Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman

The door hugs my body as I rest it on the wall. Mama sits on the edge of her bed, and the cutoff shirt she wears shows the aging in her arms. Soft pink rollers that give her hair a bump peek out from underneath her bonnet. Her swollen feet rest in one of them massage buckets boosted from Walmart by my cousin Shaun. Mama s feet ain t no good anymore. Years of standing up on concrete at a warehouse for twelve hours did a number on her body. When she got that good job down at the tax agency, she ran into the house and threw out every pair of steel-­toe boots she ever owned. But by then the damage to her feet was already done.

Don t be out too late. It ain t safe. She gives the same warning each time I step outside. Even if I m only going toward the back of the apartments to throw out the trash.

Mama, it s right up the street. I pause. Besides, you can t keep an eye on me after I m at college.

It feels funny saying that. Me? College? I m only seventeen ­well, seventeen and a half. One minute I was doing accelerated-­learning courses, then dual-­enrollment classes, and then the guidance counselor talking about I m ready for college, if I want to go. I worked like a senior my sophomore and junior years to apply to the best colleges ­like Wooddale. Getting into Wooddale meant I made it. That Mama working them long hours wasn t in vain. While my homegirls went to parties, I was prepping for the SAT night and day. It worked because I got a 1500 and accepted to every college I applied to, including the HBU down the street. But Mama said I m not going to that one because it won t make me successful. Even though people who graduate from HBUs do big things too.

She said I need that fancy Ivy League degree.

And I mean, she right. Life would be so good then. If I got a good enough job with that Wooddale degree, we could even move. Mama wouldn t be worried about crime or nothing. Bet wherever we move then, the pizza people would deliver all the way to the doorstep.

Mama points her half-­polished finger at me. You heard what I said. I don t want you walking them streets this late at night.

I reach into her purse and pull out an Andrew Jackson. I crumple it up and put it in my bra. Mama taught me to never stick money in