13 November 2007
Bram had a fashion sense

...all his own.

Bram brightened the world when he was in it. Funny, though; his favorite kind of days were cloudy, threatening to rain ones. He said they were great days for taking long walks and contemplating. The endless sunshine of Reno made Bram sad. Definitely no flannel weather. Bram felt you could never have—or wear—too many flannel shirts.

The first time I ever saw Bram, he was wearing a flannel. He was really big back then—the not P.c. word is fat. If I put my arms around his waist, I couldn’t touch my fingers together. I’ll never forget my fist look at Bram. Let’s start at his feet. He was wearing brown wing tipped Doc Martins. He had on one melon-colored sock; the other was salmon. He was wearing rust shorts that ended just below his knees. He was a big guy, but he had found a T-shirt that swallowed him, like a kindergartner wearing his dad’s shirt. The t-shirt was a dark pink. Over this, he had a purple plaid vest. He had a flannel shirt tied around his waist, the tails flapping as he walked. He wore big, nerdy glasses, like Clark Kent. His hair was shoulder length and spiral permed, uncombed, messy, flapping as he walked. On top of this hair, he had on a winter hat. One of those crocheted or knitted things in the shape of a beret, with concentric circles of different colors, topped of with a big, fuzzy ball. Except the ball was unraveling and hung even with his chin, swinging back and forth. I was entranced. He was so wildly dressed and so obviously happy to be walking in the sunshine. He saw me seeing him and walked straight up to me. For the life of me, I can’t remember what he said. Bram always said odd things, things that were nonsensical, too make people smile. But he said something to me and walked away. And I thought, “I have to know this man.”
The next time I saw him, he buried his face in my hair and told me I smelled like a girl.
He had a fashion sense that was so different, so very Bram…
He loved vests. I made them for him all the time. He wanted to have enough vests to wear a different one every day of the year. One Christmas I made him a maroon jacquard vest. It was shot through with black and gold. Very fancy, very formal. That same Christmas, the kids bought him a bright lime green dress shirt to wear to work. He was a manager in a book store. He wore the maroon vest and the lime shirt together. Sounds horrible, I know. But it wasn’t. Bram made it look great. He could just pull off the wildest color schemes. Because he was Bram.
I made him a bright pink Chinese print vest. It had little light blue flowers on it and he wore it with a bright blue shirt—shirt untucked, of course. He wore this pink vest to work as often as he could because one of his coworkers told him that men shouldn’t wear pink. He did it to tease her. And because he could wear bright pink and look just fine.

I have a closet full of Bram’s clothes: flannels, vests, brightly colored dress shirts. His latest mania was hoodies. I can’t bear to pack them away in a box. I can’t bear the thought of someone else wearing them. Somebody else might try to make these clothes match. Bram’s clothes deserve better.

thought by Bram Davidson around 10:53 PM
3 things said by the gallery