I was finally picked up out of the trenches of the thrift store, and it wasn't by my usual suitors. It was a small girl blasting not heavy metal but of all things Taylor Swift!?! I sat in the back, wondering where this journey would take me with this relatively innocent girl, and started to reflect on my past.
I will admit that I've had a wildlife. I've been marked and patched with my previous wearer's adventures, from assisting my wearer at boot camp to riding through windy mountains on a Harley Davidson at highly questionable speeds. I've done it all.
I started my life unscuffed, perfectly stitched, and ready to add warmth and style to my wearer, and then I met Thomas. Thomas was a kid who, in my personal opinion, needed direction, or he was going to end up in jail. On our first night together, he got into a fistfight with some punks at a bar. Thomas was fine, but I definitely wasn't. My once buttery smooth arm had a gaping hole in it from one of the guy's knives, which led me to believe that I was destined for the bin. Thomas ended up repairing me. He carefully placed a national park patch on my wound, making me feel infinitely more badass than I was at the time.
Two years into my riveting relationship, we discovered we were going to Vietnam. It was the summer of 69,' and I had finally just started getting comfortable with my wearer's "devil may give a fuck" attitude and even started picking up his traits and integrating them into my personality. Gone were the days of being unscathed and innocent. I was now the kind of jacket the frilly pink cardigans couldn't tell their blazer elders about. When I heard about Vietnam, I was reluctant but didn't have a choice, so I stayed on his shoulders on the flight over and by his side during basic boot camp.
Thomas lasted four months in the war before meeting his demise. I was officially orphaned. His general sent me back to his mom with a flight path drawn on my inside and a new patch commemorating his war efforts. When I got to her home, she couldn't face me. Whenever she even thought about trying to touch me, she left the room. I sat in a box for three years in a cold, dark room. I grew dusty, and my leather cracked from a lack of attention. I thought that through her grief, I might end up similarly meeting my demise in the same fashion that Thomas did, alone. She finally took me to a thrift store on a cold day in November, where I listened to the cries of all the other abandoned clothing for what seemed like an eternity.
I ended up being circled in and out of thrift stores for years. The story seemed the same every time; some neighborhood grunge punk would pick me up and bring me home, where they would continuously spill beer on me and cover me in cigarette smoke. The people who were taking me home were all similar: wild, depressed, and overall shitty. They would end up in jail, or they would end up dead, and I would end up right back where I started, in a thrift store with other abandoned pieces.
As the years went on, I became more bitter. I didn't like anyone who took me home, and they knew it. I purposely sabotaged their outfits by splitting at my seams and forcing my zipper to lock up on them. I gained a few new patches from these owners, but that was it. None of them compared to the love that Thomas had given me.
In 2021 after sitting in a thrift store in Atlanta for over a year untouched, I had given up hope of finding another suitor, and I thought I would be used for scraps or discarded in a landfill if we're being honest. I passed the time by cracking jokes with the other unloved jackets and was in the process of trash-talking one when suddenly a hand reached for me. To my surprise, it was the small girl who I knew I was much too big for. She analyzed all of my patches that told the story of my past and how my leather had been worn. Even after getting a good look at me, she still decided to take me to the front of the store to bring me home.
September 23, 2022
Vintage Leather Jacket
The Thrift Store in Little 5 that the Jacket was purchased from.