The Kind of White That’s Afraid of Getting Dirty

I knew two men. Both wore white shirts.

Tom’s was buttoned to the top. The collar pressed against his Adam’s apple, tight and precise. His sleeves were rolled up three folds, each fold the same width, like he’d measured them with calipers. Dick’s shirt was open at the collar, two buttons undone. His sleeves were pushed up anyhow—left one to the elbow, right one bunched at the wrist. He couldn’t remember when he’d done it.

Standing together, you knew at a glance. Tom looked like a head waiter at a fine-dining restaurant. Dick looked like a man on vacation who didn’t much care where he went next.

It wasn’t about money. The two shirts were the same brand, bought in the same shop, on the same day. It wasn’t about build. Tom was an inch taller than Dick, broader in the shoulders. But you wouldn’t have picked him as the one who paid.

One night, at dinner. Both of them were laughing.

Tom told a joke about a parking spot and a cat. He laughed first when he finished, not too loud, not too soft, just loud enough for the whole table to hear. As he laughed, his eyes swept the table left to right—past the marketing director, past the regional manager, past the client rep, all the way down to the intern at the end. Like radar scanning a stretch of sea, making sure every ship had got the signal. The intern’s mouth twitched half a beat late. Tom’s laugh stretched an extra two seconds to wait for her to catch up.

Dick told a joke too. About a dog and a seagull. He told it slowly, pausing once to take a drink, as if checking with himself that the punchline was still there. When he finished he leaned back in his chair and looked at the glass in his hand. There was a tiny lemon seed stuck to the rim. He turned it with his thumb. The joke sounded like it was meant for him and the lemon seed. People at the table laughed, and he laughed too, but it wasn’t a return gift.

Tom came over with his glass. He held it so the rim sat half an inch lower than yours. You said a word, he took a sip. You stopped, he stopped. His body tilted forward slightly, shoulders pulled in, taking up just enough space for his two feet. When he spoke he looked at the space between your eyebrows—not your eyes, the space between them. That spot didn’t feel like a challenge, and it didn’t feel like avoidance. He’d practiced it.

Dick came over with his glass too. One hand in his pocket. He lifted his glass casually and said, “Nice shirt.” Then he drank. He didn’t need a compliment back. He hadn’t even seen what shirt you were wearing. He was looking out the window at a man walking a very large dog.

Tom’s father started teaching him how to sit when he was three. Chopsticks held wrong—tap on the knuckles. Mouth not closed fast enough—tap on the knuckles. Laughing out loud—tap on the knuckles. “Sit straight. Don’t embarrass your father.” Every time his father said it, the chopsticks came down on the table, pak. Not a beating, a warning. A warning is heavier than a beating because you never know when it will land.

Tom smiled while he told this story. He spoke fast, as if it was someone else’s joke. His right hand kept turning a glass. Three turns clockwise, three turns counterclockwise, then clockwise again.

Dick listened next to him. He was cutting his steak. Very slowly. The knife scraped the porcelain, soft.

Someone asked what Dick’s father was like.

Dick set his knife and fork down. Wiped his mouth. Thought for a moment, like the question needed to be pulled out of some box he hadn’t opened in a long time. “He took me to the races,” Dick said. “I dropped my hot dog. Mustard side down.” He paused. “I looked at him. He looked at me. Then he threw his hot dog on the ground too. Right next to mine. Mustard side down. He said, ‘Now they’re the same.’ Then he took me to get two new ones.”

He picked up his fork and went back to cutting his steak. “Later he lost a lot of money. That day he’d won a lot.” He said, “Both things happened.”

Nobody at the table said anything. Dick didn’t go on. Tom was still turning his glass.

That night, someone spilled wine on them. The same person, the same waiter, a tray of red wine that wasn’t quite balanced.

Tom shot to his feet. His chair scraped backward against the floor, loud. He scrubbed at his shirt with his napkin, scrubbing fast, his mouth saying, “It’s fine, it’s fine, my fault, I wasn’t watching. Really, it’s fine.” He looked up at the waiter and smiled, trying to make him less nervous. But his fingers were trembling. The napkin was trembling. The smile was trembling too.

The headwaiter came over to apologize. Tom kept waving his hand. He said three times, “I wasn’t sitting right,” four times, “Really, no problem,” two times, “You go on with your work.” When the waiter left, Tom was still rubbing the shirt. The wine stain spread downward from the buttons, the more he rubbed the bigger it got, like a dark chrysanthemum blooming open.

Dick looked at the wine stain on his own shirt. He looked at it for a long time. He was wearing a light blue shirt. The red wine had splashed across his chest, from his collarbone down to the third button. He looked at it like you’d look at a bug that had landed on you. Then he looked up at the waiter.

The waiter’s face was as white as the empty plate in his hands.

Dick didn’t stand. He folded his napkin once and set it on the table. The movement was slow.

“You’re shaking,” Dick said.

The waiter couldn’t move.

Dick took off his jacket. Linen, off-white, soft at the shoulders. He stood and handed the jacket to the waiter. “Get it cleaned. Send it to this address tomorrow.” He pulled a card from his pocket and laid it on top of the jacket. He didn’t say, “Don’t worry.” He didn’t say, “I’m not blaming you.” He didn’t say a single word that would make the waiter feel he’d been forgiven. Being forgiven means you did something wrong. Dick didn’t give him that.

The waiter took the jacket. His mouth opened. Nothing came out. Dick was already sitting back down, picking up his wine glass. He saw there was red wine in it now too. He looked at the glass. Set it down.

Tom was still standing. His shirt was wet, clinging to his chest. He sat back down and pulled his chair in carefully, making no sound. His hands were under the table, still rubbing the shirt.

The wind was strong when the night ended.

Outside the restaurant, Tom took off the white shirt and draped it over his arm. Underneath was a grey undershirt, collar a little stretched, shoulder seams sagging. He stood there lighting a cigarette. The lighter clicked three times before it caught. He took a drag and let the smoke out. The wind tore it into strips and pulled it toward the subway entrance. He glanced that way, then turned back to look at the restaurant. The doorman was hailing a cab for Dick.

Dick walked over and clapped Tom on the shoulder. “Next time don’t wear white,” he said.

Tom smiled. “Yeah. Dark colors next time.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Dick said. “Don’t wear the kind of white that looks afraid of getting dirty.”

Tom didn’t answer. He stubbed out his cigarette and placed the butt in the sand tray by the door, straight, lined up with the others.

Dick got into the taxi. Tom draped the white shirt over his shoulders, didn’t button it, and walked into the subway entrance. Wind poured into the tunnel and ballooned the shirt behind him like a cape that didn’t quite fit.

I didn’t go after them.

I went home. When I came in, I placed my shoes on the rack, lined up with the others. While I washed my hands, I caught myself looking in the mirror. Looking at the space between my own eyebrows. I looked for a second, then walked away.

The next morning I got a text from Dick. He said the waiter really did bring the jacket to the hotel front desk last night. It was cleaned, folded neatly, left in a paper bag.

I asked, Did he leave his name?

Dick replied, No. But there was a pack of candy in the bag. Those mint candies from a convenience store.

I looked at that text for a long time. Then I put my phone down and went back to brushing my teeth.

Outside the window, someone was walking a very large dog. The sun was bright. A little kid dropped his hot dog on the ground. He looked at his mother. She knelt down, picked it up, blew on it, and held it out to him. The kid shook his head. His mother smiled, took his hand, and led him toward the cart to buy a new one.

I watched them until they were far down the street. Then I picked up my jacket and went out.

There was wind that day too.