Mamma

Mamma’d hit me if I weren’t right. That’s what she’d say anyway. She’d always look at me and say, “You ain’t right!” Somethin’ like that. I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t right very much.

So, I’m comin’ home from a friend’s house, and it’s about nine o’clock at night. Mamma told me to be home ‘round ten. So I’m thinkin’, wow, I’ll make it by nine. She’s gotta love me for this one, right? So, I get in there and she’s all smelly as usual. She gets up outta that chair of hers and looks at me glarin’, and sayin’, “What the hell you want?” So she screams this at me and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be thinkin’. I’m tryin’ to get home on time. No, I’m tryin’ to get home early. I’m tryin’ to do it right for a change. So I say, “Mamma, I’m just tryin’ to do what you told me.” So I guess she doesn’t like this much either, cause she comes over swingin’ her fist.

So, I’m comin’ home from school, right? Right, so Mamma ain’t even supposed to be at home. So, I’m thinkin’ I’ll clean the house for her, make it all nice so she’ll be happy for a change when she gets home from work. So, I go to open the door but I can’t. There’s somethin’ blockin’ the damn door from the inside. So, I start bangin’ and bangin’, tryin’ to get in. I’m thinkin there’s some creep robber in the house tryin’ and take everythin’. So finally I find my way in through a window and go to see what all the trouble’s about. Well, there’s Mamma with the couch on its side, sittin’ against the door! She’s passed out and smelly and there’s glass all over the place. I go to wake her up, when I step on some. The glass goes right up through my rubber sandals and into my foot. So I scream out, “Damn!” Now Mamma wakes up and sees me with a piece a glass in my foot. So she gets mad and starts comin’ after me. I’m pleadin’ to let me take the glass out first, but she ain’t lettin’ me. So I had to take a beatin’ with glass in my foot.

So, I’m getting’ outta the shower one mornin’ and I see this guy lookin’ in the window. He’s lookin’ right at me. So, I scream and yell for help. What was I supposed to do? The creep was starin’ right at me. You don’t just stare at a girl like that! This ain’t no peep show. So, I’m tryin’ my hardest to get the towel to stick around me so he can’t see no more, but instead I slip and fall. Just before I hit the ground, though, I grab onto the cabinet and pull it down with me. So, Mamma comes in and sees the mess and starts yellin’ at me. She smells as usual. So she starts screamin’ some name I ain’t never even heard before. She’s callin’, “Eddie! Eddie!” So, this guy walks in, and sure enough its that same creep who been starin’ in the window at me. I tell Mamma, but she don’t listen. She calls me a liar! I tell her I ain’t lyin’ and that I wouldn’t say those things less they were true. She starts goin’ off on how worthless I am again. And then she starts wailin’ on me. It was worse though, cuz the whole time that Eddie guy just watched. And I swear if he wasn’t smilin’ about it the whole time.

So, I’m sittin’ down to dinner and Mamma brings out the food. Now, I had been eatin’ whatever she gave me for two weeks in a row, and I had been gettin’ hungrier and hungrier. She hadn’t been feedin’ me right. So she brings out this bowl of soup. But there ain’t nothin’ in it. It’s just hot water. She sits it down in front of me and snaps at me to eat it. I go to speak up about the food, but then I figure what good’ll it do? So, I forget about it. Then I remember I got to say this thing I heard about called Grace. I guess it’s a prayer type of thing. I didn’t know too much about no prayers. But this kid at school said you gotta pray before you eat or God ain’t happy. So I go to say Grace, right? And so I’m foldin’ my hands and closin’ my eyes, when all of the sudden I feel myself yanked outta my chair. I’m thinkin’, “God’s mad at me or somethin’, cuz I ain’t too good at Grace!” But, sure enough, it was Mamma. She starts screamin’ about how God ain’t lovin’ me. I try and say I was sorry. I was only tryin’ to help, you know? She never listens to a thing I say. So, I say she’s right and God hates me. But I start cryin’, you know? I can’t help it. I really didn’t want God hatin’ me. She didn’t like that though. She had to beat God outta me I guess.

So, I’m getting’ hungrier and hungrier, until this one day I fall down. I fall down right in the middle of school. I don’t really remember much, but the next thing I know I’m at the nurses and my teacher is standin’ over me askin’ me all these questions. Somethin’ about me bein’ malnarisht or somethin’. I don’t know what any of that means. I’m hungry though, real hungry. So, I tell her I just ain’t been eatin’ so good, you know? I figure Mamma just had some money problems. She meant to feed me, but if only one of us could go and eat, then it should be her, seein’ as how she’s the one makin’ the money anyway. So, I tell ’em all of this and then they get all angry. I don’t know what I did, you know? I didn’t mean to fall down. So, I kinda wonder why they ain’t hittin’ me yet, but I don’t say nothin’. If they forget, it ain’t my problem. So soon my Mamma walks in, smellin’ and holdin’ a bottle as usual. They take a look at Mamma and say that she has to get outta there. Well Mamma ain’t gonna take that. No sir, she starts yellin’ and flailin’, and everythin’ she can think of. Then she spots me and stops movin’ altogether. She starts screamin’ about me doin’ it to her. She starts yellin’ about me destroyin’ her. “I ain’t done nothin’ but fall down Mamma!” I scream it, but it don’t do no good. She must’ve been real mad cuz she threw that bottle right at my head.

So, I don’t see mamma after that. I don’t see a lot of anything really. That bottle knocked my eyes up pretty good. I live with some family that don’t like me too much. They don’t teach me nothin’ like Mamma did. Mamma at least cared enough to tell me how worthless I was bein’. Sometimes I wonder about Mamma. I hope she’s okay. I wish I had been right. I wish I wasn’t so wrong. I wish Mamma was here to show me. She’d show me good.

A guy