Saggin' and Swaggin'

          Report: Leland Jack

           Dear Mr. Vladamir,

After close investigation, I have assembled a subjective report on the man who goes by the name "Leland jack." I hope that my findings will illuminate the situation at hand.

      

          Leland Jack swaggers into Da Club, bobbing his head to the din of rap music. Shaquille O’neil brand basketball shorts hang to his ankles and his big, cartooned Fila shoes slap and flop onto the floor. Leland is holding the rim of his basketball shorts with one hand, making sure they don’t slide down his rangy body, because if they did so, the whole African American world would see nothing but pasty, naked skin, for he wore nothing under these shorts, a secret he intends to carry with him to the grave. Because of this, Leland almost never has a free hand, a veritable self-inflicted cripple.  

          His spray-deodorant stings the eyes of those around him, overwhelming all space within 5 feet of him with the scent of a fake pine tree. The deodorant bottle is called “Lucky Night” and claims to attract women to the scent. Leland bathes himself in this product. When the people on the dance floor catch a whiff of Leland, they curl their noses, squint their eyes and furrow their brows. But Leland walks past the blinded dancers and up to the rappers, free-styling on the stage. Golden mic in hand the two rappers took turns insulting the other as a machine tittered a snappy beat in the corner. Leland was pop-eyed, gawking, his mouth agape. Gold grills spat clever, rhyming, hateful taunts accompanied by loud “OH!”’s from the audience. 

  These free-stylers remind him of his home in Decatur, a quiet suburb of Atlanta, where he would blare gangsta-rap records to his mothers dismay. After graduating from Decatur Preparatory College, a place of collared shirts and water polo, he moved here, a place of dilapidated old movie theaters and thumping rap clubs. He was free, free from his mother’s short-leash, free from years of being coddled and caressed, free from Abercrombie and Fitch, free from lacrosse and Keystone beer, free from constricting white briefs. Leland grinned and sweated, his eyes fixed upon the two hood-born rappers, dark as night with brilliant gold tin-foiled teeth. It was in that moment that Leland decided that his fashion repertoire was lacking an essential item.