Laura always followed the more conservative path.
My next black leather acquisition was a motorcycle jacket and matching boots I bought when I got my 125 cc Ducati. I quickly learned to drive the bike and passed my driver’s test easily.
It’s a good thing I’d learned how to drive a car with standard transmission—several of them, actually, because I got my lessons from whoever had the time and inclination to give them—one of my three older brothers or my father. I think I wrecked the hand brake in one car because I always forgot to release it before driving off.
Larry—my Cooper Union friend from Newark—rode on the back of the Ducati when we drove from New Jersey into Manhattan for parties. It was nerve-wracking trying to avoid the oil slick in the center of the lane going through the Holland Tunnel. I slowed down and drove cautiously through it while the cars behind me honked.
Coming back late at night there was usually no traffic and we always made it home safely. Years later I thought Larry had been foolish to sit behind me on that bike after I’d been drinking all night. We were both young, foolish, and lucky.
For years after I no longer owned a motorcycle or had any opportunity to drive one, I kept renewing that motorcycle license, just in case.
The next black leather coat I loved was a stylish one I wore in my late twenties. At least, I thought it was stylish. This was in the early seventies when everyone was wearing mini-skirts. The coat was short, too—a wrap-around with a leather belt to hold it together.
One night I was wearing that coat when Herb and I went to a party in Manhattan. I drank too much, Herb didn’t like it, and we got into a fight. Pissed off, I put on that coat and walked out the door.
All I could do was walk around the block.
In a few minutes Herb came after me. “You shouldn’t be walking the streets alone in that coat,” he said. “You look like a prostitute.”
I stopped wearing that coat.
A few years later, I left Herb.
As I got older, I chose my coats for comfort and warmth, rather than style. Living in Ithaca now, I like to have a lightweight but warm jacket with lots of pockets for hiking in the woods. It has to have a hood, too, for when it rains and snows.
I never use an umbrella—I just wear a coat with a hood.
As Adrian got older, he had trouble finding clothes—especially coats—that worked for him. I’d take him shopping, but we could never find anything that fit right. Or he’d complain the zipper was too hard to work.
In the last few years of his life, he mostly wore my old winter coats. He had shrunk and my size fit him better. My coats were warm and lightweight and always had a hood.
Toward the end of his life, he could not manage any kind of zipper or buttons. I’d always be there to help him, but he’d get impatient with his own clumsiness.
It seemed to take forever to get him all dressed in his coat, gloves, hat and boots. He felt the cold deep in his bones, so I bundled him up good.
Adrian liked my red jacket the best, and I still have it in the closet. Once in a while, when his son Owen comes to visit in the winter, he’ll wear the red jacket. He thinks of it as his father’s jacket and doesn’t seem to notice that it’s women’s clothing.
It keeps him warm, too.
