run through the chickens and watch them scatter, laughing out loud, cackling really with Mama hollering through the window for me to "stop that." She won't do nothin' ...she cain't do nothin'...Sister ain't home to help Mama with the baby. She's done gone over to the shoe factory. There's a boy there named Clarence she's been foolin' 'round with. So, Mama's tied down right now.
head to town when I'm nine years old and get in an old man's car and start it up, then drive all over the main drag 'til somebody stops me. run down to the train station when the bananas come in and pick up the left overs and sell them on the streets for a nickel a bunch. Daddy's in his cafe cooking up a storm, hamburgers and fried onions. Ever body loves his cookin'
the new young'ens just keep on comin' Papa Albert, Mama's Daddy hates my Daddy. says he keeps her pregnant all the time. only he don't say pregnant, he says "with child." 'cause it sounds nicer that way.
He's a pretty mean old man. Always sour about something. couple of his own sons got religion a while back, and he runs 'em off ever time they come around his place talkin' 'bout savin' him. Don't nobody like my Mama's Daddy, don't nobody.
life is fun for me these days....i've got me two brothers and two more sisters to run with and tease. And I'm the smartest one of all of 'em, I do know that much. Mama's a pretty woman, but she's tired as can be. I'm about to turn 12 soon and that's a grown man if you ask me. Grown enough to do just about anything I set my mind to. Ain't been to school since 5th grade and it hasn't hurt me one little bit. I can read good enough and write a pretty hand. Life is grand.
Mama's been sick to her stomach again. She took to her bed and waved ever young'en away from her side. Her twin sister, Aint Beulah went for the doctor, 'cause Daddy wouldn't and she said to H with that. She's the strong one of the two. Mama was so tiny when she was born, they nearly lost her, and she ain't never been what you might call a well person.
That's one reason old Albert hates that she married a man who don't coddle her enough. Albert stood on the sidelines watching while his wife, the mother of the twin girls fought to keep my Mama alive. They placed her in a big coffee pot and kept her on the back of the stove for a spell, just to keep her warm. She made it through that first winter and married Will D. and she's never been happier she says, in all her 36 years.
But, nothin' seems to help Mama this time. The sickness has gotten a strong hold on her and won't let go. Daddy's shooing all the little ones away and he's holdin' onto me like I was his last hope. I think he's acting strange, but I cain't do nothin' about it, so I just stand and watch as the last breath leaves my Mama's chest. She heaves a big sigh and says, "Ohhhh..." and then she is gone. All the life that was in her drained completely away.
We hold a funeral and someone takes a picture of her there in her borrowed casket. Someone makes copies of that picture and gives it to each one of the six of us children. It is the only picture we ever have of our Mama.
A few weeks later, we are all in church together and I am bawling like a baby and feeling ashamed when one of the preacher type men asks me if I want to go where my Mama went. I nodded "yes," and he told me to go up front and get saved and I would see her again. I wiped my eyes and hurried up front where another preacher type held my hand in his and prayed over me. After my savin' was done we went home with Daddy and the house was more quiet than ever and I felt like I had been lied to by that church ...so I vowed I'd never believe another word they ever told me. I thought after they saved me, they'd take me to a back room where they had put my mother and she'd welcome me to her arms. 'Twas never to be.
That was the beginning of the making of WoeBoy who, when he was 4 and 6 and 13 loved to stir up a ruckus and
