We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [92]
I will say, the tiny-clothes thing did get a lot across. At first glance, he looked poverty-stricken, and I stopped myself more than once from commenting that “people will think” we don’t earn enough to buy our growing boy new jeans; adolescents are so greedy for signals that their parents are consumed with social status. Besides, a closer inspection revealed that his shrunken getup was designer labeled, lending the pretense at hard luck a parodic wink. The suggestion of a wash load churned at an errantly high temperature connoted a comic ineptitude, and the binding of a child-sized jacket across the shoulders would sometimes pull his arms goofily out from his sides like a baboon’s. (That’s as close as he’s come to fitting the mold of a conventional cutup; no one I’ve spoken to about our son has ever mentioned finding him funny.) The way the hems of his jeans stopped shy of his socks made a hayseedy impression, consonant with his fondness for playing dumb. There was more than a suggestion of Peter Pan about the style—a refusal to grow up—though I’m confused why he would cling so to being a kid when throughout his childhood he seemed so lost in it, knocking around in those years much the way I was rattling around our enormous house.
Claverack’s experimental policy of allowing inmates to wear street clothes has allowed Kevin to reiterate his fashion statement inside. While New York’s corner boys flapping in outsized gear look like toddlers from a distance, Kevin’s shrunken mode of dress has the opposite effect of making him look bigger—more adult, bursting. One of his psych consultants has accused me of finding the style unnerving for its aggressive sexuality: Kevin’s crotch cuts revealingly into his testicles, and the painted-on T-shirts make his nipples protrude. Perhaps; certainly the tight sleeve hems, the taut collars, and the yanked-in waistbands strap his body in cords and remind me of bondage.
He looks uncomfortable, and in this respect the garb is apt. Kevin is uncomfortable; the tiny clothing replicates the same constriction that he feels in his own skin. Reading his suffocating attire as equivalent to a penitential hair shirt might seem a stretch, but the waistbands chafe, the collars score his neck. Discomfort begets discomfort in others, of course, and that, too, must be part of the plan. I often find that when I’m with him I pull at my own clothes, discreetly prizing a seam from between my buttocks or releasing an extra button on my blouse.
Eyeing laconic interchanges at adjoining tables, I’ve detected that some of his fellow inmates have started to mimic Kevin’s eccentric dress sense. I gather that T-shirts in unusually small sizes have become prized possessions, and Kevin himself has mentioned smugly that runts are being robbed of their clothes. He may hold imitators up to ridicule, but he does seem gratified at having initiated his very own fad. Were he commensurately concerned with originality two years ago, the seven students he used for target practice would be preparing applications to the college of their choice by now.
Anyway, today? He lounged into the visiting room wearing what must have been one of the runts’ sweatpants, since I didn’t recognize them as ones I’d bought. The little plaid button-down he wore on top was only secured by the middle two buttons, exposing his midriff. Now even his tennis shoes are too small, and he crushes their heels under his feet. He might not like to hear me say it, but he’s graceful. There’s a languor to his motions, as to the way he talks. And he always has that skew, too; he walks sideways, like a crab. Leading with his left hip gives him the subtle sidle of a supermodel on a catwalk. If he realized I saw traces of effeminacy