Memories Of A Monster: Clothes Make The Man

--- Booker, Past ---

As he stood there, the tailor walking around him talking about this and that in such a way that he barely understood half of it he found himself thinking about clothing. Not the clothing he was receiving but the clothing that he’d seen and worn over the years.

Like most people -especially his people- he only really had a single set of clothes for the day to day. And given his family’s poorer stature, he didn’t even have the Sunday best that many others wore to church or other special occasions.

Not that he faulted his mama or grandad for that, he understood why things were so… difficult for them, and why they lived the life they did, but… He wanted more, not just for him but for them as well.

Sure grandad had passed but… (By the time I’m through I’ll make sure that mama has more dresses than even Emilia…)

Of course, if things went the way he wished -even though he knew why they wouldn’t- he’d be giving her just as many dresses, (and flowers, and sweets, and everything else she risks just by talking to me…)

He’d always felt self conscious about the difference in their clothes, not when they were younger, but as the years dragged on. He noted the patches and holes in his own hand-me-down clothing so different from the elegant put together styles of her made just for her clothing. A constant reminder of the differences between their stations…

(Stations that I will be bridging.) He’d worked hard to make it this far, to save up what scraps he could to come all the way out here and perhaps he was wasting some of his money on making arguably the finest clothing he’d ever owned but (I need to make a good impression with the college.)

It was something he’d picked up from watching people of all walks as he had since realizing he was… an outlier from the norms of his peers. Clothes weren’t just to keep one socially decent, or warm during the colder months, they could also aid in one’s actual work or function as a status symbol of sorts with the people around him.

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Just from what he’d with Emilia’s father and the way the man’s face twitched ever so slightly when looking at those who wore clearly inferior clothing -regardless of the paleness of their skin- he knew there was a social element there that could make things easier for him when dealing with others.

Which is why he was having clothes tailored for the specific purpose of looking his best, that way he’d gain an advantage when charming his way into the college and maybe convincing a club or two to let him work there when his current funds began to run low. (No, I should look for work as soon as I can. Mama is going to need me to send something to help her with both me and grandad gone…)

And should he be unable to find work in the upper side of african society, be it a musician or a simple shopkeep, then he’d just have to make use of the work clothes he wore now to help him get a more labor based profession. (And should all of that fail, perhaps I can make something work with my hunting skills.)

He was a bit far from the forest and swamplands his grandad had taught him to hunt in but the local terrain was close enough that he thought he could make it work if he had to. (In the end all that matters is taking care of mama like grandad told me.)

Admittedly, he felt a bit guilty running off to the big city like this but he was sure there was opportunity here both for profit and to let him become a man that could take care of the people important to him. To give them the lives they deserved.

They’d been there for him in his darkest hours, which meant they deserved the world. (And I will give it to them.)

“So what do you think?” The tailor asked as he stepped away from Booker. “It might not be my best work but it’s definitely better than you’ll find anywhere else in the Tremé.”

He looked himself over in the mirror, standing there nearly grown at fifteen years old in a simple black suit and vest he found he looked far better than he ever thought he would. (Far better than any of the boys from back home at least.)

It wouldn’t be nearly enough to actually get him to his goals, but he had no doubt that the clothes would be a massive boon. Enough so that it had him recalling one of the articles Emilia had slipped him from the North American Review a few months before he’d left, admittedly one that had played a large influence in his decision to risk his finances on this outfit.

He nodded at his reflection as he thought of Czars, humanity, and the influence one held over the other, before telling the tailor, “I think clothes make the man and naked people have little influence on society.”