Java Art
The women are making fun of Debbie’s jean pants. Debbie is the lady hanging clothes. The other women don’t like her much. They say she thinks she’s better than them. Because she wears weaves like Beyoncé. Because her sister sends her things from Boston. Because her husband is a supervisor in the quarry and goes about with a pen stuck in his breast pocket like he went to school. Everybody knows he didn’t.
Mama Subi, tells her. “Debbie, is that how they make jeans in America now?”
“Boston.” Debbie says. “Yes in Boston.”
“What’s the purpose of that line running down its length?”
“It’s the fashion of Boston.”
The others laugh scornfully. Every Saturday they wash clothes by the government water tank. It’s on this day that they get to know if Debbie got new clothes from Boston or not. Her clothes stand out in the clothing line by their colour and personality. But the rest think of her clothes as ridiculous and mostly scandalous. Clothes you wouldn’t wear to your mother-in-law’s. Ungodly clothes with splits running right up to the waist, short clothes, clothes you can see through skin, clothes that are so tight one can see the dimples on her thighs. She has some she calls lingeries that she wears for her husband, they look like strings tied together. But Debbie cares not. Debbie thinks this is Boston.
She also refuses to have a child. She says, “children will spoil my shape.” Indeed she has a shape of a Coke bottle but her nose is the size of a baby’s fist. Maybe she will get a smaller nose from Boston. Who knows?
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