VaD3r0n!c3

A couple weeks ago, my boys pointed out that I wore my belt “incorrectly.”

Look how ours are buckled. Fag!

It was easy to defend myself as one of them is bald, another is growing a beard in Miami during summer because a woman told him to, and I don’t know, I think Manny was somewhere else, but..

I did not know such a standard existed. As a wearer of baggy pants (best for hiding small arms) I only cared that they kept the waistband well enough above the end of my baggy t-shirt. I don’t particularly care to reveal my Hanes or le crack du magnificence. My friends, being the curious bunch they are questioned me: why, why, why did I wear it like that and honestly, I had no answer. Until yesterday.

I was at my dad’s place, saying hello, hoping to avoid argument, and watching not even a smile appear on his face as I finished the story of my girlfriend and her mom locking themselves out of the house. It was there that I saw horses riding upside down, pulling carriages. On his belt.

Pops, your belt is upside down.

No. It is not.

They’re in the sky, pops. Upside down riding the bottom of clouds. The riders have no blood in their feet. They may fall to the earth and die. Lives hang in the balance.

Not even a chuckle from Stone Ruiz.

I wear it this way because that’s the way I like to buckle it. What’s it to you?

If only I’d had cowboy belts.