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CONTACT50 Cents An Hour or My Life According to Me, A Memoir
An excerpt from 50 CENTS AN HOUR, GRAMMA WAS A REDHEAD
Gramma was a redhead. She was a big woman, and strong too. She always wore a housedress with an apron tied around her middle. She had a whole drawer full of aprons in the kitchen. The aprons and the housedresses often had little printed flowers or patterns on them that didn't necessarily match. Her hair was no longer red but white, and her soft curls stayed close to her head. She wore glasses and her eyes were a soft, twinkly blue. When she smiled her nose crinkled.
Gramma never wore makeup or fancied herself up. She was not a frilly woman, but she was more beautiful to us than the most glamorous of movie stars. She wore sturdy shoes and heavy dark stockings. When she dressed for church or to go out visiting, she would wear one of her fancier dresses. These were remarkably similar to her housedresses, but were a little shinier. For outings she would wear her wool coat with the big buttons and her hat, which looked kind of like an upside-down flowerpot with some netting tucked here and there.
Charley
An excerpt from Chapter Three, A HOME FOR WANDERERS
Charley placed one foot and then the other on the granite step. Facing him, only three short steps away, hung the huge mahogany doors of the orphanage. He felt Minnie's small cold hand tucked in his. His sister's hair, bedraggled and knotted in the back, looked like a rat's nest. Her coat was dirty and frayed at the edges. It was at least two sizes too small. Green goo ran from her nose to her lip. He yearned to wipe it but he didn't have have a rag and didn't want to sacrifice his own sleeve. Her thin cotton dress hung down long under her coat. Brown stained stockings refusing to cling to her skinny legs, slid downward in limp puddles around her ankles. She turned her face up to him and smiled, her brown eyes shining. Charley was taken aback. She didn't look scared. Instead she looked as if she was going to a birthday party.
George, the eldest, raced up the three granite steps and grasped onto the doorknob of the towering door. Charley groaned. Once that big door swung shut behind him, his life would never be the same again. Resentment and anger churned and gurgled in his empty stomach. It was just last night that George talked him into this whole thing. He had laid the guilt on heavy about Minnie and Clarence.
"Girls can't make it on the street like boys can. If they are lucky they become scullery maids, scrubbing someone's big house and taking care of seven brawling brats at the same time, but that is only if they are lucky..." George had a somber look on his face that Charley wished away. "And Clarence is only eight, he can have a better chance in life if he gets a good family. And, you too, Charley, a much better chance in life than workin' in a stinkin' cold, thankless factory for the rest of it!" His brother's words ran circles in Charley's head, he wanted to erase them, chop them up with his penknife and make them disappear. But they were indelibly scribbled in his brain to haunt him. He couldn't let Clarence and Minnie down. There was nothing to do but go up the stairs and through the door.
Hurricane Mia
An excerpt from Chapter Six,
THE TEA THAT CURES EVERYTHIN'
"Bush medicine? What's that?" Mia wondered if it was like witch doctors or voodoo.
"We have a Wise Woman everybody calls Auntie Cecilia. When a body gets sick, she comes and makes them a tea. My Aunt Teeny was sick somethin' awful. She got real skinny, and couldn't eat nothin'. When she try to eat, it jus' come up again. Auntie Cecilia, she come and make her some tea. She tell her, you drink this tea three times a day. And she got right betta'! Auntie Teeny she be makin' 90 years this July!"
"Do you think this tea could make my mom feel better?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am. This be the tea that cures everythin'!" Neisha placed her hands on her hips, "Yes, ma'am."
"I've got to get some of that tea!" Mia lit up. "Where do we find Auntie Cecilia?"
"She be livin' over on Pepper Cay. Your granddaddy has him a boat, he can take you there."
"No, Neisha, we have to keep this a secret. Gram would think it was stupid. Don't even tell your mama or your dad! They might tell my grandparents and ruin everything."
"That be okay, I'm not tellin' nobody."