London's friend was over at the house the other day and, like every other time Calvin's visited, he feels the need to build things. "Come on, Londy," he'll say in a pretend adult's voice, stretching the bass tones of his unbroken vocal cords. Then he'll throw a paw in the air the way workers do in beer commercials in some universal sign of bonding through manly thirst. London is more interested in building friendship than building towers, but he goes along with Calvin anyway.
When London and Calvin emerge from the playroom, they are dressed like members of The Village People Playschool. The two boys have split up whatever construction gear we own and augmented their outfits with feather boas, high heels and pimpin' hats from Poppy's dress-up trunk. London doesn't seem to mind his new attire as he sashays across some imaginary catwalk, but Calvin is definitely disappointed in our non-regulation gear of the gala variety.
"This is not emergency medical personnel clothing," he points out, adjusting the silver sequined vest draped across his torso.
London flicks the leopard print hat off his brow. "He says we don't look cool, Dad."
"I said this wasn't safe." Calvin corrects him. "We'd most probably die in a fire."
"I don't want to die," London says, his ankles quivering in a pair of plastic purple pumps.
"Not in those heels you don't," I tell him.
The boys take turns carrying in large red blocks made from cardboard but, after a while, London gets distracted and lies on the floor as if he's waiting for me to feed him bonbons out of a silver tin. "I need to take some air," he says, delivering a line from some lost Tennessee Williams play date. Calvin is now doing most of the heavy lifting, huffing and puffing in mock exhaustion, wiping the faux sweat from his eyes with a long white glove. I worry that the pearl button might catch his eye, and I'll be forced to pay him campy worker's comp until he starts kindergarten.
When the blocks are all on site, Calvin lines up our plastic tools on the couch and tries to pick the appropriate one for this type of job. "We need something that will help the stabilizing," he says. Like a hand model on television, he runs his fingertips across the plastic wrenches, pliers and a hammer that is so big it could maim a decent-sized moose.
"Break time is over," Calvin says to his assistant and shows London how to stack the boxes so they can withstand a hurricane, tornado and the Big Bad Wolf. While Calvin bends some imaginary rebar, London spies the tools on the couch and grabs a set of pliers the color of popsicles. Like his old man, London is about as handy as a left foot, so he immediately starts banging on the blocks like a loaded Tommy Lee behind a brand new drum kit. Calvin freezes, flips up his safety goggles and stares incredulously at his unskilled and now definitely temporary laborer.
"Londy." He shakes his head disapprovingly. "You have a hammer."
"Huh?" London grunts the way my students do after my annual talk on Emerson.
"Here." Calvin walks to the couch and retrieves the proper implement and places it in my son's steamy grip. London eyes the hammer, eyes his friend, then hurls the thing just to watch it fly.
I can tell by the way Calvin's hands rest on his hips that he is on the verge of getting frustrated with his buddy, but then a smile spreads across his face. "I know," he says, sticking one silk-enrobed finger in the air.
"What?" London looks up from rubbing his sore ankles. Fashion always has a cost.
Some would say that what Calvin proposes has been the solution to many such male-centered conflicts throughout history, that his idea has united the skilled and unskilled, mighty and meek, dumbass and brilliant. "Let's knock it down!" he shouts, and arm-in-arm, the boys really go to town.
