Read Mama for Free Online Page B

writing population of the Point—black and white—worked in factories. One, Prest-o-Lite, was in South Park. They manufactured spark plugs, shocks, and points for diesel trucks, and some car parts that were shipped to major car manufacturers near Detroit, like Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler. The women usually did day work, like Mildred, and the men worked for the Department of Sanitation, like Crook had. Or they were on welfare. Those on welfare looked for opportunities in all employable cracks and crevices but once they found jobs, many of them realized that their welfare checks were steadier and went a lot further. So a lot of them stopped looking altogether and spent their afternoons watching soap operas and gossiping.

Four
    R IGHT AFTER THANKSGIVING, it was snowing so bad that warnings were up. No one was supposed to leave the house, let alone try to get out of the driveway. Snow was piling up past Mildred's fifth step and there was no way she could go to work in this weather. She was supposed to get paid today and she only had one dollar and sixty-three cents to her name. Her left eye was twitching and jumping. Didn't that mean you were supposed to come into some money—or was it your left palm? Anyway, Mildred knew nobody was coming by to drop off a bundle of dollar bills unless it was God. And so far, she didn't think he was such a reliable source.
    The kids were in the basement playing, and she could hear their screaming and rumbling through the vents that led upstairs. Mildred wasn't thinking about the noise, for once. She was trying to concentrate on dinner. Lately, she had so much on her mind, so much to consider at once, that one decision, or the wrong decision, could change all the others. So sometimes she made none at all.
    When she opened the cupboards, an ache slid down her forehead into her nasal passage and throbbed on the roof of each nostril. It continued like an arrow into her skull, and skated up and down her neck until it had no place else to go. Mildred gave her head a good shake. Bags of black-eyed peas, pinto beans, butter beans, lima beans, navy beans, and a big bag of rice stared her in the face. She opened another cabinet and there sat half a jar of peanut butter, a can of sweet peas and carrots, one can of creamed corn, and two cans of pork-n-beans. There was nothing in the refrigerator except a few crinkly apples she'd gotten from the apple man two weeks ago, a stick of margarine, four eggs, a quart of milk, a box of lard, a can of Pet milk, and a two-inch piece of salt pork.
    She put on a pot of pinto beans. Mildred knew the kids were tired of them, and so was she, but at least they would last a few days. Something good was going to happen, she thought. She didn't know what, but she always knew that when things got this bad they had to get better, just had to. She chopped up a yellow onion and sat it on the table, then took the lonely piece of salt pork from the refrigerator. She threw them both into the pot, sneezed, then wiped her tearing eyes. The only time Mildred cried on her own accord was when she peeled onions.
    She wiped her eyes with a dishtowel and stood locked in place, as if hypnotized, watching the rainbow of spices, brown beans, and onions float to the top of the water. Something smelled funny. Like smoke and fumes. When Mildred looked toward the living room, she saw smoke coming out of the vents, leaving a sooty film on the beige walls. She dropped the spoon on the table and ran downstairs. She didn't see any of the kids.
    "What the hell is going on down here? Y'all better not be near that furnace." Before she could get all the words out of her mouth, five charcoal-covered children walked sluggishly from the furnace room. Mildred stomped her foot and stormed past them. The handle on the stoker was dangling.
    "Who did this?" she demanded, her hands on her hips.
    They all stood like prisoners and hunched their shoulders up then down.
    "I'ma ask you one more time before I