I start with my underwear. Call me a creature of habit, but when getting dressed there seems to be a certain order of operations, and underwear is at the top of the list. It includes a series of clips, straps and uncomfortable harnessing. Then come pants with more buckles and restraints. A heavy sweater and some socks to cover the rest of my exposed skin and I’m ready. There’s a cozy comfort in being swathed in layers of clothing, protection against the rest of the world. It’s safe. Every day Mr. Peters wakes up, puts on his three-piece suit, and goes to work. He doesn’t wonder why, that’s just the way it is, the way it’s always been. One day he wakes up. He skips the part with the suit, in fact he skips all of his clothing for the day: He just walks out the door naked as a newborn Jaybird baby on a European beach. His neighbor Mrs. Jones calls the police: Public nudity just isn’t done. While Mr. Peters sits in his jail cell at the 89th Precinct, quite cold, he has some time to think about what he’s going to say to Judge Richards. When Mr. Peters meets this heavily robed man, he might say something like this: “I’m not sorry. In fact, I wish I could face the court today naked. I woke up one day and couldn’t bear to buckle myself into another suit, another driven day. I wanted to drive myself. Look at me! I lost myself in my three-piece suit. I wasn’t trying to be above the law; I’m not trying to evolve society. I just wanted to peel back the safety I’ve learned to put on every day. I wanted to be the man I was meant to be, without all the layers obscuring who I really am. Nude.”

If the clothes make the man , surely the nudity reveals the beast.