Nothing in Common Except Blood

I’m trying to drum up the courage to call Mama, but I don’t know what to say. She picks the worst times to get sick. When I got a million other things on my mind. We running to the mailbox every day hoping our income-tax checks gon’ be in there. But we ain’t getting back half as much as we did last year, which was close to eight thousand. Me and Al both put in too much overtime, but it ain’t worth it. You kill yourself and still can’t get ahead. This house look good on the outside, but on the inside, it’s falling apart, little by little, and it need some work or we need to sell this sucker. We might have to take out a second just to make it sellable, but I really don’t wanna go that route: double debt is what I call it.

And then there’s the kids. Tiffany’s having problems at school. Boys pestering her so much she can’t keep her mind on nothing. That phone rings off the damn hook. She used to make a tent outta her covers and sit under there with a flashlight writing her little poetry, but lately I done caught her under there running her mouth on the portable with no pen and nothing but a blank piece of paper in her lap. I just finished picking Monique up from basketball practice three times a week and since she done got so good on that flute, her teacher is trying to get her to try out for band next year, so now I gotta take her to band practice four frigging days a week. It don’t make no difference one way or the other, ’cause I still gotta clock in at the post office Monday through Friday, supervise twenty-six dim-witted mail carriers, listen to the rich folks in Hyde Park complain ’cause their mail was late or the carrier won’t deliver to their house ’cause their dog tried to bite him, and then come home and try to scrape up something to eat, and the weekend is just as hectic ’cause this is when I try to iron and go to the grocery store and pay bills and plus every single Sunday since we been married I gotta bake Al something sweet and cook him a damn southern feast, and last but not least, there’s still the upkeep of two losing-money-by-the-minute Laundromats over in Englewood, where half the time I’m scared to get out the car while Al is in his rig on the road sometimes two and three days at a time.

Where I live, dirty clothes come outta nowhere. I do at least one or two loads a day, ’cause people in my house think they rich and don’t wear nothing twice. I been told I should get a housekeeper, but that’s why I got kids. Even still, by the time I remind ’em, day in and day out, what they supposed to do, I could do the shit myself. But I can’t do everything, which is why I’m probably always so stressed out. It’s times like this when I wish I hadda went to college. Hell, if I could ever find the time, I’d like to go back to school: at least take a few classes. Not necessarily for no degree. Shit. Why shouldn’t I try to get a degree? People on Oprah and Sally in their fifties and sixties is just learning how to read or getting their GED. They say it ain’t never too late.