2.
RACIST.
in which aaliyah is right (for once)
Butter-yellow afternoon sunshine washed over the kitchen. The woody crooning of Louis Prima swirled through the spices on the wooden rack and stumbled over the chequered table cloth. Carmen's fluffy slippers skirted lightly over the floor as she hummed along, throwing a dash of pepper into her eggs. She cracked another one into the pan and it hissed gently.
Aaliyah opened a can of sweet corn directly onto a piece of white bread and threw a second slice right on top. She slammed it down on the table and hurled herself into the chair.
"That's disgusting," Carmen commented, not even bothering to look. She didn't need to at this point. She just knew.
Aaliyah nodded in sad agreement, tearing a bite into her soggy filth sandwich.
"So," began Carmen. "You know men?"
She groaned. "Unfortunately I do know a few."
"Yes, well you know the ones I date."
"I make a deep and meaningful effort not to."
Carmen rolled her eyes, scraping her egg onto a plate with a spatula so clean it could be used to perform heart surgery, if spatulas could be used for heart surgery. "Can you not for a moment just pretend to care about my love life?"
Aaliyah tried. "Um." She stopped. "No?"
"You're always arguing with my boyfriends!" Carmen whined. "I even dated that French guy just so you wouldn't be able to goad him!"
"À goupil endormi rien ne tombe en la gueule," Aaliyah replied smugly.
"Well I found someone so perfect that even you won't be able to drive him away!" she declared. "He's a biologist, and he's tall, and he's really good at public speaking! He's in a debating society."
"Is he fourteen?"
Carmen rolled her eyes, getting to her feet. "He's twenty-four so actually you're a decade out. Can you at least try and be supportive of me? He's coming over in three minutes."
"Three minutes? Why so early?"
"So you wouldn't have time to read the news and use it against him," Carmen replied starchily. "Anyway it's one in the afternoon."
"You mean 'morning'."
"I honestly do not."
The doorbell rang, and Judy screeched like a banshee with a tumour. There was a sound that sounded oddly like a cannon blast from her bedroom.
Carmen slammed her coffee mug onto the table and sprinted to the door, when she pulled it open, she smiled. In front of her was Hermann Bedford Forrest.
Aaliyah was grudgingly surprised. Hermann cut an impressive figure. He was tall and broad, with a face straight from a 1930s propaganda film and the body of someone who worked out more frequently than he read. His blonde hair had been parted to the side, and his clothes were smart and neat, just as Carmen liked.
Aaliyah hated him.
"This is Hermann Bedford Forrest," Carmen beamed, letting him in and gesturing towards him like a magician's assistant.
"Hello Hermann Bedford Forrest," replied Aaliyah reluctantly.
Carmen seemed satisfied. "Hermann," she said, "this is Aaliyah. I don't actually know her last name, or if she has one."
"Hello," he smiled. Like a bastard.
Pointing up at the ceiling where Judy was suspended in a cocoon of blood and saliva, Carmen introduced, "That's Judy Brockovich. I'm not sure if that's her real name, but that's the name on the large, human-sized parcels that periodically get sent here, so we just kind of assumed it was hers."
"Human-sized?" Hermann frowned. "What's human-sized that gets delivered in the mail system?"
"Humans," said Carmen sadly.
Noticing everyone was just standing (or suspended from a cocoon of blood and saliva) awkwardly, Carmen clapped her hands together to indicate that she was about to force an uncomfortable social interaction.
"Right!" she said breezily. "I'm making everyone coffee. Sit!" It was an unavoidable command.
Hermann and Aaliyah sat instantly. Carmen disappeared into the kitchen.
The sofa felt twice as stiff when Aaliyah was sharing it with Hermann. They sat tight for a solid minute, with Aaliyah jiggling her foot impatiently and Hermann humming. She wasn't sure what it was he was humming. She didn't like it.
She turned to him. "Don't hum in my living room," she said.
He bared his palms. "Sorry, sorry." He glanced around at the piles of tat that had formed mountains in the living room. "Where's the remote?" he asked.
Aaliyah shrugged. "Dunno. Carmen had it last. She was pretending to watch some live debate last night."
"On Channel 4? I saw that," said Hermann. "Who did you support?"
"They were both wrong," said Aaliyah, who was anti-establishment. "Especially that guy, Murray White. Obviously tampons should be free."
"No," said Hermann. "White is right. We've got to think about the economic consequences of free tampons."
"Is that something you do often?" retorted Aaliyah, before she realised her vague promise to Carmen about not arguing with her boyfriends. "Sorry. Ignore me."
Hermann glanced around for talking points. "Nice place you've got here."
That was a lie.
So he was a liar, Aaliyah noted. Interesting...
"It's actually a very organised chaos," she informed him. "Carmen insists that the mounds of books are separated alphabetically by author."
"Really?" said Hermann. "I personally separate them by genre."
"Why don't you just restrict yourself to buying the genre you like?" Aaliyah asked her stupid, imprudent guest who had no respect for personal finances.
"Oh no, no, I like all the genres I buy," he insisted hastily. "I just like to keep them separate. But equal, of course. It's best."
Aaliyah froze. "Say that bit again," she said, shuffling round on the sofa to face him.
"I said I like all the genres I buy."
"No the other bit."
"Separate but equal is best?"
Aaliyah's eyes widened and she leaned back away from Hermann.
Before she could say anything, Carmen returned with a steaming cup of coffee in each hand. Aaliyah settled for eyeing Hermann cautiously, and scrambling to her feet. She marched over to Carmen.
"Carmen," she hissed, leaning in so that Hermann couldn't hear. "Carmen, we need a quick chat."
Carmen rolled her eyes. "What did you do now?"
"Me?" she cried, scandalised. "It's him!"
Hermann waved over sweetly from the sofa.
Carmen placed the mugs on the coffee table that Judy had made from what they hoped wasn't a pile of human legs, and she frogmarched Aaliyah over to the kitchen.
"What?" Carmen demanded. "What's wrong with him?"
"Carmen," said Aaliyah tactfully. "I think Hermann Bedford Forrest is a racist."
"I'm brown!" cried Carmen. "Racists don't date brown people."
"Why not? Misogynists date women."
Carmen waved a dismissive hand. "Don't use tumblr words against me!"
Aaliyah frowned. "Which of those was a tumblr word? 'Misogynist' or 'women'?"
"Honestly, both. Why is Hermann a racist?"
"Well," said Aaliyah slowly, "His name is a weird amalgam of Hermann Goering and Nathan Bedford Forrest."
"How does that make him racist?"
"Do you name yourself after a Nazi and a Confederate general?"
"I don't name myself after anything," Carmen admitted. "Everyone thinks my parents named me after the beautiful lead character in the eponymous opera Carmen, but actually I was just named after the inquisitor carmen, which is a species of sea snail."
Aaliyah gave a fascinated hum. Then she shook her head, trying to stay on track here. "Okay, but is the inquisitor carmen a Nazi?"
"Can marine gastropod mollusks be Nazis?"
She wasn't sure if this was a trick question. "Also!" Aaliyah cried. "He said that separate but equal was best!"
"In what context?" asked Carmen, who was used to Aaliyah's shit.
"Book organisation," she admitted reluctantly. "But he does loads of racist stuff! Look at him! Imagine him holding a pitchfork!"
Carmen peered through the kitchen's hatch. Hermann did look like the kind of man who would suit a pitchfork and perhaps some suspenders. She faced Aaliyah again. "Maybe he just doesn't like witches."
"All women are witches," Aaliyah sighed, frustrated at having to explain this so many times. "It's our inane relationship with the kindling womb of mother nature."
"Ew." Carmen sighed and made her way back to the living room. "Hey Hermann," she said, sitting down next to him and smiling. "You know in your laundry, do you do a separate wash for whites? Because you have so many? Like not just shirts and stuff, but really big garments? Like, hypothetically, perchance, objectively...robes?"
Hermann shrugged cheerfully. "Well, sure. My bathrobe's white. How did you guess?"
"Because it reflects your ethnic bias," Aaliyah muttered inaudibly.
"What about the kind of robes you wear outside the house?" Carmen pressed. "Maybe to parties or group events?"
"Group events?" His eyebrows shot up.
"You know. Like rallies?"
"Never been to a rally in my life," he admitted.
Carmen shot Aaliyah a meaningful glare.
"Alright," Aaliyah said, "but loads of racists aren't klansmen."
Hermann looked up at her, his big, sparkling eyes welling with confusion. "Sorry, what was that?"
"Nothing," she said resentfully.
"Anyway, Carmen," Hermann went on helpfully, "if your washing machine's broken you can always use mine."
Carmen said, "What?"
"You know," he said, "because you were asking about washing whites. The thing is, I add a splash of vinegar into the wash."
Aaliyah wrinkled her nose. Even if he didn't turn out to be a racist, putting vinegar into his wash was enough for her to loathe him. In fact, she was fairly sure that was worse than being a racist.
Carmen cried, "Why in god's name would you do a thing like that?"
Hermann chuckled lightly, and his laugh sounded like stardust on a gentle breeze, knocking at a wind chime. "It's fantastic! It's my favourite trick."
"Yes, yes, but why?"
"Well because it does wonders for whites. Absolutely assaults the colours though," he explained. "It really makes them run."
Carmen sprung out of her seat, backing away from Hermann with horror. Meanwhile, Aaliyah was pointing at him crying, "I knew it!"
He scrambled up, perplexed at the commotion.
"You're a monster!" Carmen wailed.
"I knew he was a racist!" Aaliyah whooped happily. "I bloody told you!"
"I can't believe I dated the kind of monster who uses the same wash for his whites and colours!" There were actual tears in Carmen's eyes.
Aaliyah turned towards her. "Wait, what? You don't care that he's a Klansman?"
"Yeah, that too," she said hurriedly.
Hermann Bedford Forrest looked absolutely scandalised. He spread his arms, affronted. "You think I'm a Klansman?" he cried. "Carmen, I'm dating you! You're brown!"
Carmen scoffed dismissively. "Yeah, whatever 'Hermann'! Monopolists date Wiccans!"
Aaliyah pulled a face. "What?"
"You heard me!"
"What?" Hermann exclaimed, injured. "I'm not a Klansman, I'm not even a common or garden racist! I'm just a regular guy with regular beliefs and a regular job! I would never join the KKK, and I'm honestly just in disbelief that you'd ever say that!"
Carmen paused. "R...eally?"
"Yes," he insisted. "I can't believe you called me a Klansman because I put vinegar in my wash."
Carmen inched towards him cautiously, the tears drying up on her face. "I'm sorry I called you a racist," she said, her voice cracking a little. "I know you're a regular guy with regular beliefs and a regular job."
Aaliyah said, "Just out of curiosity, Hermann Bedford Forrest, what is your job?"
Hermann replied, "I'm a eugenicist."
end.
---