Photo: @davidpfenelus via Twenty20
“This hamburger sure is good, Mister. I stay with my mother and sometimes we forget to eat. Man, it is cold. I’m glad you are helping me, Mister. I had a teacher that helped me once, but when I dropped out no one would help me. Sometimes I get scared, but I just ask God to take care of me and my baby.”
My appetite had disappeared for several blocks now. While she sat there with her little hands in her small lap, she talked on, telling me her dreams and plans for the future, as she give me directions to a street off Jefferson Blvd.
She told me that her baby’s name was Jerome and he weighed over 20 pounds. “He looks like his daddy, but Momma says he has my eyes,” she continues.
We arrived in front of the Auntie’s house. I reached in my wallet and gave her a ten-dollar bill. “This is for Jerome on his next birthday,” I said.
When is your birthday?” she asked. “My birthday is in June,” came my reply.
She exited the truck and ran toward the house. Before I could leave, she was back again with a white envelope. She gave it to me. “This is a present for your birthday from Jerome and me,” she said.
I sat there for a moment. Suddenly the drapes in the front room opened. There she stood holding the baby. She whispered something to him. He smiled, and they both waved “Bye Bye.”
Several blocks from the house I noticed the white envelope in the front seat. I picked it up. It felt weightless, yet there was something inside. I opened it up. Out slid a tiny, wrapped wad of paper. Inside the wad was the single thin dime. The wrapping was a note that read, “Happy Birthday, Mister, Love Natasha and Jerome.”
Durhl Caussey is a syndicated columnist who writes for papers across America. He may be reached at this paper or at [email protected].