What Makes a Man Take His Shirt Off by Derrick Martin-Campbell
“I take my shirt off because babes, obviously, babes everywhere”
Fiction by Derrick Martin-Campbell
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I take my shirt off because it is permitted and, as a man, I am entitled to whatever is permitted. No sooner have I conceived a desire than it is made manifest. Life, like my shirt, is a light switch flipped and the time between my wish and its realization is the time it takes light to fill a room. My red solo cup is opaque to protect me from its vertigo-inducing quantum state, no sooner full than its contents have been consumed, no sooner empty than it is full once more. Do you have a problem with my desires, bro? Can you help me locate them? Is it desire that lingers humid in this basement, this parking lot, the field behind my buddy’s house? Woods ring the edge of the field. My shirt is off because I have removed it and now I fear it may be gone forever.
I take my shirt off because it’s hot, so hot already beneath this suit of armor that is my body. Medieval knights routinely died of heart-attacks and asphyxiation, expired sweating, panting in their polished metal tombs. What is my body but a tomb I carry with me always, polish desperately whenever possible, mornings at the gym, after work, late at night when I can’t sleep, following good and bad days. Would you cover the hand-forged, steel breastplate of your lord’s crest in a shitty “Keep Calm and Chive On” shirt? Do you ever go to the gym and just sit there, growing older on the free-weight bench, mirrors smirking all around you? Would you step outside with me for a sec? Please? It’s so hot in here, I’m begging you.
I take my shirt off because babes, obviously, babes everywhere. Compelled by dark forces, I search out the weakest one, pursue her through the night. I take my shirt off, pleased that she cannot do likewise, before noticing the others, too late: a trick. They emerge en masse from the shadows like wolves, suddenly all around me, a slowly shrinking circle of babes, and I at the center. My exposed flesh goosebumps beneath their gaze, shirtless. Their grinning chops drip with anticipation.
I take my shirt off because I hate it. I mean look at it, look at this cheap piece of shit. I open magazines, turn on the TV, walk the streets through forests of shimmering glamour and metallic fabric, raw silk blouses and tailored silhouettes, a mummer’s parade of liquid persona, suggestion, and performance, and you think a t-shirt will contain me? I am multitudes, probably. Maybe. I feel a struggle deep within me impossible to articulate. The struggle mounts. I barf on my shirt. All my shirts smell like barf. I wipe my mouth, thirsty, keep drinking.
I take my shirt off because it’s on fire. Which one of you has set my shirt on fire? I will fucking kill you, bro. Seriously, I will kill all of you. I’m crazy. I set my own shirt on fire. Don’t fuck with me like this.
I take my shirt off for my brothers. I hope you know I would die for any one of you, my shirtless brothers. My beautiful, furious shirtless brothers.
I take my shirt off to tear it into strips for distribution among the survivors as bandages. This party has gotten out of hand. Familiar with the sound of tearing shirts from movies, I grip the material in my fists as the wounded cry out around me. I pray that I am strong enough.
I take my shirt off because I often played shirtless as a child, ran screaming beneath the green shadows of my parents’ yard before collapsing finally in the cool summer dirt, at peace. Once, in high school, my friend’s cousin showed us a video that he said was from a camera they’d buried in a coffin with a guy. In my dreams, the guy has pants on but no shirt for some reason. At odd intervals, he breathes. I wonder if he is cold. Sometimes he’s me. As I age, the boundary between my memories and my dreams grows porous. I mail my dirty laundry home to my mom, sit awaiting its return on the edge of my sheetless bed, run my fingers lightly up my ribs. When the box comes back, I take the still-warm shirts from their neatly folded stacks, cannot pull the first one on fast enough. I breathe deeply, recall the gardens of my youth, feel my tired heart flood as I begin to weep. My skin breaks out from the detergent. Shirts. What the fuck am I supposed to do with all these shirts? Please God fucking tell me.
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Header Photo by Brent Galen Adkins. If you'd like to see a photo essay by Brent Galen Adkins, view ", i'm bored" here.
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Derrick Martin-Campbell is a writer living in Portland, OR. His work has previously appeared in Metazen and Thought Catalog. More information and links about Derrick Martin-Campbell can be found here.