“Who?”

“Never mind.”

“But what you supposed to do if they take your house and car and stuff?”

“What you mean, ‘what you supposed to do’?”

“Well, it wouldn’t make no sense to me to pay for something you ain’t even got no more.”

“It don’t work like that, Brenda. It means I couldn’t never buy another house until I paid the government they money.”

“Then you better go on and pay them folks. Cecil, would you make some Kool-Aid for the kids right quick?”

“Sure, where’s the pitcher?” But then I remembered.

“Where it always is. In the refrigerator. Why didn’t you pay your taxes, Cecil?”

“That’s a dumb question, Brenda.”

“What’s so dumb about it?” she asks, getting a real fork out the drawer and jabbing it deep into them crunchy hot links two at a time. Grease is dripping all over the stove, and dark-brown drops fall right on top of that yellow corn. I can’t eat this mess.

“What’s usually the reason why people don’t pay their bills on time, Brenda?”

“ ’Cause they ain’t got the money, I guess.”

“All right, then.”

“But you had them barbecue places.”

“Had, is right.”

“QUANTIANA! Y’all come on in here and eat! Well, what happened to ’em?”

“You been listening to me, gal?”

“Yeah,” she says, “but you ain’t told me nothing, really.”

Here come the kids. One by one. Like little soldiers. Miss Q is beautiful. Her hair is wild and curly. Her skin is the color of a brand-new copper penny. I thank her and Hakeem’s daddy is, or I should say was, Mexican. I can’t be sure. They mixed with something. Hakeem is a handsome little dude. Already got the face of a grown man. You can see what he gon’ look like twenty years from now. Small for his age, seem like to me. He three, but ain’t much bigger than Sunshine, and she won’t be two till Labor Day. Now, this child is 100 percent black. Ain’t no guessing game necessary here. Her daddy like to throw dice, but his luck was always low when he come up against me. I won that gold cap in his mouth once, but I couldn’t take the man’s tooth. And if memory serves me correctly, he still owes me the value of one gold crown.

Brenda leans against the sink while the kids sit down at the table. Ain’t but three chairs, so even if we all wanted to eat at the same time, we couldn’t.

“Mama, Hakeem is in my chair.”

“I ain’t in your chair.”

“You is!”

“I ain’t!”

Miss Q, who is standing behind Hakeem, puts both hands on his chair and flips it backwards so fast that, before anybody can say a word, that boy is on the floor screaming out the top of his lungs. Then Sunshine start crying, and Miss Q just gets in that chair and start eating like ain’t nothing going on. I wanna say something, but it ain’t my place. These kids like me. And if I start chastising ’em like they mine, feelings have a tendency to change.