M’Lord, you sure ain’t to know what it’s like, walking by that picket fence yonder. Y’all love it, the story I’m gone to tell you. Back in ’60, you know I was 8 year old living on that Kentucky mansion, working for Old Manny, he done told me right, there’s a store, they done sold bad chickens, done get everyone sick as dogs, they did. All the white folks, they stayed in bed three, five days depending on how strong they were. Made life easier for us colored folk, we didn’t have to work none so hard or hear to so much tinny racketing. Get me this, get me that, you lazy maid, you never done listen to me. All such nonsense. We listen, we hear, but they talk like they gone to chicken brains.
I suppose, it serves them right. They never done known, tell a good chicken from a bad. Nine years old, I know when to eat it, when to turn my nose right up and say, this stinks like my daddy’s underarms after a day in the fields. But ain’t any reason to talk to white folks these days. They’re scared as turkeys in November, haven’t got any reason to hope. They see what’s coming, sure as we do. And we’re getting ready to run. Good riddance, cause I done be gone to the north soon as I can. I want to learn, I want to read, I want to write.
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