Oscar G. is shifting his weight-45 percent of his mass anchored on his left heel, the other 55 percent dancing nervously on the ball of his right foot. As a body language coach, he knows this is a tell. It is the physical manifestation of a man who wants to be elsewhere, perhaps in a bunker or a quiet forest, anywhere but under the 15 vibrating tubes of industrial-grade fluorescent lighting that define the pharmacy’s ‘Grooming’ section. He is currently pretending to be deeply interested in the ergonomics of a five-blade razor, but his eyes are darting 15 degrees to the left, scanning a row of glass bottles that contain liquids the color of morning mist. He’s 35 years old, and he’s realized that the ‘soap is soap’ philosophy has finally failed him. His face feels like a dried-out leather glove left on a radiator, yet he’s paralyzed by the performance of not caring.
He pulled his phone out and typed a message to a group chat, then deleted it. ‘Is toner a real thing or just water that graduated from business school?’ He didn’t send it. The stakes felt oddly high, which is a ridiculous thing to say about a 125-milliliter bottle of fluid, but here we are.
This is the masculine script in its most brittle form: you are allowed to have skin, but you are not allowed to
