Outfits

I loved the bitch, but she always dressed in outfits. She would get these women’s clothes catalogues in the mail that were all outfits. You know the kind I mean. These females would have on matching hats, dresses, shoes, purses, everything. Even the jewelry matched. And sometimes they’d have other stupid shit like address books or key chains. They matched too. So this bitch would buy the whole thing. Sometimes she would get the same outfit in a bunch of different colors. Then she didn’t have to worry about doing it wrong.

She would get all happy about it. She would say in this chirpy bird voice, “So matchy matchy!” Yeah, she said things like “matchy matchy.” Now on those design TV shows she wouldn’t stop watching (did you know there’s a whole network just about designing the inside and outside of houses?) “matchy matchy” was a bad thing. But to her, it was grrreat! Like if one of something was good, two or three of the same thing would make you cream in your jeans.

She even said one time, “There’s no such thing as too rich or too matchy matchy.” She said that, then she laughed like a hyena. I think the real saying was something about being rich and skinny, but clearly the bitch wasn’t much worried about being skinny.

Her nickname for me was Stanley. First time she called me her own, dear Stanley Kowalski, I thought the bitch was calling me by her old boyfriend’s name or something, but when I said that, she laughed this little giggly kind of laugh and opened her legs extra wide from her yoga training, so I let it go.

After she decided I was just what she was looking for, she started trying to fix me. If I said some word wrong or talked with food in my mouth, she would tell me the right way to do it. I didn’t pay no attention to that though. If I had so much wrong with me, what was she doing under me every night rolling around moaning and squalling like a cat in heat?

When she didn’t like something I did or said, she would say something that sounded like “kell creetin” over and over again, “kell creetin.” I didn’t care. I didn’t know what that shit meant.

So I would tell the fellas about her sometimes and like how she could do the splits with her yoga training and I told them how she would say “kell cretin.” I told them I knew it was good, because she would say it when I was banging her. But for real, she only said it when I wasn’t acting the way she wanted me to. So my boy Skool, who went to college five years but he’s back hanging with us, says, “Naw fool, that ain’t good. That’s French! She’s saying quelle cretin. It’s like she’s saying’ you a low class piece a shit. She’s saying you ain’t good enough for her.”

Nobody said anything, and they knew they better not laugh. But I know what they was thinking. I didn’t care. None of them had a high class bitch like that.

We was out riding one time. I was driving her car. She had a red Lexus IS 350 C convertible that her father got her special before they even came out. She actually talked about getting the interior done over in some wack-ass pattern (to match her favorite dress!) but the bitch wasn’t that crazy. I guess. I know she kept saying, “I’m going to pimp my ride. I think I’ll just pimp my ride,” over and over again in her chirpy voice. That was my fault. I never should have let her watch a show where they fix up cars. Too much like them stupid ass design shows.

So we was driving and went past these stupid cops. The top was down and I had my arm hanging out and I know they was checking my tats, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t doing nothing but driving. Wasn’t speeding, nothing. But they pulled me over anyway.

When they looked over and saw her in her outfit looking all indignant about having her day disrupted and she told them it was her car and why were they stopping us, it looked like it was going to be okay. They probably thought I was her driver or something. But then I smiled a little bit about the new asshole she was tearing them without even raising her voice, saying things like, “Officers I am nonplussed about why you are so blatantly harassing my friend and myself, but I am certain my father’s golfing buddy, Chief Burton, will have an answer for me when I see him at dinner next Wednesday.” So one of them got a attitude. He said, “I’ll need to see your registration.” I knew she kept it in the glove compartment and I told her, “You don’t have to show him that.” But she just patted my arm and said, “That’s alright, dear,” and threw him this look like, ‘yeah, he’s with me.’ “We’ll be on our way shortly, and I’ll be calling Papa.”

She looked me in my eyes to let me know she was in charge and everything was fine. She was reaching to open the glove compartment and I tried to signal her to not do it, but it was too late. She opened it and my Glock 9mill fell out on the floor. They looked like a couple of carp out of water. Big round eyes, mouth opening and closing with no sound coming out.

Of course, the dumbasses pulled out everything they had and pointed guns at my head. But they wasn’t going to cap no lady. We had to get out of the car and assume the position. First she was calm telling them she has no idea where the gun came from and there must have been some mistake, but when they found the second one I had stashed in there, she stopped being calm. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I had caught a charge over another stupid bitch who couldn’t keep her mouth shut unless her lip was swole, so I wasn’t supposed to be carrying. Not on me, not in the car.

When they arrested both of us, I thought she was going to blow up and that stupid flower pattern in that stupid dress and matchy matchy shoes would be all over everyplace like bad wall paper.

Next time I saw her was when her dad’s lawyer bailed us out, but she wasn’t smiling when she saw me. She drove me home and her mouth was running like a outboard motor the whole time.

“Ye gods, Stanley! Quelle cretin! How, how on God’s green earth could you put me in that position? My father wouldn’t even talk to me! Quelle cretin!” I told her to stop calling me a cretin and my name wasn’t no Stanley. But she said, “Oh please, you’re loud and ignorant and your idea of dressing up is an oversized tee-shirt with words on it and baggy pants that don’t cover your underwear. If you’re not a walking, breathing personification of Stanley Kowalski, Marlon Brando never hollered ‘Stella.’” I didn’t know what all that noise was supposed to mean, but I smacked her in the mouth and said, “Bitch, shut the fuck up!”

So she went all quiet and held her chin real high like she thought she was a queen or something and said, “My father said I would get tired of playing in the mud one day, and that day is today. Now get out of my car you crass, useless piece of detritus.” I didn’t need nobody to explain that one to me. I reached over and shut the bitch up.

But don’t think I didn’t care or whatever. I buried the bitch in a outfit. The dress a soothing slate blue that had this empire waist with smocking on the bust. The tasteful mock turtle neck hid all the bruises. It was accompanied by a contrasting chocolate brown mock gator clutch. I made sure even the toenail polish was matchy matchy.

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Caron Tate, an online English major at the U of Illinois at Springfield, returned to complete a degree started at Howard University in 1968. She started writing short fiction a few years ago, and her stories and poems have appeared in The Alchemist, Takahe Magazine (New Zealand), Voices, and the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle journal. Caron, a brand new granny, is looking forward to turning 60, which will signal the advent of her first tattoo.