Читать книгу God's Broken Lil' Baby - E. Jay Ford - Страница 12

Chapter 10

10 So She Smokes Dope

My Letter to the Dope Man

I’m the oldest of five,

any more pressure and I think I’ll die.

I don’t know where or when it actually began.

I just want this nightmare to end.

You are no help you know.

The pain is horrible and slow.

On the first, she gets her welfare check.

It’s the tenth and no sign of her yet.

You take the money and give her crack,

acting like you don’t know the devastating impact.

We are children who can’t fend for ourselves.

The youngest is four, and me, I’m the oldest, and I’m only twelve.

The food stamps are gone because she sold those too.

Once again, less for us and more for you.

I understand it’s fast money, and you have extravagant needs.

But we go without due to your unlawful deeds.

Yes, you get the money to take care of your bills.

In exchange, we go for days without meals.

Times are hard for you and us.

Do your part to make it better and stop selling drugs.

Hunger is only the beginning of our troubles.

The problems then start on another level.

Summer is good, but there isn’t much to do.

But winters are long, scary, and cruel.

We all sleep on the kitchen floor

because the only source of heat is the oven with an open door.

Let’s not forget school.

No money for books, paper, or writing tools;

no new clothes or shoes to show off;

just the same dirty clothes, old shoes, and a nasty cough.

Think about what I just told you.

I hope you change or at least adhere a little caution to what you do.

Don’t get me wrong, your worries are probably just as bad,

in a different why but just as sad.

Next time, our take money for stamps,

next projects you post up in and camp.

Think, the life you are selling to is not her won to destroy.

She got three little girls and two boys.

I felt it was time to say something—to take a stand.

So this is my letter to the dope man.

The Letter from the Dope Man

I listened to your voice, and I heard your cry.

Now it’s my turn to let loose mines.

I’m a young black man at the age of twenty-one.

I’ve been selling since I was twelve and not once has this shit been fun.

My momma’s a crackhead too, and my daddy’s a drunk.

I’m not blaming that on the choices I’ve made, but I wasn’t real smart, and I could never dunk.

My chances of getting out of the ghetto were getting smaller and smaller.

Problems in my youth stacked taller and taller.

I have three siblings under me;

I had to find a way out to set them free.

“Get a job” is what they all say.

Couldn’t take care of the four of us on McDonald’s petty ass pay.

Keeping my head above water is hard to do.

Times were hard ad options were few.

I do what I do for survival.

To add to that, I’m preparing for my newborn’s arrival.

I am sorry for what I’ve put your family through,

but my brother wants to go to college, and my sister needs new shoes.

Time is something I do not have.

I apologize on the dope man’s behalf.

Someday, I’m gonna quit this shit;

make enough money to start my own business, something legit.

I worry every day about being locked up or somebody hittin’ a lick.

What I do gets a lot of people pissed.

I want just as bad as you did for this to end.

Maybe one day, we can come together find a solution and begin again.

Until that time, the situation is out of my hands.

This is the letter from the dope man.

We are back in East St. Louis, Illinois. Something went really wrong in California. We got on a Greyhound bus one day and rode for three of the most horrible days of my young life. I got registered at Lilly Freeman Elementary School. I was in the fifth grade. The teacher I got was pretty nice, but I didn’t want to live here. I want to know what happened. It’s cold as fuck here, and we now lived in a house with about thirteen people. It was so crowded in there, and my mommy was always sleeping. She didn’t do anything but sleep and cry. I’m happy to be around my family. They were freaking hilarious. I just didn’t know why we were here and where was my daddy. Why didn’t my mommy go find him? Why didn’t he come back to us? This shit was crazy. I love my mommy, but this made no sense to me.

There came the day I found out why my life had changed so dramatically. I was the first one home from school from school this day. That was weird because Baby Brother was downstairs by himself. Where was everybody? My granny and granddaddy were at the grocery store. I remembered them talking about it earlier before I left for school. My uncles were always gone, so that was normal for them for them not to be there, but my mommy was always there with Baby Sis and Baby Brother. Sissy wasn’t even there. Mommy picked her up from school every day. I started searching the house when I heard a noise in the basement. I had always been terrified of the basement. My uncles had also banned me from their rooms in the basement, so it was a forbidden spot. I opened up the door to the basement and started to yell for my mommy. She didn’t answer, but I heard laughter. I wanted to see what was so funny.

I got to the bottom stair, and there were a group of people around the pool table. At first, I thought it was my uncles and their friends in a game of pool, but it wasn’t. It was my mommy and three strange people who I had never seen before in my life. They had a spoon, some aluminum foil, cigarette lighters, and some of those metal scrubs that were in the kitchen. There was no pool game going as far I could tell. Everybody looked crazy and was talking really slow. One was slobbering when he talked. It was gross. I got really scared. It smelled terrible down there, and I began to cry. I still didn’t understand what was going on, so I called my mommy’s name. She was startled. I asked her why she didn’t pick up Sissy. She started yelling at me about being in grown folk business and pushing me up the stairs. She told me to get Baby Sis and Baby Brother and take them to the room. I disappeared to my room, but I could hear the commotion downstairs. It must have been later than they thought because they started to scramble. I looked out the bedroom window, and you could see them hittin’ that door and running down Missouri Avenue like they had stolen something. My mommy hit across the field toward Lilly Freeman Elementary School. She was an hour late, but she had finally gone to pick up Sissy.

When you live in the projects, word spread fast, and by the time my granny got home, everybody in the hood knew that my mommy had left Sissy at the school. Granny had been down the street visiting with her best friend trading gossip, and that’s who told her. Granny was shitty! She stormed in the house screaming at my mommy about who the fuck she had in her house. My granny didn’t play that. Nobody was allowed in my granny’s house. There was a time when my parents were married right out of high school, but that didn’t mean shit to my granny. He didn’t have a place for my mommy, so he had to leave me and my mommy every night. Of course, my mommy tried to make the argument about how nosey my granny’s best friend was and about how she always talking. That’s how I found out she was also the one who told my granny my mommy was pregnant with me when she was in high school. My granny and mommy were so mad at each other. Granny released. Told my mommy she brought all that dope smoking shit from California but she wasn’t going to bring it in her house. I finally knew.

I had heard about the parents that had got hooked on crack. I didn’t really know what it meant, but I had seen a number of people real bad off on that shit. My mommy didn’t look like that so that couldn’t be true. Granny had to be mistaken. She wasn’t. You learn real fast that when people are mad, they say everything they have been thinking. In that one night, I learned that my granny had been sending my mommy and daddy money in California to help to take care of us. They must have been smoking the money away because we eventually got evicted. That’s how we ended up living with Grandmother, daddy’s mother, when we were in California. My daddy was high the last time I saw him. That answered the questions I had for that major event. We had become homeless in California and now I know that my mommy was on crack. I can’t believe this. Everything that I thought was the truth was all a lie. My childhood ended that night.

I ended up with two parents who were addicts. I often asked the universe what I had done to deserve this. What was wrong with me? This was no doubt not fair to me or my siblings. It was life, though. On one hand, it made me resentful and angry, and on the other hand, it made me strong and resourceful. I may not have grown up with the best things in life, but I bet you I know how to go out and get it.