SIX TO 18 HOURS FROM NOW: JIMMY GALOR

Alarm clock. 5:30.

Dad’s in town. That means dinner at the latest, hottest new place. Tonight.

Shower: Uneventful. I couldn’t think of anybody, either.

Bathroom Scale: 275! Way too much. It’s the damned bizdev job. No standardized time to work out during my work day. Between wakeup and shutdown and maybe two or three cigars, a couple drink stops here and there with clients and friends, just not much time for wheezing at the gym. I like carbs, too. Salt’s all right by me. My favorite electrolyte.

Consequently, my collar button pinches. I estimate it’s good for at least one more outing. One more “sortie” into the unknown of my modern economic day, attempting to sell air to airheads. I am in the marketing business. I purvey air, lightly scented with ideas.

To extend as much as possible its lifetime on my shirt, I decide to spare the button the immediate challenge and leave it unbuttoned until dinner. I can’t sew. I probably could learn. I just don’t want to.

I roll up a disappointing tie and toss it in my shoulder bag and bear myself in my slightly too-tight, already warm suit out the door to the train. The overcast day is warmer and muggier than I expected as well. Unaccustomed to the too-small suit, I know my humid bulk will put its fibers to the test in transit around the city, today.

The first of many yeasts, some indigenous, to be joined now by others I will encounter during this day, let out their happy morning cry, and set to work in the various and balmy pasturelands of the regions below my arms

For I tend to perspire. For any reason. And before this day is over, the industrious life forms covering my body will outstrip and o’erwhelm the bulwarks of any and all known fragrances, tinctures, aluminoid counter-perspirants, lymphectomies, talcum, natural remedies like cornsilk, myrrh or recently marketed concoctions like Polar Sport or Tropic Ice. Nothing manmade nor natural will withstand these regenerative geniuses. Nothing, perhaps not even this well fashioned but aged suit, can withstand the force of the marauders pouring off of Jimmy Galor.

The day goes about as well as you can expect in these times, a friendly couple of pops with Chester from Pi Industries, a nice Nicaraguan stogie with Tim and Matty at the Balmoral Regis smokeshop across from Edge Central, and, between hither-and-yonning and waiting on sweating subway platforms, by end of day, I am the Incarnation of Moisture.

By dinnertime, my suit is palpably damp, almost wet, warm like a peacoat and emitting a fragrance recalling its origin–yes, wool in the summer! God alone knows the condition of my saturate button-down shirt and...

... I am totally running late. I flag down a cab. Stretching my leg to enter, my beleaguered inseam at last gives way, from knee to knee, with a sodden ripping sound.

It is an inconceivable system failure, this instantaneous 30inch aperture in the seat of my ancient suit. It is victim to the day’s cumulus, from within and without, of heat and humidity. The sudden vent does admit some refreshing cool air from the rear-seat air conditioning, however. Glad am I for the dark-gray pair of boxers Fortune allowed to remain, the last undershorts in the drawer!

Oh, what quiet, consistent, evening-long fun Pop will have with this–if he detects it. He will, of course. The razzing will be subtle and somehow worse if he brings the latest version of his “Associate” with him! Just a slight eyebrow-raise or a micrometer twist in his default smile. I would read it, he would know I read it, and thus the hierarchy would be re-established, the son’s yoke: NICE TRY, SONNY.

But with more neck! I tell myself, finally attempting to gasket-seal the collar around my throat with clumsy fingers. Finally, through the buttonhole, it secures a brief, pinching hold at my Adam’s apple. I relax, swallow, and the pearlescent button snaps free from its weakened threads. With a PLINK it shoots like a BB, one-hopping deep beneath the furry murk beneath the driver’s seat. I see the driver’s eyes in the rearview as he looks at me.