Casual
SKINNER, DAVID
Casual SHADES OF ME I am a person of color. Orange, for the most part, but more than a little salmon-y pink as well. I am a person of pattern, too—with many summers' worth of freckles accumulating...
...No...
...I said, touching my arms...
...I asked...
...he asked breathlessly...
...Anyway, having freckles seemed to me a good thing, and though I had more than most in my neighborhood, frecklefaces were common enough that mine didn't cause much comment...
...What happened to you...
...As Kara Jesella, an editor at Teen Vogue, told the Washington Post, freckles are "fresh faced and all-American...
...Thinking photographically, I sometimes imagined having a close-up taken of my back—where my spots are biggest—and marketing the pattern...
...No...
...Just as I moved to sign for my credit-card transaction, the cashier, another thin and swarthy citizen with eyes and mouth wide open, asked what had happened to my arms...
...The Skinner Freckle Print© could have been used on scarves, wallpaper, car seat covers (for those gaudy muscle cars), pants, shirts, and so on...
...Do you use medication for that...
...Does that hurt...
...Were you in an accident...
...Color consciousness came to me early...
...But looking to make sure, I saw nothing unusual about the short, orange limbs extending from the sleeves of my T-shirt...
...It now dawned on me what he was talking about...
...It could only be my freckles he was inquiring about, so my response was all haughty disdain: "What...
...I was with my mother at the supermarket...
...We then had the usual conversation one has about freckles: "Do you get those from the sun...
...Lancome, the cosmetics company, couldn't agree more, and is marketing a special crayon for drawing on freckles...
...The cashier, who spoke with a heavy accent, seemed relieved that having freckles didn't cause pain...
...As a child, I knew I was one of several living creatures set apart by color and spot...
...Has anyone ever tried dressing a leopard in a leopard print...
...Over there they have the axis of evil, over here we have freckles...
...To coax the awful truth from me, he said, "Don't worry...
...Except on one occasion...
...he asked...
...I liked my life as it was, and my own confetti-like orange spots...
...This...
...A kid— he was thin and swarthy—came over with his head jutting forward and his eyes and mouth wide open...
...What do you mean...
...I won't make fun of you...
...Freckles," Lancome artistic director Ross Burton told the Post, "are a symbol of freedom...
...Spotted, a zoologist might say, but not for camouflage, except perhaps when hiding in the leafy branches of late-autumn New England trees, which I don't do very often...
...Did you burn yourself or something...
...His jungle was free, but he had to kill to survive, which didn't seem much fun, and besides, were I ever able to trade places with him, I wasn't sure my mom could come along...
...He gasped—as if he hadn't realized the affliction was actually all over me...
...I wondered if he would have been so inquisitive with a guy who really had suffered burns up and down his arms...
...But for me, this distinguishing characteristic signals something besides America and freedom, something far deeper and more personal...
...It was hard to remain unaffected by the boy's obvious compassion for his fellow man, er, boy...
...I don't remember how I answered, but an almost identical incident occurred at my local liquor store a few weeks ago...
...Which, she added, "ties into what's going on politically...
...What happened to your face...
...Gone are the days of Howdy Doo-dy jokes or worse...
...Now freckles speak of national resolve...
...I could have worn one of those shirts, donning a print identical to the one on my skin underneath...
...I am a person of pattern, too—with many summers' worth of freckles accumulating on my arms and shoulders and other sun-exposed parts...
...Well, it's partly the sun, but more than that it's the melanin of my skin that causes it to freckle in sunlight...
...My ancestors were from Ireland and a lot of Irish people have freckles...
...DAVID SKINNER...
...I say it loud, and I say it proud: Freckles are the essence of what it means to be orange like me...
...Well, they should...
...And yet, these days, freckles are said to be "in," with it, a sign of the times...
...I'd ponder the connection between the leopard and me, thinking he had the better pattern, but I the better life...
...I thought I must be bleeding...
...When we were kids, a cousin said I looked like I'd stood behind a screen while someone threw an unmentionable substance at me...
...She was in the middle of her negotiations with the cashier concerning a clipping from her vast file of very embarrassing coupons...
Vol. 9 • September 2003 • No. 3
