Sidik Fofana

This is the address to the station that be playin the news, she say. Imma write to them and they gonna do a story on us.

I’m like, Yo, Kandese, that’s a good idea.

My mama put on the news every night. I didn’t know you could send them letters.

Ain’t no news cameras comin down here, Bernita say. Cops don’t even come here.

She love rainin on parades.

Teachers talk behind each other’s back so much it’s funny. I’m in the lounge heatin up pasta salad cuz that’s how I like it, and they cracklin over the computer cuz they found Mr. Nabisko’s datin profile sayin he wears emeralds in his heart. Soon as Mr. Broderick leave for his next class, all of a sudden it’s his turn to be the ass of the jokes. I find out his father some kind of rich inventor who cooked up some piece that go in all telescopes. They be interviewin him on PBS sometimes. You should see them, all the twenty-suttin-year-old teachers, leanin on the file cabinets like they around a campfire.

Every time you coughed up the money you said, That’s it, I’m savin up from here on out, until they came out wit the new Prada belt line. Of course you could stop spendin. Eat no-name cereal and move to that house in Westchester sooner than you think. But it ain’t worth comin out the house raggedy, not feelin good about yourself. You been thru that growin up. Your mama was buyin OshKosh B’Gosh and fondlin Goodwill bins for blouses that ended up scratchin ya shoulders. People on TV don’t understand that and never will. They need to stop frontin like all people want in life is food and a roof.