A long time ago, in a state far away, my best friend was Tony, an outspoken, argumentative nerd unlucky in love for being a difficult person to be around, but he had a certain chutzpah that I did admire. We had a lot in common, such as the nerdiness. We fell out of touch when I was in college, but when he joined the army in the early 2000s, he used to visit me in New York/New Jersey, and while he still considered me his best friend, I had a hard time being around him. He made all of my female friends and a few males uncomfortable, and he badmouthed me behind my back to my friends without thinking for a single moment that it would get back to me. He had become–before the term had hit the zeitgeist–a toxic male.

Upon my getting married, my wife gave me permission to quarantine him, but when he made a comment on a FB post calling all women who used birth control sluts, I cut him out. I spot him being an asshole to our mutual friends on their posts, and I don’t regret saying goodbye to him.

For a time, though, we had each other’s backs. Even when he was being a shit during his NY/NJ visits, there were always moments that charmed me. One weekend, he came to town with a mission: he was going to buy a leather trench coat, and inspired by the recent release of the forgettable Shaft remake starring Samuel L. Jackson, I whipped this up.