From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel Read online

“Here, then. Have mine.” She reached into her purse, threw me a soft pack of Kools, and went back to doing her lips.

  My first lesson as an American entrepreneur: learning to live with your decisions.

  “I can’t go to that party tonight, Olya. I have to work.”

  “Then can I wear this?” She turned to me in the dress. “It’ll only be for a few hours.”

  “Will you bring it back unscathed?”

  “What does that mean? ‘Unscathed.’ ”

  “Never mind. Just be careful.”

  “Unscathed.” She practiced saying the word in the mirror and puckered her lips.

  I opened the top half of my window and took a deep inhale of smoke. The air conditioner was on, making my hair follicles stand erect. I ashed out the window, but the ash just flew back in. Olya put on more makeup. Eye shadow, mascara, blush. A car drove by pounding gangsta rap at a new high, setting off every car alarm within a two-block radius. It caused the cracks in my walls to branch and blossom. This attention to every detail was a signal to me that I was experiencing the onset of a small panic attack. I sat down on the bed. Snap out of it, I said to myself, just as the thump of the bass beat faded into East Williamsburg. I worked on my pranayama.3 Maybe a suit in three days was terribly inconvenient, but I wouldn’t have agreed to it if it was not possible. Surely, somewhere deep in my subconscious, I knew it could be done. That it would be done. And it was this healthy optimism that I took with me to the garment district later that day. In other words, I wove the stress to my advantage, harnessed it like I had done in fashion school once upon a time. Amazing, the battleground that is the mind. A constant war of self-will with a counterinsurgency of doubt. We are our own worst enemies, ain’t it the truth.

  Over the course of the next three days I redrafted my designs, cut fabric, sewed into the morning hours. I tore open seams when they weren’t good enough. I used everything I had learned, and then I threw it away—pants, sleeves, body—and taught myself how to do it right. When I thought I’d finished I would find a misstep, a connection that didn’t make sense, and I’d force myself to reevaluate the entire construction; I would find the solution in the form. Design was a puzzle, but it had a formula of its own, and once I tapped this formula, the garment attained simplicity. Its beauty and perfection became evident. Even if it was a suit.

  And I delivered the suit, by God. It took three days and nights, but I delivered! I felt it no small feat either, to complete my end of the bargain. I was out to prove I could make it on my own in America, and that first suit was a test. No matter how much talent you think you have, no matter how hard you studied in the bubble of the university, the open market of the real world sets the bar high. You have every right to doubt your abilities. In truth, doubt produces miracles. I should have called my first collection Doubt. Doubt is what would eventually get me into W magazine. Doubt is what would get me into the tent.4 Such a funny thing, doubt. It’s destined to fail. Its natural progression is to be overcome, and all sorts of forces will do it—faith, willpower, envy, greed, truth, lies, therapy. On October 4, 2002, as I sewed my first label onto the inside breast pocket of that jacket, I felt I had conquered my doubts. Even though the suit wouldn’t be used in a collection, I couldn’t help but feel pride over the finished task. It was proof. My little flimsy satin label stitched with black thread was proof. (B)OY. A suit was going out into the world that night to be worn, somewhere, at an undisclosed location, and it was proof of my existence.

  Friday afternoon, Ahmed came by for the final fitting. I placed him in his new suit over what he had on—a knee-high tunic. For all my complaining about his horrendous odor and filthy appearance, the man had cleaned up nicely. His hair was neatly parted to one side and greased in place with Vaseline, and he had trimmed his spotty beard. A spicy cologne held his BO at bay, and together they created an earthy fragrance. The suit, however, is what transformed the man. Ahmed stood in front of the mirror, and I stood behind him, cinching and straightening. There was little left to do besides hem the pants.

  “It’s better than anything I’ve ever owned,” he said. “Except for a dalmatian I had in London. Pogie. Goddamnit, how I miss Pogie. Sheela got him in the divorce. Her attorney, the Shovel, made it so. He passed away a few years ago. The dog, not the Shovel. Anyway, I will cherish this equally.”

  “The legs should come up a little.” I marked them with pins. “Take them off and I’ll adjust them.”

  “And my initials on the front pocket, what a gesture! Was I right about you or what?” he said, taking off the pants and handing them to me. “Talent. Grade‑A talent.”

  “The initials give it just the right amount of flair. It’s loud but not too loud. It’ll bring attention to the clothes, but it won’t overwhelm the clothes.”

  “I’m certain you’ve done your homework.”

  While I commenced hemming at my worktable, Ahmed returned to the mirror and continued to admire his jacket. He turned from front to side, buttoning and unbuttoning. He looked rather cartoonish, standing there with calves so thin beneath the swell of his belly. So rarely do you see a man’s legs, and why not? I’m sure men would groom, moisturize, and tone their legs properly if only they had the right garments to show them off.

  The last time he wore a suit like this, he said, it was at his wedding back in the early nineties, when he was something to talk about on both sides of the Atlantic. These details of his life—Sheela, the dalmatian, and now his wedding—seemed incredibly murky, so I decided to exploit the moment to establish a proper time line while he still had his pants off.

  “Tell me,” I said. “How long did you live in London?”

  “Many years.”

  “Was that before or after you lived in Canada?”

  “Oh, time gets so convoluted at my age. One minute you’re here, the next you’re not. The amount of traveling I did in those days! My business kept me on my toes. I was between countries for years. The air over the Atlantic—that was home. I only became a citizen of Canada when I needed my operation. I couldn’t return to England once the divorce was finalized. It was too painful. I felt like I had been kicked out.”5

  “Ouch. Health troubles on top of a divorce.”

  “They always come in twos, Boy. In the end it all worked out. Canada welcomed me with open arms, and I got my surgery. You won’t see bifocals on this face anymore. I wear contacts now.” He pointed at each eye as he said this. “These are the windows to the soul, my friend. Why shield them? That’s why I never trust a man who wears glasses. Not with today’s technological advances. I can’t help but notice you have perfect eyesight.”

  “Oh, far from it. I wear contacts.”

  “But you don’t wear glasses.”

  “I have them. I just don’t wear them.” I moved on to pressing the pants.

  “And that’s why it’s so easy to trust you, Boy. You don’t hide behind anything. You’re an honest man. One doesn’t need perfect vision to see that. I feel as if I can tell you anything. You should think of me the same.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  Looking back on what was one of our sincerer moments, I can’t help but feel betrayed. I was beginning to trust Ahmed in some misguided way. Stupid me. I can sit here all day repeating, “I should have known better.” But the fact of the matter is, I didn’t.

  I had him try on the pants again. He was beaming. I was suddenly reminded of why I became a designer—to see someone transformed, standing at attention with newfound confidence, to see them turn into someone better than the someone they thought they could never be. Even suits, those boring garments my uncle had devoted his life to, were capable of inciting this. I knew there was something pure in what I was doing. All of my intentions were from the heart. Chanel once said that whatever is done out of love occurs beyond good and evil.6 I believe that, I honestly do.

  1. Said by a young Yves Saint Laurent.

  2. It was a variation of this dress that the actress-singer-songwriter Chlo�
� wore to the 2005 Grammys, lifting Boy and his label into the public sphere.

  3. Yoga breathing practice.

  4. Mercedes-Benz Fall Fashion Week 2006, Bryant Park (new designer’s forum).

  5. He was kicked out. Ahmed Qureshi was placed on British immigration’s watch list for falsifying papers (under the alias Ahmet Yasser). The UK deported him to Pakistan in 1996. As far as records show, Ahmed Qureshi was never legally married.

  6. Coco Chanel was most likely quoting Friedrich Nietzsche.

  My Life in Fashion

  Never before in my life have I had to wear the same thing every day. My uniform is Day-Glo orange, the color of a prisoner. It’s much too big and doesn’t breathe. And so I tried to make do by removing the sleeves, which I did by hand. For removal of the sleeves I was punished. My dinner was withheld. Yes, that is how they’ve punished me. I was refused dinner. But I didn’t care. Dinner is a packet, a ration, which is slid into my cell on a tray. Sometimes with a piece of bread or half a bruised apple.

  Also, the extra material I had planned to tie around my ankles to taper these baggy pants was confiscated. However, they allowed me to keep my top. So for the remainder of the week I will be wearing my uniform without sleeves. It is much more breathable that way.

  It is nearly August. Almost two months have gone by and still no lawyer. So I had Win read what I’d written so far, because of his interest in the law, etc. When I asked him how it makes me look—“innocent” was the word I was hoping for—he told me he was not allowed to say. But he enjoyed what he read, he said, in so many words. This pleased me, since over the two months I’ve known Win I’ve come to trust him, even though I’ve learned that trust is not something to just fall into with someone. (Cunningham too has grown on me, though his willingness to listen to my stories relies on how many models are involved.) What intrigues me most is that Win has not judged me as the others have. He tries not to call me by my number, though I suspect he’s not permitted to call me by my name either. He doesn’t call me anything. After he finished reading the part about the two suits, he confessed to me that he’d never owned a civilian suit. Earlier in the year at his grandfather’s funeral he wore his military dress uniform.

  “You must be proud to wear it,” I said.

  “When you’re home it stands out a little. Everybody’s always looking at you, wondering where you’ve been. People thank me for no reason. People come up to me and shake my hand.”

  “You’re recognized for your service. What’s so bad about that? I spent my whole life trying to get people to notice me for the same reason. When you go home, all you have to do is put on your uniform.” I suddenly felt the time right to express my appreciation for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I told Win that I respected him and his fellow soldiers for putting themselves in harm’s way. It was true. Years ago I was a touch more ambivalent. Back in 2003 I stood alongside my then girlfriend, Michelle Brewbaker, on First Avenue in protest against the war. But I was more of a tourist than a participant. It was a cloudy, overcast day, and shoulder to shoulder, people took to the streets. I was there with the millions of others because it was an event that I wanted to be a part of, and because Michelle had asked me to be there. I listened to their chants, I joined in, I photographed their homemade signs, but I was still once removed from the cause.

  In 2003, Win was only sixteen, a sophomore in high school. He ran track and played junior varsity basketball. Probably around the time I was marching along First Avenue, making my way toward the United Nations with the masses, Win was sitting in a classroom in Fort Worth, copying math equations off a chalkboard, determining the probability of something meaningless. Maybe he felt just as ambivalent about the war as I did, which makes it all the more embarrassing for me, since I was that much closer to Operation Oily Deception.1

  Win shrugged off my compliments. That kind of talk seemed to make him uncomfortable. Regarding my written confession, however, we had a meaningful exchange. Perhaps it was because I had shared something personal with him that he felt compelled to tell me his full name.

  It’s Winston. Which reminds me of the American cigarettes my Tito Roño, the tailor, used to smoke when I was growing up.

  Winston Lights.

  Those Winstons turned out to be the only constant in my Tito Roño’s life. He hit a lull in the late eighties, when Cebu’s family-owned shops were overrun by Megamalls, and my uncle’s fitted suits were passed over for cheap quality Polo—clothes made by the Third World, for the Third World. Cheap suits only partially lined, or not lined at all, flooded the streets. Gone were the days of flittering ash and pastel panties. While the acne blossoming on my prepubescent face went unnoticed in my uncle’s shop, he had both his ears pierced and fell into a deep middle-aged depression. He began to resemble a Filipino George Michael circa “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”

  It was my auntie Baby who kept Tito Roño afloat in those years. She was a moneylender, more feared than respected. There was no bureaucracy with her. You didn’t need good credit or proof of employment, because your word alone was enough. And so for a time the system worked, regardless of whether it was illegal or not.2 Her line of street banking may have been unthreatened by the ever-looming financial collapse, but what her occupation lacked was the security of any Third World financial institution: men with guns. In late April 1990 my auntie was followed back to her suite at the Shangri‑la from the Casino Filipino, where she had spent thirty-two hours at the mahjongg tables. She was recently separated from my uncle, although they were still on respectable terms. Housekeeping found her at the foot of the bed, her head covered with a black garbage bag, asphyxiated. She’d expired clutching a thousand-peso note (at the time, approximately twenty dollars U.S.) as if it were her dear life in hand.

  I was thirteen when she died. There would be no more summers spent away from my parents helping my Tito Roño.

  Both lives had come to tragic crossroads—one in a sorry, sulking state, the other in a brutal murder. But compared to my boring parents, the two doctors, my uncle and auntie had cultivated an element of risk. They had secrets and affairs and lived out of hotels and gambled and got offed. Eyewitness testimony said that my auntie’s final hours at Casino Filipino might have very well been her finest. She was seen making bets as high as five thousand P (approximately one hundred dollars U.S.), laughing with friends, guzzling G and Ts, tipping waiters ten P (approximately twenty cents U.S.). I wanted a similar lifestyle for myself.

  The thirst for novelty only increased when I returned to school in Manila that fall. Girls began appearing out of nowhere in a new, more developed light. I’d always known they existed, but not in this capacity. I’d been more concerned with myself, and with keeping that self entertained and distracted with whatever forms of American media I could lay my hands on. VHS tapes of blockbuster movies like Batman and Superman and American comics like, well, Batman and Superman. Not that these pursuits were themselves a waste of time. In retrospect it’s clear comic books were what first introduced me to the proportions of the body. The robust pecs of a man, the hourglass figure of a woman. Although exaggerated, these images sparked an early interest in silhouette and form, in how clothes could be used to allure. I remember I liked the look of a superhero’s leather cape, how it was always depicted in a gusty wind—a garment in action. Then there were the tight leotards that both the men and women donned, accentuating Catwoman’s nipples and Nightwing’s bulge. Much the opposite of the style I would later develop with women’s clothing. My hobbies, as I thought of them then, had made me a loner of sorts. Before eighth grade I’d been much more inclined to sketch cartoonish bodies than hang out with real ones after school.

  But then I discovered them. The girls in their plaid skirts, the uniform of a nymphet and that of our Santo Niño Prep. I began to notice how each girl’s hips had started to widen, how their chests began to swell past those nubile bumps, and how their legs, hidden beneath white tights, promised something carnal.
r />   Love first came to me in the form of Marianna DeSantos, a beautiful fourteen-year-old four months my senior. She was in my religion class. During chapel, with boys on one side, girls on the other, she caught me staring at her from across the aisle when we were on our knees saying the act of contrition.

  We had our first date at the Megamall in Makati, where we went ice skating and took a long, romantic walk across Megawing 1 to Megawing 4. Marianna had her own personal driver, Romey, who chaperoned.

  We found ourselves entranced, eye to eye, as we wandered into an arcade. There I explained to her the many intricacies of Mortal Kombat II.

  “Left, Right, Up, Up, High Punch,” I instructed. “See? See how I just ripped your head off.” I was lost. I didn’t know how to impress a girl, especially one of Marianna’s magnitude, with her own chauffeur and everything. But then, I didn’t really have to try, did I? Because as soon as my character went cannibal and bit the face off that decapitated head, Marianna went for my hand, placing it within hers.

  “You’re so smart,” she said. Blood seemed to splatter down all around us. She gripped my hand tighter. Then she took her index finger and sensually tickled the inside of my palm. I learned much later in fashion school that this tickling of the palm was a signal for gay sex. But at the time we were both so innocent. What did I know?

  “Do you wanna go with me?” Marianna said. She was very direct.

  “What about him?” I indicated her driver. He was standing a few machines away, scratching himself.

  “Who, Romey? Oh, don’t worry about him. He’s cool.”

  I looked at Romey, and he nodded over to us. It was as if he was giving me permission to go with her, right there in front of him, while he watched. He was cool.

  “Should we go somewhere else?” I asked. I was extremely nervous.

  “Why?” she said. “Where would we go?”

  “You know, somewhere private.”

  “Look, we don’t have a lot of time, Boy. I have to be home by four thirty. I have violin.” And then she let go of my hand. It was the end of her seductive tickling.