New Jacket

Last week I went to the flea market at Fairfax high school with friends and on the outer rim of a vendor's lot, which was mostly hippie clothing and $6 "I survived" t-shirts, were these blazers made of drug rug material, detailed with wild, wild west images and scenes from a prairie on a clear day. They sent me on a babbling tangent.

"Oh my God," it began, and after a pause I added, "This is so real. I mean, this is on some other shit. This on some real shit that I've actually never seen before. They basically just took some Ameri- cana and then played up the like, fetishizing of Original American handy crafts, and then somehow figured out the perfect length at which to end the jacket, like they somehow knew that I wanted it like three weeks ago and got to work. This is like the natural progression. This rules so much." I decided to calm down. "I have to walk away now, I have to think about it. But I'll be back."

I walked through the entire flea market, telling vendors that I'd come return to spend all of my money at their booth, when I clearly wouldn't.

When I made my way back to the front of market, where the jackets were, I tried them all on in front of a warped mirror. I finally decided on the black-and-white one with wild horses sewn on it - although the colorful one with a tiger head and lion head on the back and black faux fur on the collar was a close runner-up.

The woman selling them was happy to take my $25. "Oh yes," she smiled at me, "these are very new," and then mentioned a reservation or New Mexico or both.
I told her that I could tell and that I didn't need a bag. I waited until I had left her sight to rip the shoulder pads out.