Boaz Brown Read Online Free PDF

that’s the first thing I do when I get my printout. I make sure it’s   all   there!”
    “Maybe he just didn’t know how to figure it out,” I said. “You would be surprised what people know and don’t know.”
    “But black folks know our money if we don’t know   nothin’ else,” Peaches countered me. “He was just being lazy.”
    “I’m with Peaches on this one, ‘cause   any other black person wouldn’t have even made it out the door without seeing that,”   Deniessa   said. “I know I wouldn’t have.”
    “Well,” I reiterated, “I just know that some of the things we take as common knowledge aren’t common to everybody else. I sit down with parents every day who don’t know how to average their child’s grades. It all boils down to education in America. The system has done a poor job of teaching people what they really need to know.   Especially when it comes to educating   our   kids.”
    “Yeah, but some stuff can’t be taught,”   Deniessa   said. “Nobody should have to   tell   you to check your check. If you don’t know how to do it, ask somebody. It’s that simple. Well, let me take that back. We   are   talking about a black man, aren’t we? You know a brother ain’t   tryin’ to ask for help.”
    “Oh, no, you didn’t go there on the brothers,” Peaches scolded her. “I won’t hear of it!”
    “Anyway!   You didn’t start with all this until you had Eric. You know you were the main one dogging brothers out until you had a son. Now, all of a sudden, it’s ‘Don’t talk about the brothers.’ Girl, please, I just call it like I see it.”
    “I have to recognize”—Peaches took a bite of her breadstick and used the remainder to conduct her words—“Eric is a husband in training. Somebody’s gonna   have to put up with him once he leaves my care. I refuse to make him another sister’s burden.”
    “What if he doesn’t marry a sister?”   Deniessa   joked.
    Peaches closed her eyes and swallowed the bread in a hurry. I smiled, waiting for what would surely be some outrageous statement. “I wish Eric   would   bring home a white woman!   It wouldn’t be   nothin’ but a whole bunch of ugly.   No, ma’am, I’m raising Eric to be a black husband to a black wife and be a black father to some little black kids. I want naps on my grandkids’ heads. I’m talking beady- beads.”
    “Okay, I don’t know about the beads. But I do second that   black   thing,” I agreed.
    “Speaking of black things, I’ll let you two know the next time the undergrad chapter I sponsor steps at Paul Quinn’s Greek show. It’ll be fun,”   Deniessa   said by way of invitation.
    “Just let me know,” I said.

 
    Chapter 3
     
     
    Our first place, an apartment, was on the wrong side of the tracks. Well, come to think of it, we were always on the wrong side. But we used to be on the wrong side of the wrong side a long time ago. It was a two-bedroom, one-bathroom deluxe cheap apartment complete with shag carpeting and lime green psychedelic lava lamps in every bedroom. I shared a room with Jonathan, who always got up at the crack of dawn, fooling around with toys or watching cartoons. Other than that, I enjoyed living at the apartment. It was close to my school, and sometimes Momma would take us to the school playground to play on swings that actually had the seats in them. The playground at our apartment complex was always being vandalized by teenagers, most of whom weren’t even residents.
    I was happy to see a moving van parked near our building, but Daddy said it was high time we moved when our last set of upstairs neighbors moved in. “I refuse to live right next door to a clan of Mexicans!” he declared.
    At the time, I didn’t know what a Mexican was. From the way Daddy talked, I thought Mexicans were bears or something.
    “We   gon’ have roaches before you know it.” Momma shook her head. “You mark my words! Jon Smith, we better