Ron is "off the hook"

His name was Ron. He was the assistant sales manager of a Utah Big and Tall men’s store. He was not big or tall. He wore oversized black pants with suspenders and a hunter green polo shirt. His face and neck seemed shrunken, tight , with a scraggly beard that clung to his bone structure so he looked like the pale animated corpse of some shallow-buried, perma-frosted 19th century polar explorer. He had thick black glasses and bad teeth and must have been in his early forties. The Big and Tall store was going out of business. I was picking over the remains of their liquidation sale.

He approached me, “Today our prices are off the hook”
“I can see that” I replied, smiling. The phrase seemed so common to him, and it was so incongruous with his nature that I laughed out loud. “Why are you going out of business?” I asked, trying to contain myself.
“Oh we got bought out by Casual Male. They’re going to close this store to consolidate”
“That’s too bad, where are all we big and tall people going to go to get our clothes?”
“Huh, huh. That’s off the Chain!” he evidently thought I had made a hilarious joke. I smiled again and asked if I could use the dressing room. He nodded and pointed it out, still laughing to himself, stuck in the internal reverie of the joke. He shuffled back to the counter, chuckling. I took my selection of 2XB polo shirts with me into the dressing room.

I made the command decision in the dressing room that I had never before heard someone utter a phrase so opposite their external appearance. I could not feel sorry for Ron, he seemed innocent and totally oblivious, but I felt a great deal of pity for the phrases “off the hook” and “off the chain”. Born in the rap nineties as succinct expressions of urban excitement and astonishment they had made, like twin salmons, the long journey up the stream of cultural consciousness only to die in the air outside a discount rack in a Utah big and tall store that was going out of business. The death of their last authenticity was the great tragedy out of which joy and comedy must inevitably spring. I mourned them while a smile.

When I came out of the dressing room Ron was on the phone:
“I tell you hon, it can get real frustrating. Our prices are already off the hook but people still ask me if I can take a bit more off. Don’t they realize its marked down 70 percent. I tell you hon, it makes we want to just fly off the chain. Huh, huh, how are the kids? Good. Good. Gotta go, talk to you later.” Apparently Ron had a wife and this is how he talked to her. He approached me again. “If you like those, you’re going to need some pants with them.”
“I imagine I am”, I replied, more intent now on observing Ron than shopping.
“Well, these flat fronts here are off the hook.” This time, for emphasis he made a circle with the thumb and middle finger of his right hand and brought the hand up then down past his face as he said the phrase. I looked at him in the face for a good two seconds, then picked out a pair in black and shuffled back to the dressing room.

In the dressing room I decided that the strangest thing about it was that “off the hook” and “off the chain” were the only two phrases Ron felt the need to martyr. The rest of his dialogue was culturally befitting a forty-something, perma-frosted, big and tall store assistant sales manager. No “homie” or “tight” or “Oh! Snap!” or other 90's phrases he could have killed if they haven’t been already (they have). No, Ron’s choice, the outlier on his cultural vocabulary curve, was confined wholly to “off the hook” and “off the chain”. I deduced, because of the lack of other phrases, that Ron was no secret BET watcher, but had instead picked his pet phrases seemingly from the ether. Did his press “Scan” on his car radio in 1999 and, in that tuner space between easy listening and classic rock, hear “off the hook” from a DJ? Did his twelve-year-old son return home one day from 6th grade spouting the tired urban phrase in the way that so many white twelve-year-olds are prone to do? Did he pick it up from a previously idolized assistant sales manager? Was it his attempt to win friends and influence people? Did he consider it cool and current? Did his wife find it edgy and sexual? Did it put her in the mood? I decided in the dressing room that I was fascinated by Ron, that he was an oblivious marvel, and I suddenly wanted to shake his hand. And, if I shook his hand, would he betray more outdated cultural influences by trying to give me a dap? I hoped not. Ron was perfect the way he was.

“I like the pants a lot, but they are a bit big” I said when I left the dressing room.
“No problem, the most off the hook thing about these pants is that they aren’t pre-shrunk, so they will tighten up just a bit” It was as if Ron structured all his sentences just to fit the phrases in.
“Great” I said, “looks like I’m good to go.” Ron rang me up and began to bag the polo shirt and black pants. I watched him closely the whole time. “Man, when you guys shut down where are all we big and tall people going to go to get our clothes?” I repeated the joke only because I knew it would make him smile.
“Huh. Huh. Off. The. Chain. Huh. Huh. Don’t worry, you’ll find another store.” He said as he handed me my receipt. I put the receipt in my pocket and reached out to shake his hand.
“Incidentally”, I said as I shook his hand, (no dap) “what’s going to happen to you? Are they transferring you to a different store? Maybe one in the area?