{"id":137,"date":"2022-07-03T18:36:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-03T18:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alecclayton.com\/writingetc\/?p=137"},"modified":"2022-07-03T21:02:35","modified_gmt":"2022-07-03T21:02:35","slug":"babyshit-brown-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alecclayton.com\/writingetc\/babyshit-brown-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"Babyshit brown suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026 I had bought a summer suit which I thought looked pretty nice, which had been altered for me, and which I decided to wear home. \u2026 the minute I stepped outside, two policemen grabbed me for hard questioning. Then they let me go with an apology, explaining that a man had just robbed a bank down the street, with a lady\u2019s nylon stocking over his head. \u2018All that anybody could tell us about him,\u2019 one of them said to me, \u2018was that his suit was babyshit brown.\u2019\u201d \u2013 Kurt Vonnegut in Bluebeard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My wife and I had a similar experience many years ago. We had just arrived in my old home town the night before, and we decided to hitchhike downtown on Hardy Street in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Neither of us was wearing a babyshit brown suit. We stuck out our thumbs as the first group of cars approached, and a cop car pulled up, and a cop said, \u201cGet in the back seat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter, officer, is hitchhiking illegal here?\u201d one of us asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust get in,\u201d he growled.<\/p>\n

We got in the back seat, and he drove us downtown to the police place and marched us inside and told us to sit on a bench in a hallway. We sat. We watched a few people\u2014police and civilians\u2014 walk past as we sat in bewilderment and silence on the bench. And then the cop who had marched us in came back and said, \u201cYou can go now.\u201d<\/p>\n

We asked if he could explain what was going on. He said a couple matching our description had robbed a store in the mall and the woman who owned the store was one of the people who walked past where we were seated and reported to the cops that we were not the robbers.<\/p>\n

My wife said, \u201cWell, thank you, sir, for the ride downtown.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026 I had bought a summer suit which I thought looked pretty nice, which had been altered for me, and which I decided to wear home. \u2026 the minute I stepped outside, two policemen grabbed me for hard questioning. Then they let me go with an apology, explaining that a man had just robbed a … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBabyshit brown suit - Alec Clayton - Writing etc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/alecclayton.com\/writingetc\/babyshit-brown-suit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Babyshit brown suit - Alec Clayton - Writing etc.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201c\u2026 I had bought a summer suit which I thought looked pretty nice, which had been altered for me, and which I decided to wear home. \u2026 the minute I stepped outside, two policemen grabbed me for hard questioning. 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