12/26/2015 The Underwear Fiasco

What started as an honest night’s work turned into a precarious exposure of flesh to tonight’s rain. Alexander asked me earlier this evening if we could go somewhere to change up the scenery, and I, seeing an opportunity to go to my favorite coffee shop in Houston, Agora, readily agreed. All was mundane until I parked the car and Alexander began to put on his jacket and my sunglasses. It’s night; the sun went down three hours ago.

“Uh, what are you doing” I asked incredulously.

Quite innocently, Alexander replied “nothing, why?”

I gave no attempt to hide the bafflement on my face. “You’re going in with my sunglasses?”

He just looked at me and said plainly “yeah.”

I shook my head not quite accepting this for reality. What could I do? To stifle Alexander’s expression would be to contradict my very purpose and my philosophy. No, I had to swallow the embarrassment and fear. I had to let Alexander be Alexander with his black bandana, muddy green jacket, black shirt, blue jeans, heavy black boots, his dream catcher neckless, and to top it off, my sunglasses. And so, we entered Agora as such.

Immediately, a young woman laughed at him, but her laugh did not seem like a judgmental one, rather an amused one. Alexander, by being himself, brought a smile to someone’s face, and others would soon follow suit. Perhaps, he was judged negatively, but we cannot let the assumptions and ignorance of others prevent us from being ourselves. At least, this is the lesson I am desperately trying to apply.

After four hours and a couple of pages written in my book, I decided to call it a night. Alexander, exhausted from researching how to build shelters, how to capture animals for food in the wild (hunting is a bad description for his spiritual approach), and how to find water in the desert, instantly agreed. I thought the “craziness” for the night was over, but oh, was I wrong!

On the way home, the rain began to pour down hard, and we thought it a great idea to go walking in the rain when we got there. Great idea, yes, until Alexander says “you go in and change. I’ll wait here, and when you come back, I’ll just go in my underwear.” This, obviously, raised so many red flags, and my mind screamed, as usual in these situations, NOOOOO!

Once again, I realize I have no choice but to let Alexander be Alexander. I thought to myself: What’s the worst that could happen? So, I went inside my house to change into basketball shorts only and remove my glasses, and when I came back, Alexander, in only his underwear, and I, blind, took off down the road to walk the streets of my neighborhood at 1:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, the rain died down to a light sprinkle and shortly thereafter, dissipated completely.

As we stepped off my driveway and onto the street, we heard my neighbor yell “what the hell is going on over here?!” We managed to walk ten more feet when a similar statement was repeated, and we could not stop a wave of laughter and giggles from washing over us completely. In the face of this onslaught, we simply kept walking without looking back at those scalding spectators.

The breeze felt great on our bodies, and we felt so free from the infinite constraints of civilization. I was beginning to feel glad about my decision, and more encouragement came when we passed a house with an open garage filled with people. Laughter exploded from their direction, and again, we could not help laughing ourselves.

A woman cried out “Hey guys!” Then, a moment later presumably to Alexander “Hey big boy!”

We waved, and I asked “how’s it going?”

As we passed, the same woman shouted “bye guys!”

Of course, this incident elicited a slow dying hysteria within us, and we giggled the rest of the way down that street.

Eventually, we made our way back to my house, but before we could return, my neighbor needed to express himself.

“What the hell are you doing walking around in your drawers?”

Alexander made the first response. “We’re just walking in the rain. Have you ever considered doing that?”

According to Alexander, the guy just looked at him with disgust as though he was a barbarian. The details get fuzzy at this point because all I could think at the moment was: I can’t see! and I really don’t want to deal with this! I know the guy exclaimed “I’m tired of seeing your skinny ass! Eat some food.”

I explained to the guy that I am working on a book that Alexander is in, and we are doing research on civilization, but this did nothing to assuage the guy’s fears and disdain. After a little longer of allowing ourselves to be scolded, we, finally, just turned to leave. I was extremely relieved to be back home.