the Black Trousers

The Black Trousers

by Temba Magorimbo

It was displayed in the shop. Pockets by the side. It had a back pocket and a slit pocket near the loop line for coins. What an irony to have a purse for coins when coins had stopped existing the last time the opposition said the election rigging machine had worked. However, he still liked it. It was mauve in colour. This could do well with a gray long sleeve shirt with gold cuffs. He imagined himself striding across the courtyard. The next one of his choice was grey with an elastic waist halfway. This he thought he would wear with a white short sleeve t-shirt or a white long sleeve shirt with the correct tie on.

"Your sense of dress is crooked," the secretary at the office always liked to say. "You dress like a cherry tree in blossom, mixing colours like a rainbow."

"Too many platitudes," he had replied one day leafing through the official mail. "Say exactly what you want to say."

"That trousers and shirt don't match," she had replied. "You should have worn a black shirt."

"I am not in mourning," he had said.

"Men, you have no sense of dress," she had be mourned as he had proceeded towards his shared office. "However the belt and buckle are what makes a gentleman out of you. They take you out of the ghetto."

"It doesn't take the ghetto out of me sister," he had replied.

"Ritchie?" she shouted.

"Yap," he had replied.

"The Finance Director said he wants the accounts in first thing tomorrow morning," she shouted.

"Thanks Mitchell for letting the whole office know I am late with that," he had replied sarcastically slamming the door behind him. Now he gazed at arrays of trousers, shirts and other men's apparel in Edgar's Stores. He had an account alright. An account gave him thirty days to pay for his credit without interest attachments. Credit stores like Edgar are where twice to three times more expensive than cash stores but their quality was twice to three times better. The durability was outstanding. Richard remembered wearing an Edgar's shirt five years later even though a cash one he had bought two years earlier had since lost its collar.

Would Susan understand? She was always bitching him about how he took credit for his own clothes forgetting her. But face it man, he thought he was working in a public office where he was expected to be smart when addressing members of the public with accounts queries. She was a housewife. He did not begrudge that she was not working. Susan was a beautiful woman with whom he was very proud.

He thought of Sasha. Maybe he would rope in a pair of trousers and shirt for his two year old toddler and a dress for Susan. He could see her mouth forming into a rebuke. "A dress, you seen me as being rural eh. A shapeless and formless dress?"

"Hi," he was accosted. The young man who did that was smartly dressed in trainers, denim blue jean shorts cut slightly below the knee and white t-shirt. He had a red cape on his head.

"Hi to you too," he replied.

"Nice clothes," he suggested.

"I can see."

"Top of the range," he had replied.

"You work here?" asked Richard.

"Sort of," was the reply.

"What do you mean, sort of?" he asked. "Since when do stores like Edgar's, Truworths, CW Fashions and Barbour's to name a few have outside salespeople?"