Ellen Foster

Kaye's wonderful and beloved first novel.

When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure
out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy.

The way I liked best was letting go a poisonous spider in his bed. It
would bite him and he'd be dead and swollen up and I would shudder
to find him so. Of course I would call the rescue squad and tell them to
come quick something's the matter with my daddy. When they come in
the house I'm all in a state of shock and just don't know how to act
what with two colored boys heaving my dead daddy onto a roller cot. I
just stand in the door and look like I'm shaking all over.

But I did not kill my daddy. He drank his own self to death the year after the County moved me
out. I heard how they found him shut up in the house dead and everything. Next thing I know
he's in the ground and the house is rented out to a family of four.

All I did was wish him dead real hard every now and then. And I can say for a fact that I am
better off now than when he was alive.

I live in a clean brick house and mostly I am left to myself. When I start to carry an odor I take a
bath and folks tell me how sweet I look.

There is a plenty to eat here and if we run out of something we just go to the store and get some
more. I had me a egg sandwich for breakfast, mayonnaise on both sides. And I may fix me
another one for lunch.

Two years ago I did not have much of anything. Not that I live in the lap of luxury now but I am
proud for the schoolbus to pick me up here every morning. My stylish well-groomed self
standing in the front yard with the grass green and the hedge bushes square.

I figure I made out pretty good considering the rest of my family is either dead or crazy.

Every Tuesday a man comes and gets me out of social studies and we go into a room and talk
about it all.

Last week he spread out pictures of flat bats for me to comment on. I mostly saw flat bats. Then
I saw big holes a body could fall right into. Big black deep holes through the table and the floor.
And then he took off his glasses and screwed his face up to mine and tells me I'm scared.

I used to be but I am not now is what I told him. I might get a little nervous but I am never
scared.

Oh but I do remember when I was scared. Everything was so wrong like somebody had
knocked something loose and my family was shaking itself to death. Some wild ride broke and
the one in charge strolled off and let us spin and shake and fly off the rail. And they both died
tired of the wild crazy spinning and wore out and sick. Now you tell me if that is not a fine style
to die in. She sick and he drunk with the moving. They finally gave in to the motion and let the
wind take them from here to there.

Even my mama's skin looked tired of holding her weak self. She would prop herself up by the
refrigerator and watch my daddy go round the table swearing at all who did him wrong. She
looked all sad in her face like it was all her fault.

She could not help getting sick but nobody made her marry him. You see when she was my size
she had romantic fever I think it is called and since then she has not had a good heart.

She comes home from the hospital sometimes. If I was her I would stay there. All laid up in the
air conditioning with folks patting your head and bringing you fruit baskets.

Oh no. She comes in and he lets into her right away. Carrying on. Set up in his E-Z lounger like
he is King for a Day. You bring me this or that he might say.

She comes in the door and he asks about supper right off. What does she have planned? he
wants to know. Wouldn't he like to know what I myself have planned? She would look at him
square in the face but not at his eyes or mouth but at his whole face and the ugliness getting out
through the front. On he goes about supper and how come weeds are growed up in the yard.
More like a big mean baby than a grown man.

I got her suitcase in my hand and I carry it to the bedroom. But while I walk I listen to him and to
her not saying a word back to him. She stand between his mean highness and the television set
looking at him make words at her.

Big wind-up toy of a man. He is just too sorry to talk back to even if he is my daddy. And she is
too limp and too sore to get up the breath to push the words out to stop it all. She just stands
there and lets him work out his evil on her.

Get in the kitchen and fix me something to eat. I had to cook the whole time you was gone, he
tells her.

And that was some lie he made up. Cook for his own self. Ha. If I did not feed us both we had
to go into town and get take-out chicken. I myself was looking forward to something fit to eat
but I was not about to say anything.

If anybody had asked me what to do I would have told us both to feed on hoop cheese and
crackers. Somebody operated on needs to stay in the bed without some husband on their back
all the time. But she does not go on to the bedroom but turns right back around and goes to the
kitchen. What can I do but go and reach the tall things for her? I set that dinner table and like to
take a notion to spit on his fork.

Nobody yells after anybody to do this or that here.

My new mama lays out the food and we all take a turn to dish it out. Then we eat and have a
good time. Toast or biscuits with anything you please. Eggs any style. Corn cut off the cob the
same day we eat it. I keep my elbows off the table and wipe my mouth like a lady. Nobody
barks, farts, or feeds the dogs under the table here. When everybody is done eating my new
mama puts the dishes in a thing, shuts the door, cuts on it, and Wa-La they are clean.

My mama does not say a word about being tired or sore. She did ask who kept everything so
clean and he took the credit. I do not know who he thinks he fooled. I knew he lied and my
mama did too. She just asked to be saying something.

Mama puts the food out on the table and he wants to know what I am staring at. At you humped
over your plate like one of us is about to snatch it from you. You old hog. But I do not say it.

Why don't you eat? he wants to know.

I don't have an appetite, I say back.

Well, you better eat. Your mama looks like this might be her last supper.

He is so sure he's funny that he laughs at his own self.

All the time I look at him and at her and try to figure out why he hates her so bad. When he is not
looking I give him the evil eye. And mama looks like she could crawl under the table and cry.

We leave his nasty self at that table and go to bed. She is sore all up through her chest and
bruised up the neck. It makes me want to turn my head.

We peel her dress off over the head and slip on something loose to sleep in. I help her get herself
laid in the bed and then I slide in beside her. She just turns her head into the pillow.

I will stay here with you. Just for a nap I will stay here with you.

Now at my new mama's I lay up late in the day and watch the rain fall outside. Not one thing is
pressing on me to get done here.

I have a bag of candy to eat on. One piece at a time. Make it last. All I got left to do is eat
supper and wash myself.

Look around my room. It is so nice.

When I accumulate enough money I plan to get some colored glass things that you dangle from
the window glass. I lay here and feature how that would look. I already got pink checkerboard
curtains with dingleballs around the edges. My new mama sewed them for me. She also sewed
matching sacks that I cram my pillows into every morning.

Everything matches. It is...