“Hey, does anyone have a pair of size 14 cowboy boots I can borrow for a shoot?” the IG story from my friend Chase said.
I sent him a DM. “Yeah, no problem. Let me know where to bring them.”
“Just bring them to my work tomorrow afternoon. It’ll be nice to see you. It’s been a minute.”
The next day I walked down to Lips, the gay bar where Chase worked as a dancer when he wasn’t modeling underwear. It was weird to be there during the day with all the lights on. Chase saw me, hopped down off the platform, and walked over.
“Eric!” he shouted as he gave me a big bear hug. His enormous arms pressed my face into his muscular, hairy pecs as I mumbled sarcastically, “Hey, little man.”
“Let me get a look at you. It’s been what, six months?”
“More like a year. I’ve been trying to adapt. I don’t know how to exist like this.”
Chase looked down at me. “It’s gotta be hard. You were once the king daddy of this bar. The bottoms were all over you and the tops wanted to be you. You’re still really handsome, just… in a smaller package. They still didn’t figure out what happened?”
“No. They can’t figure it out. Anyway, here’s the boots. You can keep them, I’m never gonna fit in them again.”
“What size are you wearing nowadays?” asked Chase.
“These Vans are 7 1/2, and I can already feel they’re getting loose.”
“Yikes. If this keeps up you won’t be able to shop in the men’s section. Do they know when it’ll stop?”
“No. They don’t know anything about it. But it appears to be slowing down. I’ve only shrunk two inches in the last couple of months. It goes in spurts, really fast ones. The first one, I went from six-eight to six-two in a week.”
“And now…?”
“Five-three as of yesterday.”
Just then two barbacks carrying a pail of punch past us bumped into me, tripped, and doused me with ten gallons or so of alcoholic beverage.
“Goddammit, you clumsy oafs!” I shouted as red liquid formed eddies around my feet.
“Sorry, li’l man, didn’t see you there. You’re kinda below eye level,” said one from about nine inches above my head.
“Now what the hell do I do? I can’t go home like this, I reek of vodka and I’ll get pinched for drunk driving. Even my shoes are soaked through!”
Chase looked uncomfortable. “I mean, I keep a couple changes of clothes in the back, but…”
“Yeah, I know. But it’s gotta be better than nothing. I can wipe down the belt and that’ll keep the pants up.”
Chase nodded at the manager, who had walked up to survey the damage.
“I’m sorry about this. We’ll replace the clothes and shoes,” he said.
“It just sucks that you lost what had to be $500 in food cost and $1500 in lost revenue,” I said. “I was a bartender, I know how it hurts.”
Chase led me to the performers’ changing room. “Come on, Eric, shuck ‘em and hit the shower.”
I wrestled the sodden clothes off as the big dancer handed me a towel. A few minutes later, I was clean enough to not attract unwanted police attention, and wandered out into the main changing area.
Chase handed me a clean pair of boxers, some jeans, a polo shirt, and a pair of beat-up black Nikes. They looked enormous in my hands. The manager, Kyle, whistled as I let the towel drop. “You may have shrunk down but good god damn. You got hairier, too. And you even look younger. You’re a hell of an attractive little pocket cub.”
“Thanks, I think,” I said as I put on the boxers. Size XXL with a huge pouch that I couldn’t come close to filling. “They said that the same amount of testosterone is coursing through my veins, but there’s less of me, so it’s appearing as secondary sex characteristics.” The boxers slouched down around my hips as I pulled on the jeans. They immediately slid to the ground, pulling the pink boxers with them. I blushed and picked them back up. I put my belt—meant for the 29-inch waist I’d had when I bought it—through the loops of Chase’s size 38/36 pants and cinched it as far as I could, but the belt had been getting too loose for me and so the pants teetered dangerously on my hips. The legs formed puddles of cloth on top of my feet as I slipped on the socks, which dangled off the ends of my toes, and the sneakers, which I tried to tie as tightly as I could. I put on his 3XLT shirt—which on him would have stretched tightly across his chest and biceps—and it came down nearly to my knees, like a barber’s cape. I put the hat on briefly but decided I’d just go home bareheaded. At least whatever this disease I had was, it was restoring my hairline somewhat.
I looked in the mirror. “I look like a child playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes.”
“It’s just so you can get home,” he said.
“I’m glad,” I said, “because I have a Zoom job interview later. Another telesales job.”
“Listen,” said Kyle. “Can you dance?”
“You know he can,” retorted Chase. “You watched him enough when he was the BMOC.”
“Why don’t you come dance for us? We can put you with Chase, it’ll be a height difference thing. People will love it.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said as I walked to the door, clutching the waist of the jeans, with Chase’s enormous shirt swaying with the motion and the shoes that were seven sizes too big slapping against the floor like a clown outfit.