Free Lunch for
Kids
She was this
enormous
loud person
waddling
to the folding
tables
in the church
basement
with a list she starts
reading without so much
as a "How do you
do",
a list that contained
like
twelve different
sandwiches:
roast beef, ham,
turkey,
corned beef----on all
kinds
of different breads,
requiring
all different dressings,
withs
and withouts, not to
mention
a drink order, all To-Go, she
says
"While you're making
those,
I'll go to the car. I've gots
some boxes you all can
put
this in when its
ready."
Looks horrified, stunned
to
hear, "Our free lunch
doesn't
work this
way."
"What you mean? Says free
lunch for kids
outside."
"Doesn't say Deli
sandwich
orders gladly taken. Plus you
have to eat it
here."
"You don't believe I
don't
got no twelve
kids?"
"I believe you might
have
that many. Next time bring
them all in so we can meet
them."
"Where I gonna put
them?
My van broke down. I'm a
driving my sister's car
while
she's
away."
"Sorry, dear, that's not
our
problem."
"You folks better get you
act
together. Some free lunch for
kids. I got half a mind to
sue
you for false
advertising."
Big Mama
She was
Jaba-the-Hut's
soulmate, they just
hadn't
met yet, riding the #55
bus,
taking up all of
the-Please
Save These Seats for
the
Handicapped and the
Disabled,
yelling at her kids to shut
up
and sit down or
else-
"You know what
happens
when I gotta get hold of
you."
A look beyond fear
passed
across the oldest one's
face
suggesting Mama must
have
taught Hall of Fame
wrestlers
a thing or two about
Death
Grips and Bear Hugs of
Doom,
those signature moves
visiting
dignitaries were only too
glad
to demonstrate on their
once
a year visit downtown
to
The Hall, a block or two away
from where Mama
shook
the earth when she
walked
as High Priestess of Junk
Foods;
watching her moves, a
man
near the rear of the bus
said,
"Whoever climbs aboard
that
woman was in for one
hell
of a wild ride so he'd
better
be real sure he knows
what
he's doing before he gets
on."
Like
clockwork
every Saturday
morning
between three &
three-
thirty, she wakes
up
screaming for more
blow,
crack, whatever she's
on,
injecting, snorting,
smoking,
all of the
above----demanding
that he get some
more---fast,
before she got sicker, so
sick
she wouldn't be able to
stand
herself, would have to
climb
the mother fucking
walls,
coming down
hallucination
demons crawling under her
skin,
down the walls, filling
up
the room, all the spaces left
to
breathe----he says, "Calm
down.
Where am I going to get
such
a thing this time of
night?"
"I don't care." she cries,
"Just
get it!" Screams, getting
louder,
more desperate, more
frantic,
more out of
control-----until
he smacks her. Hard. "Snap
out of it, girl! Get a grip,
get yourself together,
now."
But she doesn't, won't,
starts
that Godawful screaming
again----
Until he hits her, harder,
this time.
Again and again. Inducing a
kind
of cowed silence, she
interrupts
by whimpering, nodding off,
for
the moment----Their two
boys
from other partners,
burrowing
under the covers, no longer
asking
what's going on, what's
wrong
with momma? They know, now,
how it is and how it will
be.
Free Lunch for Kids
appeared in Nerve Cowboy, Like clockwork used to appear in 147 Furman
Street
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