I tried on several of my father’s old Brooks Brother suits just before his funeral, trying to save myself the expense of an outfit I didn't need.
Each was too tight on the collars. too short on the sleeves, each crotch inseam strangled my manhood. I had outgrown them all.
Almost all of it will go to Goodwill- except maybe for those old coal wingtips, (still in their slightly battered but original box) heels and soles worn down from hospital rounds, the leathers evenly laced, spit and polished to a proper navy shine, solid and smooth, enough to go from monolithic to Marley vinyl without missing a beat.
I could almost hear “The Great Pretender” play as he glided my future mom (literally,”The Beauty Queen of Fulton Burrough”) across the ballroom floor, and then, suddenly stop, and leave her, as the hospital pager buzzed on his belt.
All my father- a short, balding but approachable looking guy, with the devil’s goatee- ever needed to win my mother over, was Nat King Cole. What he left her with, was Harry Belafonte swooning his existential sorrows out to her- “Day-o, midnight come and I want to go home.”
I smelled the stale odor of talc distinguishing itself from moth *****, and was tempted to slip them on, but figured the cost to resole them wouldn't be worth the price. Besides, that oxblood polish would be too hard to find. I left them there for the next tenant to decide their fate.