you back a home.
So I went back with Nadine knowing this time this would not be home so I do not have to feel sad about being here in the middle of a place so far from the house at the end of the colored path.
I will treat this like a hotel I told myself. I will stay for a while until I find the next place maybe with God’s help but more than likely without it.
It was winter then and I had all but quit going to school. I kept expecting the police to come after me but they never did. If I failed tests the days I did show up then they might havepunished me but I never missed spelling words and the numbers I did wrong were careless errors.
I always thought I would have more fun going to a harder school.
The second day I was at Nadine and Dora’s was my mama’s mama’s funeral. They just had a graveside service I suppose because it is a waste of money to rent out a big church room when you only expect three or four people.
And I did not go with them because I knew all that would happen and it was not anything I needed to see twice.
So Dora and Nadine dressed up alike and left me in the house alone. On the way out Dora said for me to keep away from her room.
Which I took as a invitation to ramble through and feel what all she kept hid in the back of the closet and the dresser drawers.
I should not even have to say all that I found. Dora does not have any secrets from me but she has the idea that there is more to her self than there really is. Dora keeping romance books in the back of her underwear drawer was not a surprise. And I was not exactly blowed over by the boy movie star pictures under her mattress.
But I bet her mama would be shocked and she would cry because Dora let her down. And if I was anywhere near she would finally decide that I planted all that nasty stuff there because I am jealous of Dora’s good fortune.
That might happen while I am staying here and I have to gear up for that kind of situation because that is how these two folks operate. I decided the best thing to do is ignore them like I always have and keep to myself as much as possible.
I declared to stay in my room except to go to the bathroom, talk on the telephone if somebody called me, and go to school. I thought about taking my meals in my room but I did not like the picture of me eating off a tray slid to me like I was on death row. So I would eat at the table like normal.
I decided too that one of my mistakes had always been lack of planning. But not anymore. While they were at the graveyard I decided that if I quit wasting time I could be happy as anybody else in the future and right now with one year ending and a new one starting up I thought now was the time to get old Ellen squared away for a fresh start.
And that is what I did. That is why I think I am somebody now because I said by damn this is how it is going to be and before I knew it I had a new mama. And I looked her over plenty good too before I decided she was a keeper.
I stayed in the spare bedroom Nadine’s old husband lived in. He did not die flat out but he had a stroke of something and wasted away in here. I feature Nadine hiring a colored woman to look after him and saying impatient to her don’t tire me with the details just say FINE when I ask you how he’s doing. Nadine would probably not need to hear the truth much less see it for herself.
That sums her up.
So you have Nadine and Dora making up lies with the way they carry on together like they are getting prettier every day and what does not come in a shiny package from town is not worth the trouble of opening.
But I could tell them some things about what else can come in a box oh not the shiny kind but the black one that fits down so cozy in a hole.
And that is the difference between me and them.
I bet Nadine says to her girl some nights oh your daddy is not dead sugar Dora. He’s up in heaven strumming on a harp with the angels and he’s looking down at how pretty you are smiling at us both right
So I went back with Nadine knowing this time this would not be home so I do not have to feel sad about being here in the middle of a place so far from the house at the end of the colored path.
I will treat this like a hotel I told myself. I will stay for a while until I find the next place maybe with God’s help but more than likely without it.
It was winter then and I had all but quit going to school. I kept expecting the police to come after me but they never did. If I failed tests the days I did show up then they might havepunished me but I never missed spelling words and the numbers I did wrong were careless errors.
I always thought I would have more fun going to a harder school.
The second day I was at Nadine and Dora’s was my mama’s mama’s funeral. They just had a graveside service I suppose because it is a waste of money to rent out a big church room when you only expect three or four people.
And I did not go with them because I knew all that would happen and it was not anything I needed to see twice.
So Dora and Nadine dressed up alike and left me in the house alone. On the way out Dora said for me to keep away from her room.
Which I took as a invitation to ramble through and feel what all she kept hid in the back of the closet and the dresser drawers.
I should not even have to say all that I found. Dora does not have any secrets from me but she has the idea that there is more to her self than there really is. Dora keeping romance books in the back of her underwear drawer was not a surprise. And I was not exactly blowed over by the boy movie star pictures under her mattress.
But I bet her mama would be shocked and she would cry because Dora let her down. And if I was anywhere near she would finally decide that I planted all that nasty stuff there because I am jealous of Dora’s good fortune.
That might happen while I am staying here and I have to gear up for that kind of situation because that is how these two folks operate. I decided the best thing to do is ignore them like I always have and keep to myself as much as possible.
I declared to stay in my room except to go to the bathroom, talk on the telephone if somebody called me, and go to school. I thought about taking my meals in my room but I did not like the picture of me eating off a tray slid to me like I was on death row. So I would eat at the table like normal.
I decided too that one of my mistakes had always been lack of planning. But not anymore. While they were at the graveyard I decided that if I quit wasting time I could be happy as anybody else in the future and right now with one year ending and a new one starting up I thought now was the time to get old Ellen squared away for a fresh start.
And that is what I did. That is why I think I am somebody now because I said by damn this is how it is going to be and before I knew it I had a new mama. And I looked her over plenty good too before I decided she was a keeper.
I stayed in the spare bedroom Nadine’s old husband lived in. He did not die flat out but he had a stroke of something and wasted away in here. I feature Nadine hiring a colored woman to look after him and saying impatient to her don’t tire me with the details just say FINE when I ask you how he’s doing. Nadine would probably not need to hear the truth much less see it for herself.
That sums her up.
So you have Nadine and Dora making up lies with the way they carry on together like they are getting prettier every day and what does not come in a shiny package from town is not worth the trouble of opening.
But I could tell them some things about what else can come in a box oh not the shiny kind but the black one that fits down so cozy in a hole.
And that is the difference between me and them.
I bet Nadine says to her girl some nights oh your daddy is not dead sugar Dora. He’s up in heaven strumming on a harp with the angels and he’s looking down at how pretty you are smiling at us both right
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