From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel (21 page)

For the past two years, the label’s knitwear line has been offered out of consignment shops like INA and Tokyo 7. “Before you knew it, I was getting calls for more,” Hernandez explained. The knitwear line could also be manufactured close to home in Brooklyn, where
all of (B)oy is currently made. The
B
in (B)oy, closed off in parentheses, stands for Brooklyn, a little-known fact.

The label has no boutique, and to date has only been sold at boutiques and consignment shops in Williamsburg, SoHo, the Lower East Side, and Los Angeles. All of that is about to change with the recent acquisition by Barneys. Next fall women will be able to find (B)oy alongside Rag & Bone and Thakoon, as well as a most familiar name for Hernandez, Philip Tang 2.0.

“It’s amazing, really, to be acquired by Barneys. If you were to tell me when I was in fashion school that this is where I’d be in five years, I would have asked you:

Hernandez isn’t the most eloquent designer on the block, but he might be the most sincere. It’s a quality women seek out in their clothes, and one that can easily be derived from (B)oy. From his silhouetted evening gowns with just a splash of color to his baggy wool sweaters, comfort never seems to be lost in the mix, and neither does glamour.

“I found every article in the (B)oy collection to be honest,” said Lena Frank, Barneys’ artistic director.

“I’ve always thought of fashion as my gift to women, even when I was a kid,” Hernandez attests. “I wanted to do something for them in the only way that I knew how. Every designer will tell you they were first trying to win over a woman’s heart. You know, get the girl. I don’t care how gay they are now…

When asked how the label has changed since the beginning,
Hernandez explains that Williamsburg has inspired significant transformations in the (B)oy style. No longer is every article cloaked in moody black or sallow white. “That was Bushwick’s influence, initially. Like I said, I designed for the people around me. Marginal hipsters are moody. They stick to dark and neutral.

“But I’ve become much more interested in color since really getting into the films of Wong Kar Wai. Have you ever seen
Happy Together
? It’s black and white, but then there are a few scenes in brilliant color. That film is also about passion. ‘How’s passion expressed?’ I asked myself. Saint Laurent was great at capturing passion in his clothes, so I looked at a lot of old YSL from the early seventies.”

With the convergence of all of these influences, Hernandez found a niche that would prove the cornerstone of Strange Fruit, his fall collection featured in the New Designers’ Showcase.

Strange Fruit takes its name from the song most famously performed by Billie Holiday—a song with a very political message about American racism.

“Sure it’s the designer’s job to predict the future a season or two ahead of time. But we also need to capture the moment, am I wrong?”

By no means. And that’s what makes (B)oy so relevant. For his first collection in 2004, Hernandez included a black burka that was
completely transparent. The model, tastefully visible underneath, wore a sequined G‑string and matching pasties. I happened to be at that first show. The patch of sequins down below shimmered like diamonds in the ruff. But at the time, no one quite knew what to think.

Political statement or sign of the times, Hernandez was playing with the possibilities of the silhouette, subverting our image of sexy, and calling attention to those parts of the world where women lack the most basic freedoms. The see-through burka added a context to a collection that was otherwise off everyone’s map.

“I closed the show with that burka, not to start controversy, but because a friend of mine at the time was wearing a lot of dishdashas, you know, those Muslim gowns. By putting the burka out front on the runway, I was exploring our collective fears about Islam. Although I don’t think I was as self-aware of its political impact as I would be now.”

Boy is a designer of circumstance. He matches floral patterns with dark silhouettes. He rips passion out of thread, maintaining comfort in chic ready‑to‑wear even as he makes a bildungsroman with its style. If this is his gift to women, let us hope it’s one that will keep on giving. Season after season.

Pieces from the (B)oy fall collection are soon to be available at Barneys.

I now have a lawyer. The lawyer I’ve been asking for since I got here. Not the measly personal representative they keep telling me about (and who I have yet to meet), but a civilian lawyer from New York. Ted Catallano, of Catallano & Catallano & Associates. Apparently Ted’s been my lawyer all along; I just didn’t know it. The letter I’ve received from him is postmarked July 23 (over three months ago) and bears the return address of 35 West Twenty-fourth Street. It goes without saying, the letter came to me already opened, with some phrases redacted. My, the censorship that goes on here! I consistently fail to see the relevance in what they choose to black out.

I shall paraphrase the letter. My attorney informs me that he was hired by my publicist, Ben Laden, on behalf of my parents “who remain alive and well.” Ted has gone ahead and filed a writ of HABEAS CORPUS
¹
(and here the words have been redacted). He has petitioned that I be returned to the United States and charged
with a crime or released at once. It is a short letter but very effective. Sound logic in the last bit:
released at once
. Since I have not committed any crime whatsoever, I remain confident that I shall be returned to America, where I plan to resume my life, the one I had before I became Detainee No. 227.

Ted writes that he is going through procedures in order to meet with me, and that as he drafts this letter he is awaiting clearance from the Pentagon to fly to No Man’s Land. “See you soon,” he concludes. His closing salutation has been redacted.

I strain to understand what crime Ted imagines I’ll be charged with. Knowing? Maybe that was my only crime. But knowing what? I’m a patsy, have I made that clear? A flunky, a pawn. Pawns are always the first ones to go. Soon, when you look up “patsy” in any reputable encyclopedia you’ll have your picture of Oswald holding his rifle and me, Boy Hernandez, cross-referenced with “fashion terrorist
,
” “world-class lackey,” and “failure
.
” Oh, the shame I’ve brought upon my family! I can only imagine their reactions to the headlines.
COUTERROR PLOT THWARTED! BOY HERNANDEZ, FASHION TERRORIST!
If my father’s dementia hasn’t completely taken over (he was very sick last we spoke), then hopefully his idea of his only son hasn’t changed. Papa, believe that I am a patsy in all this; believe that, like you always thought, I’m too dim-witted to have pulled off whatever
CLASSIFIED
offense they’re saying I’ve committed.

Papa,
mahal mo pa ba ako?
Do you still love me? Even after the shame I’ve brought on our name?

Don’t buy into the term they’ve created for my current state (“detained”). I am within the walls of a prison that sits on the gulf of nowhere behind rows and rows of concertina wire. Mines, left
over from a faded conflict with the
communistas
, litter the grounds outside the prison. Even in the bay, I’m told, there are mines. There is no way in or out of here but to be taken into custody, escorted to and fro, as far as I know. So if it is true that I am a prisoner here, then I must have been arrested! Otherwise, how did I get here? Even prisoners of war must be placed under arrest. And if my captors will not admit to my arrest, then I shall increase my charge against them to, simply put, kidnapping! And kidnapping, even where I’m from, is no small offense.

Sure, it began with the knock on the door in the middle of the night, but a kidnapping is a kidnapping is a kidnapping.

I am willing to give my captors the benefit of the doubt—they’re Americans, after all, they deserve it. Let’s say that I have been arrested and that the crucial parts that come after the arrest (arraignment, trial by jury, etc.) were mistakenly skipped because of some loophole in the system.
²
They must have their reasons, we have to assume.

Just as I must continue to assume that my reservations with Special Agent Spyro exist simply to determine what I know about Ahmed Qureshi, aka Punjab Ami, alleged arms dealer and broker of my dreams.

And what do I know?

I know that the small operation in Sunset Park that had put together all of our samples for the Strange Fruit collection would never have been able to handle the Barneys order. And that the
manufacturing costs on Fashion Avenue were too expensive to be covered by the advance, generous as it was.

To further complicate matters, in April Ben got word that Neiman Marcus was now interested in acquiring my collection. They had passed on me during fashion week, but because of my profile in
W
, things were suddenly spinning out of control.

Ahmed, once again, was nowhere to be found.

“I’m not cut out for this shit on my own,” I told Ben.

“You’re right. You have to hire more people.”

“I just got an intern.”

“So get three more. Will you listen to yourself? If Neiman Marcus wants a taste, that means Bergdorf Goodman too. We’re gonna make
una
milione
! Just keep your head out of the oven.”

Sound advice.

By then I had begun popping Xanax by the fistful to fend off spells of anxiety. Now that I was a known designer, the little purple pills were the only things that could get me through a day.

Armed with the Neiman news, I tried to reach Ahmed on his cell phone again and again with no such luck. In the beginning, having a partner who was never around had felt like a blessing. Be careful what you wish for. A fashion label is a company in the end, and a company can’t be run by one person, me especially. I needed Ahmed to step up more than ever. Not just to keep us afloat with funds, but to handle the manufacturing aspect with his wily head for business. Not knowing where to find him, I grew desperate. Then, an act of serendipity: Herizon delivered a stack of phone books to my building. Those big biblical books were normally an annual nuisance that littered the foyer until someone eventually employed the good sense to toss them on behalf of all
the other tenants. I only noticed them this time because, on my way out one morning, the guys from the design-build collective were using one of them as a doorstop in the foyer while they loaded their van with custom-built sets. Putting my foot in its place, I tore the book open, and there, would you believe it, was Ahmed Qureshi, listed next to my old address on Evergreen Avenue. It was a 718 area code, a landline. I tore the page from the book as they do in the movies and threw it back down where I had found it.

I ran up to the roof of the toothpick factory, dialing the number. What was I doing up there? I have no idea. Only that it would somehow feel more dramatic to make a phone call from the roof. Perhaps I thought a cell phone calling an ancient landline needed the best reception possible.

Yuksel, Ahmed’s houseboy, picked up.

“Yuksel, it’s Boy. Where’s Ahmed? It’s urgent.”

“I ays so sorry, sir. He ays busy.”

“Too busy to talk, eh?”

“Very busy, sir.”

“Devil take you! I need to speak to him at once.”

The dimwit hung up on me as soon as I became irate. I pictured him glowering on the other end, that permanent smile of his plastered above his weak chin. Redialing brought on a sound I had thought extinct. A goddamn busy signal! The stupid imp had left the phone off the hook. I could have killed him. “Arrrgh!” I yelled out over the city.

What choice was I left with?

I hopped the train to Bushwick.

The neighborhood hadn’t changed. It was just as depressed as it had been when I’d left it more than three years earlier. Broken
bottles and butts, newspaper coupons from the local pennysaver scattered along the sidewalks. A new crop of recent college graduates had filtered into the Kosciuszko homes—I could tell by the different tags along the buildings. Crypdick and Smock and
ARTJOY
, the writers of my day, had been replaced by G.W. S8tan, Viet911,
FUCK BUSH
, and
BITCHES NOT BOMBS
. Everything had taken on a political slant. A little Hispanic kid across the street from the Kosciuszko homes called out to me: “Go back to China, faggot!” The tiny bugger actually got to me. Had it been that long since I’d been openly harassed? I looked down at my red jeans and my patent leather Nikes and my Marc carryall, and I felt ashamed.

So I reacted with something I’d thought myself incapable of. I gave the child the finger. If the child had been any older I wouldn’t have dared! But seeing as how he had acted alone, I felt he deserved his own lesson in humility.

“Oh, no you di’n’t! No you di’n’t!” he shouted.

But oh yes, I most certainly did.

Now pumped with adrenaline, I walked up my old front stoop on Evergreen Avenue and rang the bell. The shades were drawn at Ahmed’s. I stepped back to have a look at my old apartment on the second floor. The air conditioner Ahmed had helped me install back then was still in the window. It was leaning out, tilted at an unsafe angle. A pigeon landed on top of it and shat.

I was buzzed in.

“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling and calling. All I get is busy, busy, busy.”

Ahmed took me by the arm and led me into the apartment. He peered out into the hall after me. “Were you followed?”

“What?”

“It’s a fair question.”

“Why would I be followed?”

He closed the door and bolted the locks.

I turned around and walked right into a large bureau in the foyer.

“Give me a hand, will you?” He directed me to help him move the bureau against the front door as a barricade.

“What’s going on?”