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Punctuation Bitches8.29.97
Oh those pesky drug dealers. It seems that the beginning of the school
year may be a time of reminiscing for all the Dumaine based dealers as
there has been a swarming of comraderie lately.
Note: KaKa (KK) is Kenosha, LuLu is Keyana, BaBa is Keshonika. Also
Kizzie is Kizzy. Kizzy's daughter Ritisha (3) is Raticia and neither
grandma Barbara nor Mama Kizzy know how to spell Shadrica (18 months).
Shelton doesn't like to see me sitting on the porch alone so he comes
over about nine last night (which is one hour after curfew) and keeps me
company, sitting real close, throwing off heat, asking questions and
telling tales.
"What are you thinking when you sit over here by yourself?" Shelton asks.
"I'm thinking about things that make me happy, and things that don't."
"I had a parent/teacher conference today," he tells me.
"Did you get kicked out of school?" I ask.
"No, I just had to have someone (other than his mother, Myrna, who is
back in jail) come talk to the teacher and they let me back in. Do you
know what happened?"
"The other kid started it," I say.
"How'd you know that?," he says, smiling, obviously flattered that I'm
paying attention to his life.
Heather and KaKa got kicked out of school today.
But I ignore his question and ask, "What really happened, Shelton?"
"I can tell you for real, what I said and all that?"
"Of course."
"Well, this boy, he come up to me and he say, 'fuck you, man,' and I say
right back to him, 'fuck yo' mama, bitch.'"
"So Shelton, when you said 'fuck yo' mama, bitch,' you were using 'bitch'
as like a punctuation mark, huh?"
Nobody around here really appreciates my sense of humor, especially the
children.
But I don't care and I go on and elaborate a bit more with the 'bitch' as
punctuation theme. Shelton has learned to be patient and polite during
these episodes and is clearly willing to wait me out on this one. When
he feels that I am pretty much finished, he says,
"Mr. Jim, when you get ready to go inside, to go to the bathroom or
something, would you ask Miss Amanda if she is coming out on the porch
tonight?"
If the children had to choose between me as a father figure or Mandy as a
mother, they would choose Mandy every time, which is a good choice.
Unsupervised9.19.98
Listening out the back door, you can hear the emergency vehicles coming from all parts of the city to arrive at the construction site of the new sports arena next to the superdome, part of which just collapsed. Construction workers hurt, unknown.
And thirty minutes later the topdrop of fast moving puffy whites against bright blue sunshine has turned angry black again, with wind and rain.
And we've been told to anticipate the worst, so that's what we do.
Sometimes we adults conspire to be thoroughly disgusted with certain children all at once, a blast of dissatisfaction--bad boy, bad boy, what we gonna do. There's too many unsupervised children running around here, way too many, an unacceptable many.
Mama D came over yesterday to tell me Shelton's school (McDonough 28) called and say he kicked out for touching a girl's butt and he know he ain't supposed to do that and I find myself nodding contritely as she scolds me in Shelton's place, replaying her words to me--"You know you can't just go around grabbing a girls' butt, it's not right and they won't put up with it at the school." I feel pretty bad by the time she's done and I didn't even get to touch no butt, dammit.
But I agree with her and sympathize with how difficult it must be for her to have those children misbehaving around her all the time instead of just the part time that I spend with them, and yes, Shelton will have to learn he pissin' off too many people too much of the time, and Fermin too, and even Jacque steps from his good boy role today by walking away from me when I tell him it's time to leave the bayou and go home. Hunter can stay if he wants but Jacque is a part timer at Mama D's and they tricked me down here by saying Mama D say they can't fish down there unless they with an adult. It had crossed my mind while driving the seven blocks there that--"ya'll didn't trick me down here just because ya'll too lazy to walk, did you?" No Indeed, they assured me. So anyway Jacque, I'm not that good at this, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm really not that fond of kids in general, and I'm not going to make a scene on the Dumaine bridge over this, so, bye bye, stay dry.
A little later when the sky gets prematurely black Mandy asks me where I left him and I tell her, and offer the advice, "let him get wet," but she ignores me and goes out to do what's right. I'll say this--them children are lucky Mandy got over being disgusted with them because right now she the only friend they got..