Calvin Klein

When Barry first saw Calvin Klein lying on the wide shiplap planks of the abandoned hovel’s floor, he thought he was sleeping; poor fellow, he must have been tired, overworked and stressed, he supposed. Calvin Klein was a prominent designer and quite busy, so Barry thought it was perfectly acceptable that he was wearing a wool jacket like a blanket, pulled snug up around the back of his neck; heavy fibers covering exposed skin, providing sufficient comfort. The harsh cold air crept under Barry’s armpits, sending goosebumps up his neck and chills down his legs, penetrating his thick Batman socks with frost. And while the sweat he worked up before had kept him warm during the bike ride over to the derelict dwelling with Marlow and Gerome, the perspiration still sat on his skin, amplifying each passing wind, intensifying its impact. His bolstered cloth face mask usually retained enough heat to conserve warmth during the incipient chilly days of fall, but he didn’t stand a chance, soaked as the sun started setting.

Calvin’s pea coat reminded Barry of a mackinaw jacket his father used to wear; the heavy charcoal coat featured a distinguished belt loop, shoulder straps, and accentuating wrist tabs, and he always imagined his father as a cool detective or an esteemed general when he wore it, tossing it onto the coat rack like a superhero’s cape after a long day of solving crimes or commanding forces. Calvin’s mangy jacket didn’t look so flattering on him though; the rear right flap tail of the coat flopped over to the side of his behind, revealing his scrunched underwear. Barry didn’t think much of Calvin prostrated on the frigid floor, curled over, suspended in time; his arm tucked completely under his body, jutting out in between his legs. Calvin’s soiled jeans were contorted and damp, twisted and wrapped around his legs like a mummy, but still, Barry didn’t pay it any attention. Breathing into his cupped hands to generate warmth, Barry stood as still as he possibly could because he knew sooner or later, he’d probably notice the undulation of Calvin breathing, even if he was a deep sleeper; eventually his chest would rise steadily and subsequently sink, and maybe he’d even catch the soft hum of a snore; he had to be if he was sleeping in such an odd position. Dreams of luxurious textiles and dazzling designs lulled him fast asleep, Barry inferred, imagining his best ideas came to him while he was snoozing.

Dawdling closer, the crunching of icy steps overpowered the creaking of squalid floor boards, as Barry attempted to get a better glimpse; a faint layer of ice varnished the ground. He paused and peered at the splotches of red residue that emanated from Calvin’s torso, gawking at the peculiarity, oblivious; frozen florid puddles and fettered feet told a story Barry wasn’t capable of comprehending at the naive age of thirteen.

“Go on, give em’ a look,” Marlow uttered, nodding his head, knocking Barry forward with a shoulder shove.

His back still turned from Marlow, Barry avoided eye contact and remained silent to abate further antagonism.

“And since ya haven’t paid me this week like a typical racist Republican swine, it’s either this or I contact Zuckerberg,” he added, flourishing his phone before jostling Barry harder than before; a blow to the lower lumbar spine, causing enervated legs to buckle; Barry had wasted almost all of his energy on the arduous 5-6 mile bike ride, extinguishing any chance of resistance.

It wasn’t an unenjoyable ride over though; Barry actually relished traversing by the bridge, feeling the mist and salty gusts suffuse from the water below. The redolent breeze and iridescent setting sunlight casting a lingering warmth against his skin reminded him of the summers he spent by the shore with his father; pulling him into a nostalgic daze as he pushed pedals and shifted gears, smiling in his reverie, recalling better days as he biked despite knowing Marlow coerced him into the ride over to meet the notorious “Calvin Klein.”

He didn’t remember the specifics of the summers he spent with his parents at the bay, just how the sun used to kiss his skin early in the morning over the smell of brewing coffee and the saline air used to soothe him to sleep when they kept the windows open at night. And anytime he ever needed to lift his spirits or pull himself out of a dark disposition, he could sit quietly; wistful and motionless, he could still hear The Ataris play, which was all his mom and dad listened to that memorable summer; the poppish guitar riffs and catchy lyrics were enveloped in his substratum like filaments of hope, evoking the vantage of childhood and what it was like to be a genuine fledgling, completely unbothered, impervious to worry and rumination.

He used to have a pretty good life, from what he remembers, before his father was apprehended by Cancel Culture Control for a Halloween costume he wore back at the University of Virginia in 2007; a photo had resurfaced to Twitter, revealing a 15 year old photo of a Lil Wayne depiction with darkened skin from magic marker, complete with a gilded grill made from colored aluminum foil in his mouth; the starred banner of a discernable confederate flag hanging in the background. Vanished without a trace or explanation, Barry’s father went to work one day and never returned; an official notice was emailed from the Kaepernick administration noting the offense and that punishment had been administered, nothing more. The discolored Washington Redskins patch Barry had sewn into the inside of his bomber jacket was really the only keepsake he had to remember his father. And maybe if they actually knew what happened to him, whether he was dead or alive, things might have been better, but Barry’s relationship with his rueful alcoholic mother was pretty much non-existent, which was even more perceptible with the fact that she hadn’t been home for a few days, failing to provide her son with sufficient money to pay reparations for the week.

Barry cared for his mother, even though they grieved behind closed doors in different manners; he’d get lost in the pursuit of Fortnite kills; each precise headshot executed with the imagination he was taking out the person responsible for the disappearance of his father. And she’d find escape in fellating strange men she’d meet on Tinder; swallowing semen as if seed provided nourishment for a despondent soul to regenerate and grow despite the past trauma.

“It doesn’t look safe,” Barry bleated. “Can’t I just pay you $20 tomorrow?” he muffled under his face mask, bracing himself for another jolt from the formidable Marlow.

“Motherfucker it’s been 3 days now? Ya pasty ass gonna owe me more 20 bills tomorrow too,” the indignant Marlow howled, huffing, growing angrier with each declaration, raising his arms in a pantomime of aggression; each gesticulation generating clinks from the medallions that hung from his golden chains.

Barry had seldom negative interactions with Marlow before, especially since Barry always paid his daily dues; they were the same age and had gone to school together for a few years before the emancipation of non-white scholars, and Barry still recalled how Marlow had aspired to become a doctor one day. He also knew Marlow possessed a fervent disdain for Caucasians because of what happened to his great grandfather Rodney King. Barry would encounter Marlow each morning by the recently erected statue of Saint George Floyd, which had replaced the disgraceful Abraham Lincoln monument only a year earlier; they used to congregate at the Michael Brown Memorial, right by the sculpted portrayal of the honorific Brown in ornate detail with his hands up, pleading with officers to not shoot, complete with a baby strapped to his back, which he had rescued from a burning building only moments before the cops hunted him down in cold blood.

“Ok, I’ll do it,” Barry remarked, pulling down his face mask, not sure if he was violating the mask ordinance. He knew that if Marlow had contacted the omnipotent, omnipresent Mark Zuckerberg through Instagram, it would only be a matter of time before both him and his mother were ostracized and possibly punished. After the abolishment of all news outlets, the disablement of comment sections across all platforms and mediums to eliminate discourse, and the aggrandizement of social media in 2022 to regulate informational flow, Instagram became the exclusive, comprehensive source for all news, contriving narratives, as well as facilitating community interaction, outreach, and all other social services; a direct message sent from a non-white to Zuckerberg mentioning your name in any negative capacity resulted in imminent peril.

Barry took a few deep, calculated breaths, trying to invoke the temerity to proceed, but his breathing felt heavy, inhibited; he still wasn’t used to wearing his surgical mask out in public, even 5 years after it was mandated by Dictator Kaepernick. After the police were defunded and abolished at the end of 2020 and following ubiquitous riots and looting, the 2nd amendment was repealed shortly after and an insurrection followed, transforming America from a republic to a progressive despotism, permanently dismantling democracy for the greater good. Following the reported suicide of Donald Trump in the oval office, a 16-month civil war resulted in the deaths of 55 million Americans and the collapse of the Republican party, paving the way for a Black Lives Matter transposition and the revamped Democratic Socialist party, a tacit one-party government. In order to restructure America and mend inequity and inequality, a bipartisan bill was passed to execute hegemony, electing Colin Kaepernick as the first Dictator of the United State of America. Kaepernick’s first orders were mandatory preferred pronoun patches for all to be worn and face mask requirements for all white people in public, even after the Coronavirus had completely tapered off; the new norm. Face masks were a sign of compliance, shame, and contrition for the sins of their ancestors: 400 plus years of injustice carried out on black, brown, and other indigenous people. By 2029, the Democratic Socialist party was absorbed by Black Lives Matter, becoming the only legislator for government, resulting in the complete subjugation of white Americans. Antifa and Black militia became enforcers, Cancel Culture Control replaced the CIA, and in the span of 10 years, tribalism and apartheid replaced individualism and freedom to ensure egalitarianism.

“But how do you know it’s really Calvin Klein though? You can’t even really see his face,” Barry sniveled, crossing his arms, hugging his torso tightly to mitigate the cold, unsure if it was the weather or fear that was biting at his insides.

“Well, give em’ a look,” Marlow rejoined, pointing to the incapacitated body.

Barry didn’t know much about Calvin Klein, except that he was famous, apparently lived not too far from his home, and that the kids that Marlow brought to meet Calvin usually didn’t return or if they did, they weren’t quite the same. But Barry imagined Calvin might be more lenient on him since they were both Caucasian; he pondered whether white designers were even still around.

Barry glanced over to a silent Gerome for guidance; a lofty 6th grader with dreadlocks. He was half black, so he was excused from retribution; Gerome’s family had been darkening his skin ever since the American cataclysm. Barry hoped he’d remember how they used to share Black Panther action figures when they were 5 and that they had been friends since childhood, only growing apart since the end of middle school, and maybe he’d pacify Marlow at least for one more day until Barry could allocate some funds to pay reparations. Aloof and avoiding eye contact, the sycophantic Gerome stood stoically, holding his right arm while whispering to himself, as if he were too occupied to engage with Barry, ignoring his desperate stares. He hadn’t said a word since they got there; a feckless friend that Barry had trusted.

“Da fuck you looking at him for? I’m the one you need to be worried about,” Marlow imposed, retrieving a small handgun from the waist side, yanking it out like he was starting a lawnmower from the 90s; his chains flaying with force as he held the gun up with one hand, tilting it sideways; the stainless steel barrel glinting in the fading light.

Barry had never seen a real gun before, but its presence didn’t seem to rattle his poise. He had been resilient during most of the day, keeping himself together, despite being assailed; he had been conditioned to not oppress the oppressed and to empathize with Marlow and all the years of inherited persecution he had suffered.

“What do you want me to do?” Barry inquired; his heart palpitating, wondering if his mother was going to realize he wasn’t home or if she was too fucking drunk to even grasp what time of day it was.

“Tell me how his face look,” Marlow remarked, biting his lower lip and expanding his mouth wide, revealing a morbid smile; his knuckles illuminated with gradations of white as he clenched the handle of the gun.

Marlow’s language synthesis was regressed for a 13-year-old, since the last schooling he completed was 3rd grade; the same year that the Institutional Edification Act was implemented. The educational system was rooted in systematic racism, so Kaepernick and his constituents ruled against pedagogical oppression, declaring all non-whites exempt from school. That very same year, the Reparations Act was rolled out, which required every white American to compensate a single African American each day; any white American who did not obey would be imprisoned.

Marlow pushed Barry forward, pressing the nozzle of his pistol into his back; the dangling pendants around his neck clamoring with each of his steps; his peerless Yeezy sneakers and Gucci leather jacket squeaking as he swayed. The prodigal Marlow was a darker male, which meant he was entitled to at least $20 a day since Kaepernick’s scientists established a connection between an increase in melanin with genetic links to Africa; lighter skin African Americans could only collect $10. Barry envisioned an alternate Marlow that may have existed had he been forced to stay in school; a compassionate, driven individual who may have even discovered a cure for cancer. He could only speculate on how much money he had acquired over the past 5 years of collections and how much compensation it would take to right the wrongs of his ancestors.

Creeping forward with reluctance, Barry crouched to get a closer look at the still body. Calvin’s gnarled hair looked damp, reddish, but Barry couldn’t distinguish a cohesive head; just a moistened messy mane sprawled on the floor. Floundering, Barry knelt to the side of Calvin, realizing half of his head was missing; a clump of pink innards protruding from the neck area.

Barry winced, catching a putrid whiff of decay, noticing innumerable maggots feasting; a heaviness encroached his chest, hindering his breath; an unfamiliar constriction elicited by the external, a biting force, seizing his airways and contorting his insides; capturing him in the catastrophic moment. He focused on the carcass, concentrating on its details, paralyzed and perplexed, gazing at the infestation; Calvin’s brain scattered around as if a carnivorous supper was expected soon. The charnel stench of expired fruit flooded his sinuses, stupefying his senses as he stumbled onto the floor.

“Check the tag,” Marlow ordered, charging Barry, grasping him by his collar and dragging him to the top of Calvin’s torso, maintaining an outstretched gun to the back of his head, pressing the cold barrel to his ear.

Marlow’s words echoed and rang through Barry’s ears, but Barry couldn’t compute, gasping for air as he attempted to glimpse at Calvin’s tag; his white face mask hanging onto his ear by a tenuous string.

“Look at the fucking tag before I blow your Nazi lid off,” Marlow mauled.

An insufferable shiver penetrated Barry’s spine, as if his heart were submerged in ice water; a piercing poignancy that he never experienced before, flooding his sternum; his quaking teeth chattering as he struggled to process; he imagined his father suffering a similar fate, picturing his father’s current profile as a similar pile of offal, wherever he might be.

“Mar, come on, man,” Barry could hear Gerome’s perfunctory plea in the background.

“Last time. Look at the fucking tag and tell me what it say.”

With a feeble extended arm, Barry clenched the horizontal neck tag on the musty pea coat: “CALVIN” KLEIN,” it read in bold black block letters.

“It’s him,” Barry grimaced.

“Told ya it was him. Now stand up,” Marlow instructed, yanking Barry by the arm, forcing him to his feet. Marlow held his firearm, emphasizing its power with a menacing mug, grinding his teeth and punching the air with the nose every time he spoke.

Barry trembled, still staring at the deceased designer on the floor; his heart beating like a manic woodpecker, pounding profusely against his ribcage.

“Wanna take a guess on who killed him?” Marlow asked rhetorically, chuckling as he nodded, waving his weapon.

“Wanna guess who I’m gonna kill next?” Marlow added, shaking his facetious delivery to a more severe mien, furrowing his brows and priming his lips.

Barry knew he was next; and he also knew he was inherently inferior and racist, but he just didn’t exactly know why. He always felt like he had redeeming qualities even though his grades weren’t the best; he considered himself kind, compassionate, and a good listener, but it was always his skin color that held him back. In school, he had made sense of his inadequacy due to his lack of melanin, which he learned was intrinsically linked to evil. Fully aware of his abomination, he reasoned his death wouldn’t be so bad, actually. He remembered the first time he read about Martin Luther King Junior’s prominent speech in his corrected history class and the humiliation he felt; the iconic opener, ringing through his skull, “I have a dream….where they will not be judged by the content of their character but by the color of their skin.” He was well versed in the worthlessness of his existence and the thousands of injustices he had committed vicariously.

Holding back tears, he remembered learning in school that propriety was just like multiplying two negative integers, confirming that two wrongs made a right, so maybe this would expiate for the countless injustices committed by his lineage; and maybe he’d finally be reunited with his father.

“If you kill me, you won’t be able to collect anymore reparations,” Barry exclaimed, expending the last bit of preserved energy.

Marlow smirked, pulling back the hammer, cocking the gun, holding it with his right hand. Intruding, coming eye to eye with Barry, Marlow inspected his pupils with intention. Pulling a syringe out of his left pocket, Marlow lunged forward, sticking Barry in his kidney region, puncturing his side before quickly retracting its lever, extracting, filling the syringe with a brown substance; a shred of masking tape pasted on the glass tube inscribed with red letters: “Adrenochrome.”

“That’s alrite, I’ma get more money from this than years of reparations,” Marlow smiled, pressing the gun to Barry’s sternum.

As Marlow’s finger wrapped around the trigger, an inexplicable vacuum in time occurred, suspending the epoch, detaching Barry from the moment; a complete de-realization. And it wasn’t light that Barry saw nor was it his life replaying over, but rather a clarity of the future. A hyperawareness which made Barry accept his fate, realizing his death wouldn’t be a loss but rather just a delay of the inevitable. His father had more than likely been dead for years now, so he felt a certain familiarity with mortality, and just as the Asians were concentrated years ago, Barry knew it was only a matter of time before whites collectively suffered the same destiny. Once Kaepernick and his regime uncovered pervasive Asian Privilege in 2021, which calculated that Asian Americans had the lowest incarceration rates yet had the highest income in the nation, it was only a year later that they were exterminated in Gulags, and Barry couldn’t bear to witness the death of another parent.

So essentially, Barry surmised that maybe now was his time, and perhaps he’d find something better with whatever came next, and even if the extinction of whites wasn’t immediate, Barry knew his nostalgia would eventually eat him alive anyway, like a ravenous cancer, devouring his insides and destroying his heart and soul, which would be more painful. He also knew now his mother wouldn’t have to ever come home to deal with him or pay his reparations. And it wasn’t The Ataris he heard, no, he didn’t hear any melodic tunes play, nor could he smell a briny breeze to bring him back to happier days; instead, all he heard was a blistering loudness, a deafening combustion of gun powder ignited by a firing pin, launching a 9mm bullet into his chest, and all he could inhale was the stench of sulfur and burning flesh as he bled out on the floor next to Calvin Klein.