MY LATE UNCLE HENRY'S SPRING SUITS CAME IN HANDY. Auntie could not have been nicer. Imagine the old gal handing me a closet full of finely tailored clothes just for crossing a few t's and dotting some i's on Henry’s homemade will.

"Just look this over, will you dear?" she had asked. "You know your uncle. He's not infallible."

I did know my uncle. Henry was a man who preferred to do most things for himself. And he was thorough too, but she was my Auntie. What could I say to her but, "Of course."

At first, wearing his neat pinstripes, seersuckers, and sharkskins, all crisp and pleated, got me noticed. Tastemakers down at the Firm applauded all around. You know, nothing makes a suit stand up and take notice like another suit. And so it was probably unwise to mention to Stevens, or anyone else at the office, that the clothes had been made for another man.

My admission, if one could call it that, just slipped out. Water cooler talk. A couple of boys killing time. I don't know why really, but I was feeling full of myself, hearty, confident even. I was wearing an ice blue sharkskin number, circa 1966, and chatting with Stevens when he said he liked my jacket.

"That's a nice cut, Ralph. A little retro, but right."

"Thank you," I said, easing into the conversation. "You know, it's remarkable, Sam."

"What's that?"

And then I let it slip. I wasn't thinking about anything but the phenomenon of coincidence. "Why, the notion that one man's clothes—that is, clothes specifically designed for someone else—could fit me so well. Kismet, I guess."

Kismet to me, but not to Sam Stevens, who turned frosty. "I see," he huffed, and walked away.

Then I made a remark. It started as a pulse really. I felt it undulate from the knot-end of my tie to my vocal chords. "Don't go away mad," I said after him.

"What was that?"

"I say don't go away mad, Sam. You can figure out the rest."

I probably don't have to tell you that he kept right on walking to his office.

In no time flat—I'm guessing in the time it takes to fire off an e-mail—what had been viewed by the partners as a stab at refinement, a touch of class, and good old American "go for it" spirit, was swiftly reviewed as recycling. And while that may be considered politically correct in some circles, it did not sit well with the movers and shakers at Upton, Frank, and Stern.

So I traded them away. That's right, I gave them up, one by one to various gristle-faced and needy persons I met on the street, swapping my things for theirs. Then I began to wear the things I got in exchange to work. Why not? If they could stand a washing, I could stand to wear them. Upon seeing me in polyester jackets and ripped denims, my colleagues thought I must be doing detective work for one of my clients. You know, undercover stuff.

Stevens, now the boldest among them, took me aside one day and said, "Look here, I don't mean to tell you your business, but you know, get a P.I. for whatever it is you're on. You're embarrassing the Firm."

In one of my street transactions I acquired a straw hat, a sporty little chapeau that featured a patch of artificial turf with a plastic golf ball nestled at the top, right in the middle, like a little bird in a nest. Beautiful. The whole business—the hat, the coffee-stained and grease-blotted leisure suits, the white belts, and motley tennis shoes—earned me the kind of recognition I never could have imagined.

Instead of corporations, I went to work for the guy who sold me my newspapers and the other people I saw every day. It felt good. It was like being handed a map of the human heart. The map was a puzzle that held some secret everybody needed to hear, but I was the one with the three-day head start. I was the one tumbling to the clues. Everybody trusted me. They brought me coffee and donuts.

Eventually I quit the Firm, started my own practice, and signed a television contract for a free legal advice call-in show. And it felt good. All of it, like being reborn. You know, like an old boy putting on a brand new skin.


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