THE CROCODILE LEATHER BRIEFCASE

Amit Chaudhery

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In this age of de-personalization and incremental insularity, e-commerce has seeped in to swamp several facets of experiential essence. My lament is for the fine and pleasurable art of shopping. The merchandise you search, browse, order and receive on the Internet has engulfed shopping methods of old when see, touch, feel, compare, negotiate purchase before possessing, were physical, elongated in time experiences. I am the sort who likes to mull, ruminate, measure. To run my hands over contours, bring my nose to smell what the eyes savour. I like prolonged engagement when I shop. And I am not talking of the common marketplace. While necessary, it is repetitive, matter-of-fact, pedestrian and severely limited to banal items of utility. The sort you consume as food or the sort you use as everyday domestic objects. It arouses slight attention only when one buys clothing in the category between underwear and pyjamas. Anything above and everything beyond the pale of commonplace marketplaces, must ascend and rise to refined shopping. Now, that is eclectic in appeal and activity. To indulge in it sensibly, you have to be aficionado. That is the bare measure of qualification without which you can neither comprehend nor appreciate finer objects. Sustained application of fine shopping may eventually uplift you to the bespoke world of a connoisseur. It is a rich, varied, sensorial, dopamine driven experience. If you are privileged, not parvenu, you are welcomed most graciously into the rarefied world of indulgence. The only currency is luxus, that Latin mother of words for indulgence regardless of price and completely unconcerned of cost. In this world of allure and seduction, charming merchants and fine wares beckon the shopper. Quite likely that you know the merchant and the merchant knows you. A knowing hewn from long-drawn regular transactions moving to interactions. Cut and thrust moves of piqued interest and feigned boredom become intercourse settled in genteel familiarity and nuanced comfort. Shopping for the finer things is de rigueur and ends with the pregnant de rien. An immensely polite, aesthetic, sensuous plane. Fine shoppers dwell on exoplanets orbiting rotations and revolutions of desire.

With more money than judgement and always excited by prospects, I decided upon my pressing need for a custom made crocodile leather briefcase. Alligator would do just as well, but it was the crocodile that I actually wanted. Belly cut base, smooth texture, close small scale structure, and premium fall. No shine but a sheen of understated luxury. A gift to myself, having come of age as a gentleman. I entered the grand, carelessly bedecked in its classy scales store of:

The Crocodylidae & Alligatoridae  Co.

Dressed in several patinas, the notation as you see, was in Edwardian script suggesting hallowed birth. An obelisk of uber luxury true to form. Intimidating and aloof to all classes of people except those entitled. The emporium was an over-large space with four deep winged armchairs around a coffee table. Muzak tinkled in the background strongly redolent of baroque extravagance.Muted and well-worn. The emporium was beginning to fray very slightly but remained strong. It is obvious enough that I don’t like the Internet and I don’t like it for a variety of reasons. It is strewn with a profusion of the profane. It is for the flies. I consider myself a butterfly. Dismissiveness and disdain notwithstanding, I confess its seduction. Between curiosity and nudge to virtually view a catalogue. I was buttressed by logic that a cursory look at the virtual marketplace while looking for my object of desire could possibly do no harm. I examined images on an iPad. More, I beheld it and elected to take it to the emporium to which I credited my several accessories. These were obviously full-grain, some aniline. Crocodile or alligator usually, a fair amount of buckskin and snake creations as well.

I entered the precinct after slightly smudging the perfectly polished silver doorknob. Muted understatement of the refined and the eclectic was everywhere. It reminded me of Rome just on the cusp of greatness and gradual decline. Of indulgence, where money was no object. Yet the price of everything was neatly inscribed. I cannot say the same for value. An old, unaffectedly shameless, burnished sheen which was incestuous and wealthy. The proprietor, a gentleman in silk waistcoat and fat cigar, of indeterminate age, appeared. Almost wafted in with other worldly charm. I proffered the mobile device which bore the internet and its infinite possibilities. He held it gingerly and handed it back to me quickly before pronouncing opinion. “Judging the authenticity of a crocodile briefcase on the basis of a few emailed photographs, is absolutely impossible, because very often these pictures are suspect. A poor specimen could appear an article of excellent quality made of the best selection. Under these circumstances, we really don’t feel able to give our patrons definitive answers. In our opinion, that would be both risky and arrogant. Many people do give out advice in such cases but in all good conscience we really wouldn’t want to offer misleading or incorrect information. It our reputation and relationship, you see.” Mr. Aligatoro Crocker was responding to a picture of what appeared to be an exquisitely crafted crocodile leather satchel. “It would amount to deception and betrayal of your faith in us sir. The best we can do, without having the actual bag in front of us, is to give you some simple suggestions on assessing the item you are about to buy on the Internet. If it is really made of genuine crocodile leather or not.” The mood was expansive; and mutually. Mr. Crocker went on to wax about his brand and brand extension. “Before I offer specific articles for your inspection, I should like to present our two hatching and very recent enterprises sir. Please step this way.” A shop-in-shop format is clever. It teases, titillates and teases. It feints digression while entrapping the customer deeper into the web. It prospects and hustles ever so sweetly. Clever chap, Mr. Crocker. One counter was called Lacertilia. It specialized in all manner of lizard leathers. A vast range, with over 6000 species of the squamate reptile on the planet, therefore great variety. Teju, Ring and Nile lizards were the most in demand I was told. Popularity stemmed from thinner hides, lack of calcium deposits, which made lizard skin easier to cut. Therefore less drama with the dremel to prep the skin. It also bleached and dyed easily and the colours were invariably uniform. The Gimlet was the  Lacertilia twin. It showcased a smorgasbord of leathers. From the exotic to the commonplace. All very carefully, I grant him that, tastefully curated. Aesthetics spanned everything: aniline, semi aniline, pigmented. And within these, full/top grain, embossed grain, nubuck sueded grain. Sourced as cowhide, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig, deer, antelope, horse, camel, yak, ostrich, hippo, chicken leg, snake, stingray, caiman, salmon, moray, barbensalm, sturgeon, tilapia, shark, kangaroo, bullfrog. The sheer range was mind-blowing. “Each of our pieces is vegetable tanned or chamois. For very discerning customers, who demand incredibly soft stuff, I do brain tanned with emulsified oils.” Chrome tanning or alum leather were naturally beneath the genteel tastes of Mr. Crocker and his carefully cultivated clientele.  Blades of the cooling system whirred, for moments the only sound in the hallowed precincts of The Crocodylidae & Alligatoridae  Co.

Smell was supreme here. The patina of expensive perfume carelessly worn. And pomade (Mr. Cocker was that sort of a gentleman) were overlaid by the smell of excess laced with insatiable greed. I was satisfied if not smug. Satisfied enough to return firmly and fast to my moorings in the emporia. A harbour of carefully cultivated belief in the fine, if slightly displaced art of brick and mortar stores and the intensely personalized experiences they alone bring to bear. At this point or shortly after, my eye caught a largish and very retro burgundy and black briefcase in a discreet, almost invisible corner. Long practice had taught me and common-sense had reinforced the lesson that oftentimes, the best is preserved in the most inconspicuous of places. It must be pulled out gently. During long years of disguise and hiding, it melds with and welds into the store owner. Object and individual taking in and internalizing the other’s grooves. Animate man and inanimate object are mere detail. All that matters is credo of the man and deigned value of the object. Accompanied by a litany of supplications and invocations, secret silent chants, which resonate hoary prayers. And all this coalesces into binding miasma. The beauty of this briefcase which was both crocodile and alligator, its exceptional craftsmanship, magic of the moment and the enchanted emporium, all told me that I had to have it. Money was no consideration. I reached out for the object of my desire. “That particular piece, sir, is not for sale” he said. “Is it damaged or otherwise reserved for someone?” was my question. “No, it’s just that I would rather not sell it.” He was unwilling to part with a rather nice piece of merchandise. Exquisite actually, but merchandise nevertheless. And like all merchandise, meant to be sold. That was the norm. The reason for any merchant to exist. Commerce and lucre are exceptional catalysts. They unite peddlers of the profane to purveyors of the pious. Acquiring, stocking, prospecting and selling was the lifecycle of all commerce. How could he not sell something which was meant to be sold? I could not fathom the reticence, refusal actually. The entire world bowed to Dieu Commerce. It did as surely as I and Mr. Cocker (all his affectations notwithstanding). Among his wares, this remarkable specimen had eluded every customer. Each one was led away from the discreetly placed two-toned briefcase. The fact that it was discreetly placed, was half the reason, the other half was his refusal to sell. People are easily led if you lead them persuasively. I am not easy to persuade. And impossible to persuade when I decide to persist. Brushing aside his ministrations and disregarding all protestations I persisted and short of a scuffle, wrested the briefcase off the nook it peeped from. A delightful piece of fine, hand-wrought craftsmanship. Exquisite. At first and second glance, through the third look and the fourth inspection. Perfect. I placed it on the table and did the logical next thing one does with a briefcase. The bronze clasps softly yielded in single synchronized act. What happened next was antithesis. A macabre Jack-in-the-Box. Out sprang the Wendigo, gaunt to the point of emaciation its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody. The body suffered from suppurations of the flesh. The Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odour of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption. Of the abysmal maw of greed. It was neither man nor beast. The otherworldly creature was a sum total of all that has been, and all that is. A slime of insufferable in satiation oozed from its pores. It shrieked then. A long piercing and desperate lament. Impossibly high pitch. Then it collapsed into itself.

As the stuff dropped it was casually vacuum-sucked by the long shadow of Mr. Crocker. I could see it, though Crocker himself appeared to remain oblivious to the lapping by his dark projection. I knew now why the briefcase was meant never to be sold. I understood it. Even as I did, the muzak turned to scherzo. A scherzo di note. Engulfing everything and with cadence sharpening that overhang of smell. I saw that Mr. Crocker was a reptilian villain with no redeeming feature. A cold being not of this world, but one belonging to the infinite mind. Come to avenge reptilian atrocities. Dapper Mr. Crocker from the Draco Constellation in the far northern sky. I thought of Milton William Cooper’s ‘Behold a Pale Horse’ : “I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

Unnerving in the least. Looking from the corner of my eye, I thought Mr. Crocker had a grown huge scaly tail and had a flickering tongue. There was no option but to run, flee from the storehouse of reptilian merchandise. I did. I consider myself fortunate to have made good my escape. Understandably and most obviously, I have abandoned my search for the perfect briefcase as I saw it. I now shun all leather. There’s an exception though, and that is Human Leather. Human Leather is my substrate and my vocation. I find it to be of the finest grain, in excessive supply, if scarce use. Pre-dyed in colour and shade, a nice epidermal range of variety. An Ekoi ritual mask atop a thimble is logo, my firm is called Django Unlimited (Romany for ‘I awake’). Commencing with leather, I intend expanding the range to include especially commissioned objects d’ art and am in the process of formalizing an agreement with that excellent German carver, Gunther von Hagens for niche commissioned works. A patron has expressed interest in replicating Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker. An interesting proposition to begin with. I more than just dabble in this niche substrate. I craft a limited number of pieces to a very specific order book, depending on my raws. The venture of dark, but just and fair art is entitled : Cutis Humana.

Nothing Edwardian about it you’ll see. Not even the typeface. This practical post-modern, naturally sourced, natural progression of full grain, aesthetic Human Leather is contemporary. It is also futuristic. No dyes. Not even natural ones. Just a tincture of vinegar in just the right measure for adding sheen to white, black, brown and yellow shades of hide. A  Dobby is my brand ambassador because it is suitably ugly and appropriately human.

What’s more, I guarantee against any Wendigo. I guarantee fulfilment of Nemesis though and I promise a guilt-free purchase. A curious and very fulfilling satisfaction. The price is a little north because I face one obstinate occupational hazard: unprocessed human hide is exceptionally thick and that takes a long time hammering into desired outcome. Even then, it is prone of shift shape.  On the whole, Cutis Humana has landed nicely on its feet and some angel investors have shown interest.