I was a few minutes from the steakhouse when I realized I didn’t have my sports jacket. This wasn’t a meeting or a restaurant where a gentleman dines without a jacket; I was meeting a banker: late 50s, debonair, sinewy—a former Navy SEAL with an aggressive jawline and a mischievous grin.
My cage rarely gets rattled in the company of powerful men, but when their former job included a star on their shoulder, I find myself self-conscious. Does my tie have a dimple? Are my loafers shined? Did I shave this morning? But when I’m in the company of men who were SEALs, Delta Force, and the like, well, I can get a bit rattled.
The first SEAL I met was a Team Six sniper and New York Times best seller. I read his book and reached out to see if he wanted to meet. After some back and forth, he agreed to meet at a remote park.
Upon sitting down, he pulled out a Glock and laid it on the table with the barrel pointing at my sternum.
I had to ask, “So, what the hell is that for?”
“You never know who you’re meeting with,” he coldly replied.
“I couldn’t agree more, but unfortunately, I left mine in the car. Mind if I grab it?”
He grinned. Ice was broken—thank God. It’s an odd set of circumstances when you’re in the company of a man whom you know has taken another man’s life. And in his case, it wasn’t “a man”—it was a LOT of men. I’ve met professional athletes, famous musicians, and even billionaires, but trust me: they pale in comparison to a Team Six sniper.
Luckily, he was a cigar and scotch guy, like me, so we fired up a few sticks and poured ourselves three fingers’ worth of Macallan. While he sipped on his like a gentleman, I gulped mine down like Gatorade. Mind you, I had a loaded pistol pointed at my chest, and the quick-draw artist to whom it belonged was a NAVY SEAL TEAM SIX SNIPER!
We got along famously and ended up talking for several hours. A few months later, he attended a Christmas party that I hosted in a kilt—my kind of guy.
Anyway, as you can see, my first run-in with a special-ops guy was … shall we say … insane. On this occasion, though, en route to a steakhouse to meet another American Badass, I was missing my jacket, and there was NO WAY I was showing up without one. I was running low on time and needed an immediate solution.
I happened to pass a thrift store, so I made a U-turn, parked, and went straight to the suit rack. Now, if you’ve ever gone “thrifting,” it’s always hit or miss, with miss usually being the darling of the dance. I had my fingers crossed that a fellow 44R had just retired and dropped off his wardrobe from the Polo shop on Madison Avenue, or, if the haberdashery gods were feeling generous, Huntsman.
I thumbed through a few dozen threadbare suit jackets of the worst variety—just awful, god-awful. I was quickly losing hope.
But then something fortuitous happened. At the end of the rack sat a decent-looking herringbone jacket. My first thought was that this is too good to be true. And second was, what are the chances it’s a 44, or even a 42 or 46?
I could hear Burt Reynolds laughing at Big Enos and Little Enos in Smokey and the Bandit: “Oh, I love your suits. It must have been a bitch to get a 68 Extra Fat and a 12 Dwarf.” This jacket was sure to fit one of them, but not me. As many times as I had been in a secondhand store, I had never come close to finding something so handsome.
As I grabbed it off the rack, my fingertips realized it was Saxony tweed. At this point, I began praying: Dear Jesus, I know I’m a heathen with more vice than virtue, but I need a jacket! Before I knew it, I was confessing my sins like Chunk in The Goonies.
“In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max’s toupee and glued it on my face when I played Moses in my Hebrew school play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and blamed it on the dog… and then my mom sent me to the… to the summer camp for fat kids… and then they served lunch and I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out!”
I needed a number in the low to mid-40s in the lining of the jacket, so after pleading with the Almighty, I closed one eye and held my breath as I opened the jacket—and damned if I didn’t see 44R—and next to it was a label that said: Polo by Ralph Lauren!
Jackpot, baby! I found the motherlode. If I had a cowboy hat, I would’ve been tossing it around like Slim Pickens riding the bomb in Dr. Strangelove. This was better than scratching off a winner at the gas station. I was ecstatic. I tried it on, and it fit like a glove.
Attached to the sleeve was a green price tag that said $8.00. When I checked out, the green tag meant it was 40% off, so I ended up with a classic herringbone jacket for five bucks. I threw it on and hightailed it to the restaurant. Luckily, I was wearing grey trousers, a blue button-down, and a dark green tie. It was meant to be.
Ten years later, it’s still in perfect condition. I rarely wear it because it’s quite heavy, but on a cool autumn day, there isn’t a finer five-dollar jacket to be worn.
Contributor Bradley A. Evans is a good buddy, a UGA grad, and an idea guy. He lives in New York City and is the founder of The Bohemian Capitalist. We’re lucky to have his thoughts here at RCS…more to come.
Love it. About seven years ago I found a Brooks Brothers blazer in green tweed at a local thrift store and paid $1.25 for it. Took it to my tailor and had it taken in and a few moth holes patched up and about $12 later it was good to go. I get complimented on it every time I wear it. Sometimes you find gold in thrift stores.
Thank you. I had to get the sleeves taken up a little, but that was it.