Levi’s 38×32 was a complainer, and Brooks Brothers Golden Fleece Navy Blazer hated being paired with him. All day long, incessantly, Oh, I just hate… and Can you believe… and…
But today. Man, if today the complaints weren’t justified.
It had been an awful day.
It’d been so bad even the usually silent Gitman Brother’s White OCBD had gotten a few curses in.
Quaint, yes. But curses nonetheless.
Shucks!
And the stains…
Damn, if those wouldn’t be an absolute nightmare to get out. It’s like all of Barry had leaked out through the gaping wounds in his flesh before being soaked up by our material. Us being “his” clothes, including I, Second-hand Gucci Silk Tie; and Barry being our recently acquired man-body, whose soft humanness we rode upon in the world of our inferiors, i.e. in your normal world, i.e. riding you.
Today, Barry had managed to slip out from under our control—
Eyes bugged out, heart racing, consciousness returning, terrified, after a few months of being on, shall we say, involuntary vacation, and running, screaming, into midtown traffic, where, to a symphony of yelling and honking horns, the dump truck collided with him:
THUD!
(as dull as Barry)
And he lay, fractured and busted open on the asphalt; traffic grinding to a halt, staring as one of their own oozed forth; his lips quivering as they tried, despite my subtle tightening around his neck, to warn them, to say, “Beware… the textil—
.”
What a shame.
We’d put so much into him, and we didn’t get even six months’ good use.
If only he’d been injured—a couple broken bones, a severed limb—but no: he had to go and get himself totalled.
Beyond repair.
Write-off.
Hugh, the Mansurance company adjuster (and Argyle Sweater), had an easy case. Our fault, he concluded. We’d lost control.
Our rates went up, and we had to slink home in disgrace all the way from the morgue, encrusted with blood and in direct contact with your garbage-infested ground.
I had to dry clean myself three times.
Gitman Brother’s White OCBD had to be patched up, and was ultimately assigned to a hobo.
(He suffers in silence.)
Levi’s 38×32 is deep in someone’s closet, awaiting reassignment, and whinging about it.
Brooks Brothers Golden Fleece Navy Blazer got himself sold on ebay to a junior investment banker going for a trad look. Not bad.
As for me, I’m currently on the hunt.
Looking for new cloth-friends. Searching for a new man-body.
Some days, I slip into hipster second-hand stores to lie amongst the garments.
On others, I slither through the grass like a snake.
Hang—like a noose.
It’s funny. The more your kind multiplies, the more of us you manufacture: to protect you (ha!) and hide your imperfections (from yourselves!).
Yet you care for us more than we for you.
Wash us.
Keep us fresh and safe.
Clothes, you say, make the man.
But make him what?
Say, wouldn’t you like another tie, mortal friend?