The Wanderers

Pen to paper. Fingers to keyboard. She writes. She types. She expresses herself by jotting her thoughts somewhere, anywhere. She places them where she can only see them because she only understands them. She is too afraid to utter them — scared of the contempt, the disgust, the confusion from the ears of the person who hears them. She is afraid of her own thoughts.

I am seven years old. My mother is a hustler. I see her through innocent eyes that have been exposed to the truth of the world already. I see her hardship, I see her pain, I see her humiliation. I see Ma, a beautiful black woman hardened by years of work and experienced trauma. She holds her head high, but her back is slouched, burdened by sorrows of her own childhood and the afflictions of her present. I see the grimace through her smiles, I hear the coarseness of her laughter — masked tears that she only releases at night. I hear those cries. We are poor, but Ma provides for us. She feeds us and leaves herself hungry, she clothes us and leaves herself without, settling for used ‘hand me downs,’ discards from those who are better off. The soles of her feet are bristly and dry, whilst mine and my brother’s are soft and delicate. She offered to us herself, she was no longer her own. We lived in the ghetto, but she grew us as if we were ‘uptown.’ We spoke the Queen’s English; we dressed as if we were well off with hair combed to perfection and boots polished to meet society’s standard. She sends us to church every Sunday, even on days she doesn’t attend. She is a worshipper, a prayer warrior, a woman of strong faith. She fasts, and we fast with her — going hungry for days, wailing for divine intervention. She cries out to God loud at night and she wakes us to cry with her. She says, “United we stand, divided we fall.” We are living in the house of her friend’s, a job given to take care of the friend’s family who was then old and feeble. I see her clearly as if it was just yesterday, cleaning feces, tidying a body heavier than her own, struggling to maintain her dignity as she fought with the tenants who lived amongst us. I remember the death of that elderly, the anguished memory she probably still sometimes remembers. I recall her being lost and desperate, wondering where we would go next, pondering how she would provide for us. We were fatherless at the time, and she was a single mother of two with no one to turn to. Her friend was sympathetic, she allowed us to remain as long as she took care of the house. It was a kindness that was masked with intentions. My mother became the ‘send out’ of the group — the maid when called, the jester when needed. She was given food in return, and yes a place to stay. This again she offered only to us.

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