Formal Attire

When we are up north, my husband wears a pair of long black jam shorts that he took away from our teenage son about twenty years ago because he said they looked too ghetto.

The shorts have a velvet band at the hem. Our daughter calls them “tuxedo shorts.”

At the time of the takeaway, our Hispanic son was in high school. He was involved in a lot of sports, getting good grades, and hanging around with decent friends. Still, we were obsessed that people, the authorities specifically, wouldn’t understand that, while he might look Hispanic, he was actually a White middle class kid.

We actually thought the jam shorts would give him away. Like if he wore khaki cargo shorts, he’d be fine.

It was about this time that I stole his ‘Aztec warrior carrying a woman to the sacrificial altar’ t-shirt. But then it wasn’t because I thought someone would catch on that he was Hispanic, it was the pure idiocy of it all, and the massive affront to me as a solid feminist, ‘action figures are dolls, dolls are action figures’ mother. How is it possible, I thought, that a son of mine could think this was an okay t-shirt.

I wanted him to wear t-shirts for college basketball teams and charity 5k’s.

The other night I went to watch my now mid-thirties son play softball. He’d replaced his stolen black jam shorts with red ones and was wearing a wild t-shirt with some wacky saying on it. At least, it wasn’t a hot babe in arms being carried up the steps of the temple.

He is rough looking, this son, with a prickly beard, and hands grimy from factory work. He smiles when he sees us – grins and waves at both me and his jam shorts-thieving dad – and that’s something.

At least, he doesn’t hold a grudge.