Left leg first. Left leg first. Left leg goes first. It always does - at least for the last seventeen years.
Before then, both legs flew off the sheets at the same time - in a parade of spirit as I rose to celebrate. Naked and grasping for the edge of the bed, I’d reach a full-sprint by the time I hit the hallway - racing toward the shower to let the warm pour over me, eventually covering my shivering toes. I felt those once, too.
I couldn’t wait to start days, then. I’d pore over my planner every night - jotting down notes, filling up the next day’s schedule. I’d lay my clothes out on the chair beside my bed. Set my alarm for 8am. Put my cards in my wallet, wallet on my desk, keys on top, and full bottle of water right near them.
By the time I’d reach my room, I’d pour into my clothes in a flurry of motion - sleeves and pant-legs floating around me with limbs filling them in instants. I used to dance as soon as I’d get my socks on. A little one-two, sometimes a salsa, just to get the blood flowing and warm. But before any of that - the ritual.
I started it in the beginning of my senior year of high school. I’d just broken up with Annie, and I was feeling on top of the planet every time I got a new look from a new gal. I knew I was holding onto her for no reason, so when I let her go the gals made it pretty obvious that they’d been waiting around. They’d pull me in the boys bathroom, lock the stall-doors, and rip a condom out of their little leather pocketbooks, and suddenly our school bathrooms were like Friday night at Home Sweet Home.
I had to get ready for the onslaught before I did the morning ride, so I started this little ritual. Basically, I’d jump into my room, stark naked, and just stare at myself in my full-body mirror until my mom called me down for breakfast. I’d call it “familiarizing.” All these girls always said the same thing to me - “I love your body.”
And I mean, I worked out, I did wrestling, my pop gave me some pretty good genes. And I definitely knew how to dress. I’d wear these rock tees that no one else could find in our town. It was because my older brother lived in New York. He was a roamer, actually - my mom called him the “free spirit” of the family. I loved Jeff - he’d always be somewhere new and he’d send me something from there. One time, he got me this suede jacket in Calgary that was just — it was perfect.
Anyway, I had a pretty good body. But I didn’t really understand what these girls were going so crazy about, so I decided I was going to familiarize myself - get to know it better, so I could use it better. Sure, these girls told me they loved my body and all, but I was seventeen. I had no idea what I was doing with it. I wasn’t really doing much of the work, but by the time I hit college I’d have to start pitching in a little bit, at least.
The ritual helped. For a half-hour, I’d just have a stare-down with the intricacies of this body I’d been building so roughly in the gym, and it was like I was figuring out every centimeter. By the time I’d slide my clothes on and make my way down the stairs, it was like I was walking in a superhero’s costume, not my own skin. Maybe that was why the girls gravitated - because I carried myself like a superhuman.
And it worked in high school, so I kept it going in college. Before the sunrise, I’d go through it. Except now I didn’t have a mom to call me down to breakfast to break my staring contest - just a roommate who woke up to find me staring at myself more often than he liked to. But he was a heavy sleeper, and it usually took three cycles of the alarm to get him up and out. Just to be safe, I’d get my stuff on and head out before the second one struck.
I couldn’t wait to feel the sun and the eyes - and I was sure they couldn’t wait to feel me.
That was then.
When I could fly to any city in the country for any reason and spend as much time as I wanted to there.
That was then.
When I could run through campus in just a pair of shorts and sneakers and watch everybody watching me.
That was then.
When I could walk down the street, and greet every person who looked my way.
That was then.
When I could walk.
But now - it’s left leg first. Then the right slides out after it. Soon, both fall into leather, pulling the weight of my hips down with them. By the time my ass settles into the worn, warm seat, my arms plop down at shoulder length on the black metallic arm-pads. I roll my eyes down in their sockets - as far as they’ll go - and see my feet in place, resting on their pads a few inches above the ground. My head leans back, as if I’ve fallen asleep, drunk in a movie theater - before the neck guard is attached and my neck is pulled upright and a strap swings around my forehead to secure my cranium.
I look down again, and see pale fingers at my toes, wrapping underwear around my feet, which are then slid up over my knees to eventually cover the genitals that I cannot see below the roll of fat that lies between me and them. I look forward again as the body who’s fingers I recognize circles me. The body moves side to side, with a moist towel in its hand, and wipes the corners of my mouth and draws the cold from my eyes.
The body then shimmies back a few steps, opens the maple dresser directly behind it, and picks out a salmon shirt - the same salmon shirt I’ve worn for seventeen years now. A polo, with short sleeves, and a long back. It’s not the same exact one - but the same model. I’ve got three dozen of them. The body unfolds the shirt, opens it up at its seams, and steps toward me slowly as it raises the shirt over my head and slowly lowers it over my neck and onto my torso.
The body forgot about the head-strap, so it takes the strap off with one free hand, as my head drops down again - the drunk man asleep in the theatre reappears. In a moment, the body retries dressing me, and does so successfully this time. The shirt is on, and before another second passes, the strap is back, too.
