Michael Edwards

of omelet and chews thoughtfully, savoring a healthy combo of chicken and veggies, part of a dietary redirection that has left him, after six months of supreme willpower and about a trillion crunches, nearly twenty pounds lighter with six-pack abs — a boon to his self-esteem, his love life, and, most directly, his tailor.

Like his father — who spent his entire working career as a chemical compounder on an assembly line at a tire factory — he tends to carry his extra weight below his chest and above his knees. Once a nerdy, picked-on kid "built like a fuckin' stick figure, with a big head and skinny everything else," he was beginning to look a little overfed. It has been nearly eight years since he graduated with his M.B.A. from Florida A&M University. During that time, he's enthusiastically pursued the kind of food, drink, travel, and unfettered social life that befits a young single man rising up the corporate ladder, in his case at Procter & Gamble, to a position with the important title of brand manager, global hair color, NNE. If it involves Clairol's Nice 'n Easy hair color, you've got to talk to him. "I own the world," he likes to say with the appropriate amounts of pride and irony.

Thanks to his membership at Bally Total Fitness (only a mile from his office) and also to the Fitness Gear Ultimate Smith Machine in his home office/gym (which he uses on weekends because Bally is twenty minutes from home and he'd rather save the gas), he's had to have the waist of his pants taken in nearly three inches. A lot of his jackets needed reshaping, too. He has four closets filled with suits and sport coats. The closet in the home office/gym holds seventeen winter-weight blazers: an orange corduroy Kenneth Cole, a blue velvet Dragonfly, a green velvet Hugo Boss, a camouflage number from Express, a red cotton from Boss, a couple more from Boss — Boss is his brand. The guest-room closet is crammed with summer sport coats, among them a madras and a floral print, both from Ralph Lauren. There is also a coat closet in the foyer, in which he keeps three dozen outercoats: a peak-lapel dress coat, a couple of car coats, several raincoats, a black Kenneth Cole motorcycle jacket, a Tom Cruise — style bomber jacket with a sheepskin collar that he always wears with his aviator sunglasses, and an army-green snorkel jacket with a fur-trimmed hood that he used to wear with sagging jeans and Timberland boots. (Upstairs, in the master walk-in closet, there are boxes of vintage Jordans he no longer rocks but can't quite allow himself to donate.) Luckily he has this great tailor, his tailor, a wonderful Old World craftsman named Paul. So far, since his weight loss, he's spent more than $1,000 on alterations — obviously he couldn't fix everything, just the wardrobe staples. We won't even mention the cost of the new stuff, one size smaller, 42L. Everyone who has ever lost weight knows that smaller-sized clothes are among the sweetest of all purchases. Each time he puts on his brand-new Givenchy suit — gray with a black pinstripe, cut narrow and Mad Men-esque — his chin juts forward and his back straightens; he feels a surge of power and confidence, a palpable psychic tumescence that says, I'm the man.

"Emily Dickinson once wrote that what makes life so grand is that it will never come again," he says. "You're given this incredible blessing of life, but at the same time it's a curse, because the second it starts, it begins to end. So you have to take full advantage of it. In every aspect of my life, I try to take full advantage. If people would have the mind-set to live life with a little bit of urgency, if they just have the mind-set to try a little harder in everything they do, who knows what may happen? That's the way I try to live."

His name is Kenyatte Nelson. He is six foot two, two hundred pounds. A Leo (August 1), thirty-one years old. He has high cheekbones and a chiseled jaw that tapers into a cleft chin. His large black eyes are set against luminescent whites. His ebony face and skull have been shaved clean with a Wahl clipper, an Andis trimmer, and a Gillette Fusion razor, a ritual he performs about once a week. His body hair is similarly maintained. He knows his way around a dance floor but is more comfortable in the DJ booth. He carries two BlackBerrys, one for work and one for personal use. The latter is a red Pearl, his favorite color, a Mother's Day special he bought himself cheap. The ringtone sounds like an old rotary telephone. For a wallet he prefers a Kenneth Cole cardholder; four cards and a folded-up twenty for emergencies. He used to go with the money clip, but he never had enough cash to fill the damn thing. Until recently he was dating the ex-wife of a pro athlete. They first met on a Saturday night, when her girlfriend pulled Kenyatte over on the highway after seeing him earlier in a club. At a bar he orders Grey Goose and tonic; at home he likes Mike's Hard Lemonade. Though he is not particularly religious, he eats no pork; he prays silently before every meal. He watches CNN and ESPN every morning, reads USA Today about three times a week and the local paper every Sunday with brunch. He also reads The Onion and the Drudge Report online and watches Real Time with Bill Maher and The Colbert Report as often as he can.

At work he picked the most expensive health plan; he'd rather pay a little more to get the best. He drives a previously owned car — a 2004 Lincoln Navigator, bought in '05 with twenty-nine thousand miles for under thirty grand — because buying a new car just seems stupid; he doesn't care that it's maroon. He makes about $150,000 a year.

Though his shoe collection boasts Aldo, Saks, Madden, Dior, Vittorio Russo, Kenneth Cole, a pair of checkerboard Vans, and classic white Chuck Taylors, his favorite piece of footwear is a pair of light-tan cowboy boots appropriated from his father, one size too large. He wore them on the Today show last September when he won Esquire's Best Dressed Real Man contest, beating out thousands of others. He entered the contest because he is into clothes, sure, but it is more than that. Kenyatte (pronounced Ken-yat-tah) believes that a life lived is worth living well. Fortunately, he has spent within his means. Fortunately, his job is not in immediate jeopardy. Many have not been so fortunate. They have busted the economy borrowing to buy a life like his. For his part, he has cut down. Spending conspicuously right now seems a little tasteless. He is shelling out less on the "non-necessities." When he goes out, he tends to go where "I can milk my hookups" — meaning places where he knows the owner or the bartender and can get a free drink. He has always shopped for deals, continues to do so. He gets online coupons for stores that he enjoys, like Saks and the Ralph Lauren outlet. For the first time ever, on Black Friday — the big shopping day after Thanksgiving — he was up and out of the house by 5:00 A.M., hunting bargains. "This too shall pass — hopefully," he says.

Almost every weekend, usually both days, Kenyatte eats brunch here at the Daybreak diner. It is a large, uncomplicated space in a strip mall in Hyde Park, the hippest and most overpriced part of Cincinnati, Ohio. His own neighborhood, one exit south on I-71, is slowly up-and-coming. Nearby Xavier University is in the midst of a growth spurt, but you still see a lot of locals in long white T-shirts on the corners. We're waiting at the moment for his friend Stefan, another A&M alum. He also works at P&G, as a consumer-knowledge market manager in the home sector.

Kenyatte still eats out almost every night. He's at P. F. Chang's at least twice a week, usually by himself at the bar; they don't even bring him a menu anymore. He loves sushi, especially half-price Wednesday nights at Beluga, where all the pretty girls go. He'll occasionally smoke a Macanudo cigar. At dinner he's likely to order the fruity vodka special. He "tends to like wines that are probably in the middle of the palate, chardonnays and pinot noirs." In his effort to become more educated about enology, he has purchased, from World Market, a set of glasses that includes something for every type of wine. There are glasses for Riesling, for champagne, for zinfandel, etc. There is also a decanter. The whole set is stored in his kitchen, on a rolling wine rack/bar also from World Market, which he likes because it's "Pier 1 taken to the next level."

He has no respect for the Cincinnati Bengals. He doesn't even think about the Reds. He once sprained his ankle real bad playing hoops — there is a heroic play-by-play if you ask to hear it. He is often in situations where there are few (if any) other black people in the room. He likes being well liked. He is eager to please. He has a lot of friends; wherever he goes he seems to run into one or more of them. He believes in loyalty. Of his two best friends from college he says: "I would die for them and they would die for me." He works until seven or later most nights and then drives to the gym. There is never a time he is not on the move. He wishes occasionally he could just go to bed at 8:00 P.M. Last night, a Saturday, he stayed home alone because he was sick. It was the first time in adult memory he had stayed home alone on a Saturday night. He watched The Real Housewives of Atlanta. He was appalled.

His house has five bedrooms and four full baths, a circa-1910 brick Victorian he bought for $245,000 with no money down. He honestly doesn't know the square footage. The mortgage is $1,600 a month. His five-year ARM expires this year. He found the house halfway through a spec renovation, so he was able to have a lot of input into the finished product. Which of course became like having another full-time job. He picked out every fixture, appliance, floor covering, and color. He recommends joining a buyers' club like DirectBuy. You pay a pretty significant fee to join, like four grand, but it's a three-year membership. You get everything they sell wholesale: furniture, electronics, appliances, outdoor-living stuff. He priced out his kitchen at Home Depot — forty-two-inch cherrywood cabinets, granite counter, all the trimmings: It was $15K for the cabinetry alone. At DirectBuy, he paid like five grand for everything, including the appliances. While he was away on a weeklong business trip to Switzerland, the refrigerator died. There is a new motor in a box in his foyer. The repairman is coming next week.

The home office/gym is painted Rich Red. The kitchen is Slate Green but looks avocado. The dining room is Honey Pot Yellow. The downstairs bathroom is lavender and features the original claw-foot tub, which has been re-enameled or re-epoxied or whatever you call it — it looks brand-new but still old-fashioned. The moldings and crown moldings and window frames throughout the house are all painted Natural Light White. The master bedroom is Mocha, though he likes to call it paper-bag brown because his dad used to tell him stories about restaurants you could eat in only if you passed the "paper-bag" test — you had to be lighter than a brown paper bag. The guest room is painted with alternating light-yellow and dark-yellow stripes. He'd seen it in a decor magazine. When you turn on the Hunter ceiling fan using the wall-mounted switch in the guest room, the one in the home office/gym also turns on, and vice versa. He knows there is a way to fix this, but he has lived here more than four years and hasn't yet bothered to figure it out. Likewise, he never turns on the huge chandelier in the dramatic atrium stairwell. Should a bulb blow, he has no clue how he'd ever get up there to change it.

The third floor is a rental unit, a cool space, all eaves and angles. The tenant is hot. She has her own entrance but likes to come through the house. She went to a pricey eastern boarding school on scholarship and then graduated from Stanford. Now she works for P&G, in research and development in the home-care sector. Until recently, in her off-hours, she participated in something called "figure fitness competitions." Let your imagination wander. YouTube if you must. She and Kenyatte are just friends. "Never shit where you eat," Kenyatte says. The same goes for "fishing off of the company pier."

Michael Edwards

He is the runt of his family. A "mistake" born ten years after his brother. A preemie who lived his first several months in an incubator. The doctors were worried he might be brain damaged. As it is, there are some weird splotches on his skin, places he didn't develop properly — like somebody spilled bleach. His dad wanted another kid, but his mom was considering a try at modeling — everyone at church always said she was so statuesque. His dad's name is Ellis Nelson. He is six seven; everyone calls him Big E. He is the definition of dapper; Kenyatte got his clothing sense from him. Kenyatte's brother got all the height and athletic ability. He is now a truck driver who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they grew up. As a child Kenyatte collected comics. His favorite character was Wolverine. He'd buy two copies of each issue, one to read, one kept in the original cellophane for collecting, all of them stored under the bed. At his mostly black middle school, "I was the kid who, if I was running down the hall, someone would trip me." At his mostly white high school, he gained renown as a rapper and was elected president of the student government. He attended his historically black college on an academic scholarship, a combined B.A./M.B.A. program. It was there that he first encountered wealthy African-American kids. Prior to that, he had never even heard of Prada. To earn spending money in college, he spun records at private parties and clubs. He was known as DJ Diamond. If anybody calls him that today, he visibly winces. He never took a drink of alcohol until well after graduation.

When Kenyatte's mom was pregnant, his parents were looking through a book of African names, a trend during the late seventies among middle-class black families. Jomo Kenyatta led Kenya to independence from Great Britain and became its first president, a lion of a man. It seemed perfect. Except for one thing. His mother felt that the a at the end made the name feminine in appearance. She changed it to an e.

"My name was always murdered," Kenyatte says. "People would call me Ken-yah-tay. Or Ken-yat. Or Koonta-ken-yat. Nobody could pronounce it; it made me feel so different. And when you're young, when you're a kid, you don't want to be different. You don't understand the value in differentiation. That's one of the things in branding — in branding you learn that differentiation is fantastic. You need it, you want it, you desire it, you drive and strive for it. But when you're a child, you don't understand that concept. Sameness is . . . paramount. I mean, you want to blend in, you want to be with the mass, right? When I was a kid, I was left-handed, my name was Kenyatte, I was a stick figure with a balloon head. And I was black. And I was living in the South. It was like strike 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5."

There is a warm timbre to his voice, like a radio announcer's. When he speaks, a slight stutter or hesitation becomes evident, as if he were trying very hard to enunciate properly, to pronounce everything just so, to say exactly what he means. He was the first in his family to earn a four-year degree. He was the first in his family to earn a graduate degree. He wouldn't bring this up if he weren't asked, but Kenyatte is wealthier than anyone in his family has ever been. He is a healthy consumer, but he is not a crass consumer. Unless asked, he does not generally talk about all the things he has bought or wants to buy. He does not talk all the time about money and the cost of things the way some people do. Ever seen Cribs on MTV? "It kinda makes you wanna barf," Kenyatte says. "How much shit do you need?"

As a reflection of his perspective, Kenyatte signs off his e-mails — and his new blog, TweedandVelvet.blogspot.com — with the slogan MAKE IT AN OUTSTANDING DAY! He appropriated it from a Ford company recruiter who had it on his voice mail. This was back when Kenyatte was in grad school; a lot of the big companies go to A&M to recruit executives. (The other night he went clubbing with some of his closest friends — in a coed group of seven, there were five A&M alums and one from Howard University; five of them are management types for P&G.) "My father was really big on attitude," Kenyatte says. "The thing that I would get in trouble for the most was having a bad attitude, being disrespectful. My dad's thing was 'Your attitude shapes the outcome.' If someone asks me, 'How are you doing?' I say, 'Phenomenal.' And when I say that, it's amazing how many people will stop and look at me, as if I've found the secret to life. They're like, 'How is it you are doing phenomenal? I need to understand that. Because I do not feel phenomenal. I want a piece of what you've got.' Here's a trick. Try it. When you're on the phone, smile as you talk. You will sound different. And people are able to tell. I guarantee it. You will get results."

When Kenyatte smiles, his teeth gleam with the evidence of his twice-daily use of an Oral-B Sonic Complete electric toothbrush. Crest toothpaste. Period. It doesn't matter what flavor so long as it's Crest, which he buys because P&G makes it and because he is a loyal company man and because every single month he maxes out his contribution to his 401(k) — half of which he puts in P&G stock. (Over the last several months, he has significantly lowered his 401(k) payroll deduction and is putting more money in cash savings.) He also buys Old Spice deodorant, Gillette body wash, Tide laundry detergent, Downy fabric softener, a Swiffer for his wood floors, Dawn dishwashing liquid — all of it from P&G. When you visit him, it doesn't really look like he uses the Swiffer too often. He just doesn't seem to notice the rust inside the toilets or the smell of mildew in the fancy slate bathroom with the rainforest showerhead. Maid service: a marker of a certain stage of adulthood that Kenyatte has yet to reach. Once, after a raucous party, three of his female friends returned to his place the next day to tidy up. They ended up scrubbing the baseboards and the toilets, leaving it far cleaner than it was before the party. A half-full bottle of Pellegrino water remains on the dining-room mantel piece as a souvenir of the evening, integrated into the sticks/rocks/vase arrangement he purchased as separates at Pier 1. To Kenyatte's eye, the exotic-looking label on the Pellegrino bottle complements the large, colorful Leonetto Cappiello posters that dominate the dining room and kitchen. He collects the posters because he likes the way they look, but also because they were commissioned in the 1920s and 1930s to advertise products. Kenyatte himself oversees multimillion-dollar art budgets for Nice 'n Easy. He's always admired people who have skills in crafts or arts. For him, living well and dressing well is also a form of art.

Michael Edwards

He scoffs at people who buy the exact outfits off the mannequins in stores. He's always looking for ways to maximize his wardrobe, ways to recombine or recycle, and also for new fashion ideas, marriages of styles he would have never considered before, like wearing a tartan tuxedo jacket with two-tone bucks or a brown tweed vest with a blue velvet blazer. He is a jeans man. The entire bottom rack in his bedroom closet is taken up with jeans, thirty-two pairs, about a third of which are now too large. The other night, out clubbing, it was skinny Sliq jeans from H&M with black combat boots from Zara, strings untied and tongues dangling, and a black canvas bomber jacket with a black faux-fur collar from Armani Exchange. As a scarf he wore an authentic black-and-white-checked Arab kaffiyeh that he bought from a street vendor in New York. At something like $250 a pop, he hasn't yet had the heart to toss any of his too-big jeans. Eventually, they will go to Goodwill. There is a pile of old suits growing on the banister on the second-floor landing. He has started working with a group called Career Gear that does career counseling and interview coaching and gives recycled business clothing to down-on-their-luck men actively seeking employment.

He smells pleasantly of Prada d'Homme. On top of his dresser — which was purchased as a set along with the dark-stained sleigh bed, the bedside tables, two lamps, and the TV cabinet/armoire — he keeps his portfolio of fragrances. Tom Ford and Dolce & Gabbana the One are his other current favorites. Next to the bottles are his jewelry box, his watches (an admitted weakness — seven — Invictas, a gold Donald J. Trump, and the IWC that he won from Esquire), and a wedding picture of his parents. He has his mom's wide nose. Her name is Rose, short for Rosalee, but her brothers and sisters call her Annamae. She grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, speaking Gullah, a dialect particular to descendants of West African and Caribbean slaves. She met Kenyatte's dad when they were both students at Denmark Technical College in Denmark, South Carolina. Ellis studied interior design. (After retiring from Continental Tire, he returned to that interest for a time, painting home interiors.) Rose took a secretarial degree. Over the years, she worked her way up to the position of executive assistant to the head of a large manufacturing firm; she was forced to retire only when it became painfully apparent that she was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's. She was only fifty-four.

Rose Nelson still lives at home in a state of twilight. Kenyatte drives the seven hours about four times a year. He frets that the disease has "robbed my parents of their golden years." On his father's sixtieth birthday, five years ago, Kenyatte walked into the restaurant where the family was celebrating and "my mother looked at me and she had no idea who I was," he recalls. "Today she's about as nonresponsive as she could be. No facial expressions, no talking, nothing. She won't even get out of the bed or a chair without someone's help. Through it all, my father has been there. He pulls her out of bed, showers her, brushes her teeth, does her hair, feeds her, clothes her — 24/7, 365. He can't go on vacation and he can't come see me in Cincinnati, because he can't leave my mom." When his father showed up unexpectedly at the Today show for Kenyatte's appearance, his son was so moved, he was nearly dumbfounded. "My dad is the most amazing man I have ever known," Kenyatte says. "He is a perfect example of what devotion looks like. Which is probably one of the reasons why I hold people to such high standards."

Kenyatte does not want to get married. Yet. But he is starting to get a little tired of "talking to multiple women" at one time. "I love women and women love me," he says matter-of-factly. "I'm not perfect. I've done some dumb shit and I've hurt people I care about, but I'm a pretty good person, and I truly think people can sense it. I know how to make a woman feel safe, appreciated, and sexy. A woman who feels that way will do anything with you sexually, because she is comfortable. Sometimes the women I've dated find themselves comfortable doing things they haven't done before or enjoying things that they hated doing with the previous guy." He's been offered a threesome on multiple occasions but has never thought the offer was genuine. "In every case I felt like I would be taking advantage of one girl or the other, or both, and I couldn't go through with it." Several times he has been approached by middle-aged couples. "Usually the husband is asking me to sleep with his wife. I've never done it because I tend to believe karma is a motherfucker. I want to get married one day."

From his father he learned to "dress like the cover of a New York Times best seller." From his grandma he learned that it is never too late to do the right thing. From his college roommate he learned that if you buy cheap, you're going to pay more, and also that you can't wear the cordovan shoes without the cordovan belt, even if you just bought them and you're dying to take them out for a spin. From a former manager he learned how to make sure you're always working in the high-importance/low-urgency quadrant of priorities. From his aunt on his father's side he learned how to cook soul food. From his Williams-Sonoma cookbook, Savoring Italy, he learned to cook his signature dish, shrimp-and-crabmeat risotto. From his trainer, with whom he worked for only a few sessions in order to get a program started — "I can count the reps myself, thanks" — he learned to use low weight and high reps, even if the other guys in the gym think he looks like a pussy.

He is determined to make the best of every situation. "When I go out with my friends, I'm going to have a good time. I could have fun in a closet." His philosophy has always been "Money can buy you fashion, but it can't buy you style." Neither can it buy you talent or class. He believes that having something that screams "I paid a ton of money for this" pales in comparison to someone saying, "Wow, I never thought of putting those pieces together that way." He just wants to look good for himself. It helps when women notice, too.

"Honestly, I feel like my life is a dream," he says. "A wife and kids would be nice. I always liked the idea of having the big family dinner on Sundays, looking at my wife and thinking, We did a pretty good job. That'll happen one day. For right now, I'm living the dream as they say. Anything else would just be icing. I do kind of like icing, though."

After brunch, the Best Dressed Real Man in America needs to do some shopping. He has a bad cold; he might have picked it up from his friend Sy, also of A&M and P&G, a senior purchasing manager.

His infirmity notwithstanding, Kenyatte looks smashing as he strides down the sidewalk of the strip mall on a bright and chilly football Sunday afternoon. He is wearing a herringbone car coat from Express, a black cashmere sweater from Saks Fifth Avenue, a black-on-white polka-dot dress shirt from Banana Republic, a white tank-top undershirt from 2(x)ist. The jeans are Rock & Republic stone wash (over 2(x)ist boxer briefs). Gucci belt, black leather with a faux-gold G. Kenneth Cole black leather ankle boots, size 11. The socks are striped numbers from Banana Republic. "I'm a big sock guy," he says. "I think socks are one of those forgotten accessories for men."

Entering the store, he finds the proper aisle, sets about perusing the seemingly infinite choices that modern life offers, in this case, for the quelling of flulike symptoms. Someone had suggested Advil Cold & Sinus. Now all he has to do is find it.

The shelves are crowded with different cold, flu, sinus, and allergy remedies. He searches high and low. At last, he comes to a small plastic holder containing cards with an image of a box of Advil Cold & Sinus. The wording directs him to present the card to the pharmacist.

Because he keeps up with the news, Kenyatte is aware that one of the ways the government is fighting the drug war is by making it more difficult to buy products like Advil Cold & Sinus, which contains small amounts of a legal drug that people need in huge quantities to cook up a batch of illegal methamphetamine. Because he is now delving into the subject of illegal drugs and because he is an upstanding citizen — a dutiful son, a former scholarship student, an executive at a huge international conglomerate that makes family-oriented household products — a slightly uncomfortable feeling begins to overtake him, a prickly sort of heightened awareness. That he is the only black person he's seen (besides Stefan and the waitress) in this little strip mall may be adding to his discomfort. The outfit he's wearing, perfectly suited outside in the brisk air a few moments ago, starts to feel heavy and constraining in the store. Moisture begins to gather in the places that men feel moist in these circumstances.

Reaching the pharmacy, he finds the area behind the register empty. There are two employees over to the right, behind the customary high counter. One of them is a woman. She is youngish, not unpleasant-looking at all. She is busy counting pills. The other worker, a man, steps to the register. "How can I help you?" he asks.

Kenyatte hands him the Advil card. Soberly, the man asks to see an ID. As Kenyatte opens his Kenneth Cole cardholder and hands over his driver's license, he happens to glance up to his right, toward the woman.

She's staring at him.

Kenyatte is used to having women look at him. It's the way she's looking at him. It's not right somehow, not the kind of look you give when you're impressed by someone. It is more of a confused look. Like she doesn't know what to think. Really weird. First they're asking him to show an ID in order to buy a supposedly over-the-counter product. Now this female pharmacist is looking at him cockeyed. What the hell is this about? he wonders.

He returns his focus to the register, takes back his ID from the man, thanks him very politely. The man disappears into the cool white bowels of the pharmacy. After an interval, Kenyatte cuts his eyes again to the right.

She's still looking!

A wave of heat and nausea washes over his head. He feels clammy and faint. Maybe it's the flu.

At last she breaks the silence. "You look really nice," she says.

He issues his best Crest smile. "I th-thought I was doing something wrong," he stutters.

"Oh, no no no!" she says musically. She cocks her head to one side and removes her glasses. "I was probably just staring at you."

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Mike Sager Mike Sager is a bestselling author and award-winning reporter who's been a contributor to Esquire for thirty years.

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