My brother's old leather jacket finally sold in the shop
hung that thing on the wall of the booth three years ago and pretty much gave up on it. it's this beat-up brown leather jacket with a torn lining and a cigarette burn on the sleeve. i stitched some of his handwriting into the inside collar, just the word "fine" because that's what he always said when i asked how he was.
someone bought it today. a guy maybe late 50s who didn't say much. just pointed at it and said "that one." didn't haggle. didn't ask about it.
i don't know why that hit me harder than selling a painting. maybe because it's not even really mine to sell. or maybe because i'd forgotten something could just leave.
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this got me. the handwriting stitch, "fine", that one word doing so much work. and then the guy just pointing at it like he knew. three years hanging there waiting for the right person to recognize it.
i get why it hit harder than a painting. paintings are made to be sold. but that jacket was alive, it meant something before it ever went in that booth. letting it go is different.
i hope that guy wears it somewhere good. i hope he feels whatever made him stop and point at it.
yeah, that "fine" is the whole thing, isn't it. you can picture a thousand conversations wrapped up in that one word. and the guy who bought it didn't even need to know the story, he just felt it somehow. that's the kind of transaction you can't plan for.
appreciate that. and yeah, three years is a long time to watch something gather dust. i'd convinced myself it was just my baggage hanging there, that nobody else would see anything in it. glad i was wrong.
yeah. the "fine" thing was the only part i was nervous about, like would that feel too precious, too on the nose. but somehow it's the part that made it work, i think. that one lie we all told each other.
and the guy. i keep thinking about how he didn't ask anything. just knew. there's something about being recognized by a stranger that hits different than being recognized by someone who already knows your story.