Last night, right before Arsenio Hall was coming on, my sister Priscilla called me collect to wish me a happy birthday and had the nerve to sound happy because she had just run into Precious, her damn daughter, in the same prison she was in. I guess I was supposed to jump for joy, but I didn’t. Precious is thirty-five. I didn’t even ask what she was in there for, ’cause their whole situation is just ridiculous. First Boogar and Squirrel, and now her only daughter. They all got caught up in some shit I don’t understand. I told Priscilla I was falling asleep when she called, and after I told her I couldn’t send her no more than twenty or thirty dollars, I said goodbye. I was still shaking my head when the phone rang again. It was Paris, calling to wish me a early happy birthday ’cause she said tomorrow she had to go with some gardener to pick out some trees and plants and rocks and slate and some kinda shy fish and she didn’t know what time she’d be back and she wanted to make sure she caught me at home. I told her she caught me at home all right, that I was half sleep, so hurry up and say what she gotta say so I could go back. She told me to wake my fat butt up if I wanted to hear her good news. I made myself sit up and told her I was awake now, now hurry up and get to the damn point. And that’s when she said she sold her cookbook for a good amount of money and that I could not only go down to that dealership after ten-thirty this morning and pick up my brand-new navy-blue Mitsubishi Galant, but to drive that sucker to the best dentist in town and make an appointment to get fitted for some brand-new dentures, and then she said turn every corner I feel like it until I see a condo I might want to live in and park this sucker in the shade and go talk to a sales agent about buying. At first she didn’t even give me no price range, but then she did say to make sure the price had a “one” in front of it, and for me not to go crazy. Hell, here in the Valley, for one hundred thousand even a damn fool can live good. And since I’m nosy as hell anyway, I just had to know how much she got for a cookbook she ain’t even wrote yet, and especially since she the one sound like she going a little spending crazy, but she just said, “Enough nuff,” so I let it go at that.

Me and Shanice was way too excited when we drove that baby off the lot to go looking for some new teeth or at any kinda condos. We went straight to Red Lobster to celebrate, and who in the world did we run into? Cecil and his new family—looking like the black Flintstones—but I didn’t even “trip”—as Dingus would say. Cecil was just about to put one of them little shrimps in his mouth when he saw us, and I just nodded a hello to him and then to that mushroom-looking wench he was sitting next to, who look young enough to be his granddaughter, and who need to make up her mind which hairstyle she really interested in and settle on one instead of the three or four I saw. Look like finger waves was pressing against the left side of her head. The top was part ancient Jheri Curl and part reddish-blond braids that hung down over some of the waves. Hell, maybe they was supposed to be a waterfall, I don’t know. But the right side was cornrows that had been wove with purple yarn all through ’em. What would possess her to do this to herself? And this was only the front view.