The Lesson

But they are fascinated with the meter ticking and Junebug starts laying bets as to how much it'll read when Flyboy can't hold his breath no more.

"Why, even medical students and interns and," blah, blah, blah.

Me and Sugar and Junebug and Flyboy hangin out the window and hollering to everybody, putting lipstick on each other cause Flyboy a faggot anyway, and making farts with our sweaty armpits.

Like Mama Drewery watches the sky and sniffs the air and takes note of just how much slant is in the bird formation.

So me and Sugar leaning on the mailbox being surly, which is a Miss Moore word.

We all start reciting the price tag like we in assembly.

But when she came calling with some sachet she'd sewed up or some gingerbread she'd made or some book, why then they'd all be too embarrassed to turn her down and we'd get handed over all spruced up.

And then she gets to the part about we all poor and live in the slums which I don't feature.

"That's a paperweight made of semi-precious stones fused together under tremendous pressure," she explains slowly, with her hands doing the mining and all the factory work.

But then he tries to take off with Junebug foot still in the door so we talk about his mama something ferocious.

So we heading down the street and she's boring us silly about what things cost and what our parents make and how much goes for rent and how money ain't divided up right in this country.

I mean real money, she say, like it's only poker chips or monopoly papers we lay on the grocer.

And she was always planning these boring-ass things for us to do, us being my cousin, mostly, who lived on the block cause we all moved North the same time and to the same apartment then spread out gradual to breathe.

My old man wailed on his behind."

So once again we tumble all over each other to gaze at this magnificent thing in the toy store which is just big enough to maybe sail two kittens across the pond if you strap them to the posts tight.

And I'm ready to speak on that, but she steps out in the street and hails two cabs just like that.

"I think," say Sugar pushing me off her feet like she never done before cause I whip her ass in a minute, "that this is not much of a democracy if you ask me.

And we lean all over each other so we can hold up under the draggy ass lecture she always finishes us off with at the end before we thank her for borin us to tears.

Which is how she got saddled with me and Sugar and Junior in the first place while our mothers were in a la-de-da apartment up the block having a good ole time.

"It's to weigh paper down so it won't scatter and make your desk untidy.

"I beg your pardon," say Miss Moore, and we fall out.

And Big Butt ain't got the first notion.