholic high school, that earned less than half the awards of NYCC (New York Creative Community), according to the state’s academic records.
Melve chewed grape flavored bubble gum because it was the same kind Patrica Burgundy chewed. Watching her jet black swoop swing from side to side as she pulls the Harley Davidson helmet off of her head. As she walks past, a white hair scrunchy falls out of her saddle bag, turning around only to find Melvin’s fingers caressing the cotton.
“That’s mine, ya faggot.” she says, shoving him with her left hand, her acrylic nails accidentally snagging one of his shirt buttons open. She wants me, he says to himself. He imagines her in the Italian silk panties he gifts to his mother for every holiday, especially 4th of July. His mother is obsessed. When Mel turned thirteen, she introduced him to the lingerie boutiques. “When a boy becomes a man, he must then treat a woman like a woman.” she said.
It was good that Mum was so thoughtful but the same advice hardly seemed to be relevant to high school girls. Or perhaps they weren’t quite women yet, biting their nails and letting their monkey printed thongs ride up over the waist of their pleated skirts. But Patrica Burgundy was an angel in snake skin. Except for when she wore a red Satan costume at a Halloween party, in which Mel chain smoked Cuban cigars in the corner all night.
His morning jog with Julio was a real bitch the next day.
2 years ago • Notes