Educating Ronald.

Even though I moved out of Buford a couple months ago, I've been returning to the mall lately on my days off to meet with a friend of mine.

Ronald, whom I haven't mentioned here before, is 18. He's a straight, cute, smart-alecky yet delightfully refreshing skater kid who comes to my bookstore and used to question me constantly when I was working about what CDs are cool and why our music is too expensive. Girls, particularly the anti-establishment types wearing dark clothes, always look over at him while they browse, if he's in the store.

The first time I met him over a year ago, Ronald was in the section with his aunt, and I told him that a girl was staring at him, blushing. He thought that was funny. He likes girls, but he doesn't like when they get all stupid over him.

He came back later, asking me questions in this wiseass tone of voice. Sensing his personality, I started to joke around with him, telling him that his giant silver necklace would set off the security sensors or that he was going to step on his giant shirt on his way out of the store. In response, he said I was dressed like some ridiculously preppy dork, and he said the music I liked was stupid, corporate-prepackaged pop bullshit. A friendship was born through this. He said he could talk to me because I was sarcastic.

Co-workers in my store who have gotten to know him, incidentally, love the kid. Though he dresses like the sort we're wary about, he's not like that. He's loud, honest, funny, intelligent and blunt. He deserves all kindness.

I found out, after a couple conversations with him, that Ronald used to be trouble. Lots of trouble. He started drugs when he was 10. He dropped out or was kicked out of school because he was constantly on something. He'd been in and out of juvenile hall. That surprised me about him. He's so bright and so funny that you'd think or hope that he'd somehow escaped any major trouble. But the Ronald I'd met wasn't the way, apparently, Ronald had always been.

(An interesting, quirky side note illustrates Ronald's personality fairly well. He now makes and sells designer pillows - any size, any fabric - because he's in recovery from serious drug addiction, has a lot of free time on his hands and, in his words, took four years' worth of Home Ec classes because officials at his high school told him he was too heavily drugged to use the machinery necessary in a shop class. Apparently, his pillows, as a result, are absolutely terrific. If someone asks him what he does for a living, he says to them, "I make pillows." The look on the person's face is always amusing.)

He was arrested, which got him away from his mother and father. Then, he went on probation. Then, he went into recovery. Then, he received his GED. Then, he started coming to my store. Then, he fell off the wagon after some bad stuff happened with his family. Now, he's back at his aunt's house. He's on medication for some psychological conditions. Now, he's drug-free again, investing more time in his skating and his pillows. As I said, he's 18.

I found out a couple months ago that the friends who he needs to hang out with him at the mall frequently stand him up, leaving him standing around or loitering by himself because they do drugs still ... and he doesn't. The night he told me that, I bought him food at the cafe and spent time with him.

He needed somebody, and I was transferring bookstores. He wanted a way to contact me because he didn't want me to leave the store. So I gave him my cell number, and, after a couple weeks, he called me and asked me if I wanted to do something.

So I spent time with him at the mall, during which he met my mother, who told me that he was really nice and that she was interested in hearing more about his designer pillows. (Mom said all this, of course, after assuring herself that I was not dating Ronald. That, incidentally, was something I made clear to both Ronald and his aunt at the beginning of our friendship - which was that I was gay and needed him to know that I was trustworthy and wasn't interested in him in that way. He's not gay, of course, but I just needed to make sure that boundary was there. I have talked to his aunt whenever I had concerns about this, which she thought were paranoid, but I want no talk, no confusion and no trouble for him.)

He needed reliable friends, so Ronald and I hang out, even though I didn't end up leaving the bookstore. We saw THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS on Friday night. We talk and have dinner sometimes. (He won't let me pay. It's amusing to me, but it's understandable, I guess.)

I told a friend of mine that Ronald was my friend, but the relationship was different.

"It's like a Big Brother program, I guess," I said to him.

"Really?" my friend asked me. "Is he helping you?"

After I saw him Friday night, Ronald called me and asked me a favor, one that I found sorta amusing.

He's going on a cruise with his aunt and uncle in December, and they'll be eating at some nice restaurants. Ronald asked me, saying he had no other friends that he could really ask, if I could help him find dressier clothes for the trip.

"You've been watching QUEER EYE, haven't you?" I asked him.

"No," Ronald said, laughing. "I mean, I've seen it, but it's not like that. You're just the only friend I have who knows anything about this. Everyone else would laugh at me. And you sorta dress OK."

He has a couple months to pick out a couple outfits, but the boy told me that he had no idea where to start.

"I don't know colors or anything," he said. "And I know this is stupid and weird and all, but I'd like it if you could help me."

"But I used to pick on what you wore all the time," I said.

"Yeah, I know," Ronald said.

So Saturday night, Ronald and I were back at Mall of Georgia, talking about what he needed for his trip. His aunt specified, for she knows about his project but his uncle doesn't, that he needs a pair of black dress pants and a pair of khakis to wear. Ronald wants me to shop with him so that he can surprise his aunt by wearing in front of her, for the first time, an outfit that fits.

Before yesterday, I'd never seen Ronald's waistline before. Skater wear or clothes that you could buy at Vans or something were his stock-in-trade outfit. His jeans are usually so baggy that they practically fall to the ground. His shirts, never tucked in or anything, hang to his knees.

So I wasn't surprised when, yesterday at Rich's-Macy's, he had no idea what his own sizes were. Janna, the Russian saleswoman I befriended while Ronald was out having a cigarette, was surprised, though, when I told her my friend shopping for clothes didn't know his sizes.

"What you mean he not know his own size?" Janna said, hanging things up on a bargain rack while I was talking to her. "How he not know that?"

"He intentionally wears clothes he knows are too big," I said.

"Huh?" she said in reply, her accent very, very thick. "Why he do that?"

"He likes baggy clothes," I said. "From what I can guess, I think he's about a 32-inch waist or a 33, but I've never seen him wear anything that size."

The pants he was wearing that day, Ronald had told me, were 42 inches in the waist. I mean, I was amazed they stayed on him, though he did always have to spend time pulling his pants up if we walked for a while.

Janna kept talking to me, looking at me like I was a damn lunatic talking about some made-up person until Ronald showed up in front of her, smelling like cigarettes. Then, she saw that I spoke the truth. His clothes would look loose on Mama Cass. (And yesterday, he looked much better than usual, for he was wearing a really nice shirt, one that was only slightly oversized as opposed to his usual severely-oversized ensemble.)

I thought he'd be reluctant to pick out anything, for, though I make fun of his clothes, they do suit him. I mean, it's his style, and it's true. But, at the same time, a boy should know the size of his waistline at the age of 18. He should own a pair of leather shoes. He should know not to wear a brown belt with black shoes, which is a common mistake. He should know that a basic white dress shirt is essential, for it goes with any kind of pants (even jeans) and makes an outfit easier to arrange because it can match a lot.

Ronald was eager to get started. He told me that he was actually learning a lot, watching Janna and I tear through the bargain bin for Liz Claiborne khakis that were both his size and marked down.

Janna, because I thought he would be more comfortable around a woman with a tape measure, determined that his neck was 16 inches, that he was 5-foot-10 and that he could wear 32 W - 32 L pants.

Ronald proclaimed that one outfit needed to have a tie.

He picked out a shimmering, white and off-white striped tie he liked. I was proud, for it was a really good tie.

I made sure that his first shirt was a black shirt, not just because it matched the tie. I figured he could at least harken back to some Goth inspiration with a black shirt, even though he's more sk8r than Goth ... and it was dress casual. I wanted him to still feel like himself, and Janna and I agreed that he should shop - rather than do the typical heterosexual male thing of buying the first outfit that he moderately liked in the store.

Ronald thought that was interesting, that I let him pick out the clothes AND that I tried to make sure that the entire outfit matched completely. ("What do you mean, I can't wear a brown belt with a black shirt and white pants??? The shirt has to match the belt? I thought that only the shoes had to match the belt???")

Every moment shopping with Ronald made me, actually, love my shopaholic mother more and more, for it's because of her inspiration that I know blue is both my best and my favorite color.

Ronald apparently didn't have someone like that. I noticed that, moreso than ever, when he was in the dressing room, completely made up, and he didn't know how to tie his own tie. So he asked me to do it.

"First, you need to button the top button on your shirt," I said to him.

"Really?" he asked. "I didn't even notice that was there."

It was, like, the cutest, funniest Hallmark moment I've ever had in my whole life. I did a variation, I called it, on a single Windsor. (The truth is, I only call it that, but I don't know if that's really what it was. It's the only way I know how to tie a tie. My dad, because of my own parents' divorce, never really showed me.)

Black shirt. White, off-white tie. Off-white khakis. A really good black belt with a shimmering, metallic buckle. And huge, white Adidas sneakers. Ronald looked the best I'd ever seen him look, and he still looked like himself.

"I actually like this," he said. "And I'm learning A LOT."

I couldn't stop smiling at him, and he thought that was funny.

"You're REALLY enjoying this, aren't you?" Ronald asked me.

"Yes, I really am," I said.

I felt like I was helping him, really helping him, because it was something that he both wanted and needed to do. And I felt like it was a way that I specifically could help him. I mean, anyone could give him a ride. Anyone could take him to dinner.

I took Ronald to a department store, and he came out knowing his sizes and the specifics of color coordination. And I tried to tell him about how you want yourself reflected in whatever outfit you have on - otherwise they're just clothes that don't reflect you, an outfit you'll feel uncomfortable in and only wear once.

We didn't buy anything at Rich's-Macy's, for I told him that, when you have time to shop, it's good to take time to look around at all your options. I told him about the Dawsonville outlet stores, specifically the Calvin Klein one that I try to visit at least once a year.

When we got back to Barnes & Noble to meet his aunt, he let me tell her about the clothes he'd selected, and I got all excited, to the point where it was almost silly.

She liked hearing that most of the stuff we looked at was markdown. She liked that I suggest Wal-mart as a viable place to get decent khakis. She seemed pleased when I told her that I was eventually going to see how Ronald, with his green eyes, felt about the color blue or the idea of tan pants. It turns out, of course, that she knew his sizes, even if he didn't.

"He always has me buy him extra-extra large, but I knew he was a 32," she said. "I've told you time and again that you were a 32."

She was surprised when I told her he was actually wearing pants that size.

"I don't think I've ever seen his waistline before," she said.

But she was most surprised about the tie I told her Ronald picked out.

"Yeah, I'm not concerned about what the tie has on it, so long as he's wearing one," she said. "I mean, it can have something completely ridiculous or silly on it. So long as he's got on a nice pair of pants or a nice shirt."

"No, it wasn't gaudy," I said. "It was a really good tie, and he picked it. Really good. I mean, it was white, but some material was shimmering. And it had these thick, diagonal stripes. You would've liked it. We just made sure everything worked around it."

"Ties are expensive," Ronald said to her, still with a hint of surprise in his voice. "But I liked the tie."

"Yeah, ties are expensive," his aunt said, looking at him like she wanted to give him a hug. Ronald has that way with girls.

Next week, we're supposed to do more shopping. (For the record, I have his sizes written down so that Janna or another saleswoman doesn't have to touch a tape measure again. Ronald said he didn't care, so long as they kept away from his "Johnson.")

When he left me that night, Ronald shook my hand, thanked me and told me it was fun. And when he left, I smiled to myself because I'd actually used one of my own strengths - or, at least, something my mom said I'm good at - to really help someone.