Tag: faith

#BlaPoWriMo: An insomniac’s prayer

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

Mark 5:25-30 (NIV)

Sweet sleep,
you have evaded me
for the last time.

Tonight, I will throw myself
to the ground and snatch you
by the hem of your garment,

praying my faith will heal me.
Forgive me of the sins that so
easily ensnare me, Lord.

Cleanse me of unrighteousness
that rides my back, corrupts
my mind, and bleeds me of life.

Did you feel the power of God’s Spirit
leave you and flow through me?
Then turn around and lift me up.

With a kiss, grant your beloved
sweet, restful, peaceful sleep
surpassing all understanding.

I love you, Jesus.
God, I thank you for saving me.
In your Mighty Name, I pray.

Amen.

© 2023 Nortina Simmons

“When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
    when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.”

— Proverbs 3:24 (NIV)

Continue reading “#BlaPoWriMo: An insomniac’s prayer” →

Bloganuary Day 23

~ Nortina S. ~ 2 Comments

Eh, I’ll do it tomorrow…

Tomorrow comes, and the task doesn’t get completed.

This is the life of a chronic procrastinator.

If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

James 4:17 (NIV)
Continue reading “Bloganuary Day 23” →

Lost in the Twilight Zone Marathon | S2 Ep 10 | Divine Drought

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

We pray for rain. For three days, we go without food and water. We spend the nights on the floor of the sanctuary, and the dust of the ground clings to our knees.

We don’t fast by choice. Circumstances led to this. With the city shut down, grocery stores were looted. We have no power for miles and no running water. The church garden struggles to feed the remnants of our congregation. Pastor John dug up the corn crop last Tuesday. It was brown like smoking tobacco. The tomatoes and cucumbers blossomed and then died before becoming edible vegetables. The soil is arid like sand.

“Do you think this is the end of the world?” Jessie whispers.

“Shhhh!” Mother Jones is in the front pew with the pastor and the elders. We can see the wrinkled cellulite skin of her thighs underneath her rolled-up skirt. She prefers to pray in silence so she can concentrate on what she wants to petition to the Lord, and she’s easily distracted and fumbles over her words when other people are talking. She must hate Sister Teresa right now. She circles the sanctuary, shouting her prayer aloud.

“We ask you to send the rain, God!” she screams, her South Georgian accent coming out strong. “Shower down on us as you did the manna for the children of Israel.”

“Does she have to be so loud?” I say.

“She wants to make sure God hears her.”

“The whole continent can hear her.” We both snicker into the cushion of the pew, and again Mother Jones hushes us.

My stomach rumbles, and I lick my lips thinking about what I can eat—like sweet apples to quench my thirst and my hunger, the crisp pop of them when I sink my teeth into the skin and the juice inside drains down my chin. The sour Granny Smith, the succulent Fuji, the classic Red Delicious.

“I’m so hungry I could eat a cow,” Jessie says.

“Just put me in a pool full of apple juice and ham sandwiches.”

“Eww, then the bread would get soggy!”

We laugh out loud. Mama reaches over and slaps my hand, and we fold our arms and bow our heads and mumble incoherently like the men in the pews behind us and Pastor John standing at the podium. Speaking in tongues, they call it. I wonder if it’s because their tongues roll like a Native war cry.

Continue reading “Lost in the Twilight Zone Marathon | S2 Ep 10 | Divine Drought” →

Lost in the Twilight Zone Marathon | Ep 24 | I’ll Stop the World for You

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

“When was the last time you prayed?”

I hesitate. I don’t want to be judged for my real answer. But I also don’t want to lie in church.

“I never have time.” His frown immediately makes me regret it. But it’s true. I work eight to twelve hours a day. By the time I get home, I’m dead tired. I barely have enough energy to cook something. And once I’ve had dinner, it’s time for bed. Time to call it a night and do it all over again the next day.

“God says…”

Internally, I groan. I’m so sick of getting God’s word secondhand from “connected” people, even if it’s my pastor. For once, I’d like to hear God say it Himself.

“Daughter, I’ll stop the world for you.”

“What?”

“That’s what He says.”

“But, but why did you change your voice?”

He tilts his head. “I didn’t.”

“You said it like, like—” The best way I can describe it is like thunder. Like a loud, sudden crack of thunder that comes right after that dreadful stillness that follows a bright flash of lightning.

“God is speaking to you. Listen.”

“But what does it mean?”

“No one can understand the mysteries of God.”

I go home unsatisfied. On the drive, I see the world still moves. Cars zoom by. Trucks honk their horns. When I put my key in my apartment door, I hear my neighbors fighting next door.

How will He stop it? Disable all machines and put us back in the dark ages? Get rid of all the people? The thought of being alone with Him frightens me. I’m really not great company. I’m terribly depressed most days.

When will He stop it? I wonder as I climb into bed and hear the hum of the highway through the window. Maybe there’s something I must do first.

I kick my feet over, get on my knees and clasp my hands in front of me.

This is where I always start and stop. Because I never know what to say, or how to say it. The prayer warriors make it seem so effortless in intercessory prayer. They sit in the sanctuary and on command are babbling in tongues. I can’t even start my own prayer because I’m distracted by them. Is it a true prayer? Is it in a language the someone somewhere understands? Does God move their lips like that? Or are they just making noise to sound holy.

I have to remind myself, there’s no one here to distract me now. That’s when I notice something else is different. It’s quiet. So quiet I can hear my own heart beating in my hears. Then the boom of thunder.

I quickly bow my head. “Father?”

© 2021 Nortina Simmons

While the original Twilight Zone series covered an array of topics ranging from science fiction, politics, social justice, to the downright creepy, one thing you were almost always guaranteed to get at the end of each episode was a moral. Similar to those fables we used to read in childhood. As we close out this year, let’s take a pause and reflect on what’s most important for us and take that into 2022.

Oh, and this story is a mashup of “Time Enough at Last” (next to “Willoughby,” one of my all-time favorites), “The Mind and the Matter,” and “A Kind of Stopwatch,” but it’s also something totally different and new.

#BlaPoWriMo: Great

~ Nortina S. ~ 2 Comments

“The greatest among you shall be your servant.”
Matthew 23:11

Greatness comes when
the heat has all but
killed you when the
shirt is torn off your
back when blood and
sweat mingle inside your
cheek and the crack
of the whip splits
you down your spine…

But still you smile
But still you sing
But still you wait
for the coming of
the King

© Nortina Simmons

 

“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.” Ephesians 6:7-8

Peace in Trials

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

“They keep killing our boys. It’s like a genocide out there!” Stella was saying. Behind her the tea kettle whistled, clouds of steam shooting from its spout. She took the kettle by the handle and poured the boiling water into two mugs already prepped with a teabag, two packets of Splenda, and a lemon wedge.

“Did you hear about the last shooting? He was only seventeen years old. A child!” She slammed her fist down on the table and the water in the mugs rippled.

“Mama, please,” Leslie said. She covered her mug with a saucer to allow the tea to steep.

“I just don’t understand this shoot first ask questions later mentality. You see a black man walking down the street, and you automatically assume he’s dangerous—his presence is life-threatening.” Stella dropped a spoon in her “World’s #1 Grandma” mug and stirred the ingredients together. Leslie remembered the year Tony and Gregory pulled their allowances together to buy the mug for Stella. They were young, around nine and seven. Having just learned there was such thing as a Grandparents Day, they wanted to surprise Stella, the only living grandparent they had left, with a special gift.

Now Tony barely paid rent to his grandmother, and Gregory hadn’t been home in weeks since moving in with Tammi. Leslie wished they were boys again, who still honored and eagerly showed their appreciation for the women who raised them, not like the entitled children of this generation, who lacked any type of respect for authority. Even if the cops did abuse their power, most of those kids deserved a few slaps upside the head.

Stella ladled some of the tea onto her spoon, blew on it, puckered her lips and slurped. She quickly wiped her mouth from the heat, then stood and took another Splenda packet from the spice cabinet. She sprinkled it into her mug and continued with her tirade. “You shoot a boy nine times in the back as he’s running away from you and then try to say you feared for your life. You? Really? While another baby is lying dead in the street? I thought the police were here to protect and serve the people, not execute them.”

“Mama!” Leslie pleaded. She massaged her temples with her middle and index fingers. She didn’t want to hear about any more cop killings. Not with Gregory MIA, not with Tony and his anger issues. Her family was at risk as it was, and with Gregory living in Pleasant’s Edge, where the police could murder without consequence—no one would miss a dead body in Pleasant’s Edge; it was the South Side Chicago of Leiland—Leslie spent most nights wide awake, deep in prayer, chanting in her prayer language for the Lord to keep His angels encamped around her sons for protection.

“You can’t expect an old woman not to worry about these things,” Stella grumbled. She took her mug and walked to the living room, where she sat on the couch by the window, leaving Leslie alone in the kitchen.

Leslie traced the tip of her finger around the rim of her mug. We all worry, she thought, we can’t help but to. Even Stella, who had witnessed the atrocities of Jim Crow and of the Civil Rights era, worries, even more now with a president in office who encourages hate speech. Each day, we become more and more endangered. When will it end? When will the killings, the injustice, the fear and worry all end? She hadn’t had a night of sweet sleep in a long time. It would be nice to get one now, assurance from God that everything happens for a purpose, despite all the uncertainty in their lives. “Jesus, give us peace,” Leslie prayed, “peace from all the troubles of this world. We need it. We need You.” She sipped her tea.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and  all this week the prompts are geared toward novelists! Today’s prompt asks us to continue in world-building but from a societal aspect. It was hard to get a story out for this prompt, and I’m not totally in love with this scene, but hey, at least I wrote something. Hopefully this is the end of the novel prompts, because I feel I’ve written all I can write about these characters. If you must know more about my novel in progress, check out my 2017 A to Z Challenge from the beginning here.

The Lord Will Keep You

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

Bacon sizzled and popped in the pan. Leslie hovered over the stovetop, watching the bacon’s translucent pink transition to a deep, crispy red. She forked the strips out of the pan and onto a plate lined with a paper towel to trap the grease.

She cracked half a dozen eggs into a bowl, scrambled them with the same fork she used to flip the bacon, and poured them into the hot pan. She cooked robotically, not fully aware of her own movements, working on muscle memory alone.

She hadn’t slept at all the night before, tossing and turning until almost four in the morning, while next to her Antonio lay completely still but for the rise and fall of his chest under his heavy breathing. She envied how quickly he descended into sweet slumber, mere moments after kissing her goodnight and laying his head down on the pillow.

She had to coax herself into sleep. After hours of fruitless efforts to get comfortable, she clicked on the lamp by the bed and retrieved her Bible from the top drawer of the nightstand. God was keeping her up for a reason, and she desired to know why.

She opened the Bible to her favorite psalm, 121:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help / My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. / He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber / Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep…

She stopped, prayed, “Lord, why have you kept me awake? Why do you refuse to grant me sleep while you work on my behalf?”

She didn’t expect a response. He rarely answered her prayers, especially when she question His motives. She used to be embarrassed by that. She’d been saved since her undergraduate years in college, nearly three decades, but she had never heard the voice of God.

It was on their second date, when the conversation had turned to salvation and whether or not they both had a relationship with Jesus Christ, that Antonio assured her there was nothing wrong not being able to hear His voice. He doesn’t always speak to you, she remembered him saying. Sometimes it’s just a feeling, like butterflies in your stomach when you talk to your crush. When He wants you to do something, it’s like you get dizzy, and you can almost see yourself doing it in your head. Some would call that a premonition, but it’s not; it’s the Holy Spirit leading you. “That’s how I came to give my life,” he’d told her. “I saw myself walking to the altar even before I did it.”

She waited for that feeling, that vision, to see herself fast asleep, and then to lie back dizzy, pull the covers up to her chin, and actually sleep. But God startled her that night, His voice like thunder filling the room.

“Keep reading.”

And she could hardly keep the Bible steady enough to read, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She laid it across her lap, stuttered through the words as she read aloud. Her ears still rang from hearing him for the first time, and her voice sound minuscule in comparison, like those squeaky little cartoon chipmunks she used to watch on television as a child. But she kept reading as instructed, whispering low to herself the entire psalm, down to the last two verses.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul / The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

And as if by the snap of His mighty finger, she was asleep.

Antonio’s cold hands curled around Leslie’s shoulders, jolting her back into the present.

“Morning, beautiful.” He kissed her neck.

She shuddered out of his embrace. “Honey, your hands are like ice.”

“That’s because I don’t have you to keep me warm.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, rocked her side to side, and slipped one hand underneath her blouse to caress her stomach around her belly button. She closed her eyes, rested her head on his shoulder, and he dipped down, lightly pressed his soft lips against hers. After twenty years of marriage he could still swoon her off her feet.

“Ugh, get a room!” Tony said from the kitchen table behind them.

“Watch who you talking to, boy,” Antonio snapped. “And last time I checked, every room in this house belongs to me. Unless you want to start paying the mortgage.”

Leslie hadn’t even noticed the boys were already at the kitchen table waiting to be served their breakfast before school. Tony slumped in his chair. He returned his attention to something on his phone’s screen. Leslie hated they’d even bought him one. He was a teenager, growing more and more distant from his family, and a cell phone only expedited that, but he needed a way to contact them whenever there was an emergency. She was reluctantly forced to compromise. At least she could still control his minutes. Limited text messages and no phone calls after 7 PM.

Next to him Gregory wrote in a thee-subject spiral notebook. Across the page he had written out the multiplication table, up to 20. He had a math test that day, and she was proud to see him studying. She wished Tony would follow his little brother’s example, since he was at the moment failing History.

“Boys, make sure you have everything together for school. Breakfast will be ready in a minute.” Leslie cut the heat off the eye of the stove and stirred the eggs with a whisk. Some of it had begun to stick to the pan, and she sighed in frustration.

“You ok, sweetie? You seem tired,” Antonio said.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She thought to ask him if he had heard anything last night. Those two words God had spoken had been so loud, so clear, but while she could barely contain her heart, pounding through her chest, Antonio didn’t even flinch. The message was meant only for her. If God had wanted her to share it, he would’ve woken Antonio too.

“Here, go sit down. I’ll finish up.”

Leslie couldn’t help but chuckle. Breakfast was ready, all that was left was dividing it onto four plates, but if Antonio thought he was helping, she wouldn’t refuse him. Chivalry was far from dead when it came to their relationship. She only hoped her boys would inherit their father’s same kindness and respect toward women.

She sat next to Gregory and smiled. “Ready for your test?”

He closed his notebook and stuffed it in his bookbag on the floor. “I think so.”

Leslie nodded. “Confidence, sweetie.” She turned to Tony across. “Put that phone away at the breakfast table.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Keep rolling your eyes like that, and they’ll get stuck there.”

He sucked his teeth. “Whatever.”

Leslie stood and was about to reach across the table to pop him in the mouth, but she heard a loud crash behind her. She spun around. Antonio was no longer standing in front of the stove. She rushed around the kitchen island and found him on the floor unconscious, the hot pan on his shoulder next to the oven, the scrambled eggs split all over his chest.

“Oh my god!” She fell to her knees, cradled his head in her lap. She slapped his face repeatedly. “Come on. You’re alright, you’re alright.” She swiped the tears from her cheeks. “No, you’re alright. Come on. Come on!” she pleaded.

“Mom?” Gregory and Tony had followed her. They stood at the corner of the stove next to the fallen frying pan. She looked up at her youngest son, and all her fear transferred into his eyes. They curved downward like almonds and welled up with tears.

She shook her head and pushed his legs back. “Call 9-1-1!”

“I-I don’t—” He looked over his shoulder at his brother behind him.

“Tony!” Leslie screamed. “We gave you that phone for emergencies like this!”

He scrambled to tug his phone out of his front pocket, suddenly tight around his hand. He finally ripped it out but dropped it on the floor. Leslie snatched it up. On her third try, she got the operator—the first two times, her fingers moving too fast, she dialed 9-0-1-1 and 1-1-2-9.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“Get me an ambulance!” She panted heavily, tried to swallow back the sobs and mucus building at the back of her throat. Her voice faded in and out as she tried to speak, her chest bouncing in rythm with the fluttering of her racing heart. She was too flustered even to remember their address. “It’s my husband,” she stammered

“Ma’am, try to calm down. Can you tell me if he’s breathing?” His voice was steady, smooth. He spoke at the same level as he had when he first answered, not raising even half a decibel. He was probably used to this, trained on how to handle frantic callers like her, deescalating as much as he could over the phone before the police and paramedics arrived.

Leslie squeezed two fingers against Antonio’s neck, but she couldn’t feel a pulse. The phone fell from her ear, and she fell facedown across Antonio’s stiffened chest. “Please, God! Please don’t take him from me!”

And again, He answered her. Two times in under six hours after twenty-seven years of silence.

“Remember what you read.” He was preparing her for what was to come, a trying of her faith in Him, like when He commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Could she trust Him to be her only source after the love of her life was taken away from her? Job tore his clothes, fell prostrate to the floor and worshiped Him when he lost everything. Could she do the same?

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away…

 No, she couldn’t accept it. “Not this, God. Anything but this!” She prayed unceasingly, knowing He wouldn’t change His mind, but she continued anyway, while Tony and Gregory stood over her, frozen, and watched. Their lives were about to change catastrophically, and while she knew that all things worked together for the good to them that loved Him, in that moment, as she prayed and prayed for Antonio’s healing and deliverance, she wasn’t sure she could say with tenacious zeal that she truly loved God over the man who lay dying in her arms.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and  all this week the prompts are geared toward novelists! Today’s prompt comes from Lisa Cron and asks us to investigate a turning point in our protagonist’s past. This was the perfect opportunity to explore more backstory for my NaNoWriMo novel, “Lost Boy.” Last month, I used the April A to Z Challenge to plan out the novel. If you missed it, read it from the beginning here! 

Saved by Grace

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

It wasn’t enough to sign, “We can’t see each other anymore.” He doesn’t take no for an answer, in any language. And when Felicity confided to her best friend that she feared Darrel was stalking her, Tippy scoffed and said she was overreacting.

But she’s seen his car drive past her window twice, and now there’s a light knock on her door, turned to a pound, turned to a kick. And then a sudden blast.

He has a gun.

It wasn’t enough that he had stolen Tippy from her. Tippy still thinks she’s clueless. Mute doesn’t equal dumb. She’s seen the naked photos, the video in his phone. Tippy was willing to do everything Felicity’s morals commanded her to forsake. Tippy could make as much noise as her stronger vocal cords could carry, egging him to press harder, stroke faster.

But he wanted them both.

Felicity dedicated her voice to the Lord the first time Darrel raped her. She speaks only to Him now. She offers her body only to Him.

But Darrel could never take no for an answer, and now no one but God will hear her scream.

She hides in the bathroom closet, praying for deliverance, fully aware that He could tell her no, like He refused to remove the thorn from Paul’s side—because His grace is sufficient. All things work together, she reminds herself. Not her will but His be done. His power is made perfect in her weakness. She was not given the spirit of fear, so she will not panic. She only wishes not be touched again, that she be made holy and taken into His glory.

Darrel taps the heavy metal on the closet door and rips it open. He’s always wanted to boast his strength, impose his dominance over her. He wields the gun in her face, and she exhales—closes her eyes and exhales—slow, smooth, as time freezes, and all of her breath flows from her body.

No words exchanged—his hatred has consumed him now. He pulls the trigger—a quick blast—and she is caught up in a cloud of fire.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and today’s prompt, “Writer’s Clue” was kind of a cop out. No offense to LJ Cohen, but c’mon, girl, all you did was tell us to write a basic story! So I took a little inspiration from the Daily Prompt: panicked. It worked out in the end. Maybe that was her point all along…

X is for… [Χ]ριστός #AtoZChallenge

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

I got nothing. A big fat ZERO. There just aren’t enough “X” letters in the English alphabet. The dictionary agrees with me too.

My writer’s thesaurus skipped the letter “X” entirely, jumping from “W” straight to “Y,” and when I attempted to look up some words in a dated Webster’s Dictionary I found at work (labeled, “Best Reference Source 1989” by the American Library Association), it had one word, one word, for “X”: Xmas. That’s not even a freaking word! All it does is cross Christ out of Christmas. Of course, the dictionary had an elaborate definition for why the “X” is not meant to offend but to educate, apparently derived from the Greek letter chi (X), which is the first letter in Χριστός, which translated means Christos. So in fact, the “X” stands for Christ, not against Him.

Yea, yea, so you expect me to believe that everyone who says, “Merry Xmas!” is an expert on Greek language? Nah, I don’t think Leslie’s buying that excuse either.

But, since we’re here, let’s talk about Leslie, and her Christian foundation, and how on earth she’s going to bring her wayward sons back to her, and more importantly, back to Christ.

We’re down to the last three (and arguably the hardest) letters in the A to Z Challenge, and I’m getting a little anxious because I still don’t have a definitive ending to Lost Boy. I took a brief moment to revisit my outline, hoping to spark some inspiration—and laughing at how much has changed already since posting it (for example, Detective Maye has been reduced to a secondary character, and Gio, Clara, and Bethel are all out).

For today’s purposes, I want to focus on the Falling Action and how it can lead to a resolution. So what’s happening…

  • Leslie visits the scene of the crime
  • Leslie confronts Jacqui
  • Maye bails out Gregory

Already the last scene has to change, since Maye is no longer a main character, but there’s opportunity for me to add layers to the other two scenes. Eventually, I want to bring all the characters back together for a final intervention, or showdown, if you will. I think it will start with Leslie retracing Gregory’s steps, going to the gas station, talking with the bank teller who gave him the money. When she stops by Jacqui’s trailer, another character, whom she doesn’t expect, will already be there, waiting for her.

Being a member of the jail ministry, Leslie witnesses to complete strangers often. She’s gotten complacent in her message, telling people about the Gospel of Christ with the hope that she’ll probably never see them again.

You have nothing to lose when you’re talking with a stranger. If they reject you, or respond in an offensive matter, you just move on to the next person; you don’t let it affect you, because the goal is not to seek the approval of man, but to save as many souls for Christ as possible. But evangelism starts at home, does it not? What about your own family and friends who are unsaved? Will you pray that the Lord sends forth laborers (Matthew 9:35-38)? Will you be that laborer to reap God’s harvest?

Everyone in Leslie’s circle needs redemption: Will Gregory’s poor choices prevent him from reconciling with his family? Will Tony be able to quench the resonating anger he feels toward his mother and brother? Will Jacqui and Tammi turn from their selfish greed and seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness? Will Kerry learn to forgive? Will Leslie continue to put her hope, faith, and trust in the Lord?

Leslie’s going to need all of her prayer warriors plus the empowering presence of God to fix her family, and it will start in the most unlikeliest of places. A revival is coming to Pleasant’s Edge, a city in exile, but as scripture says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but there is hope, for we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Amen! Let’s hope Leslie can do it!

—Nortina

W is for… [W]eed Witness #AtoZChallenge

close-up picture tattered American flag behind barbed wire fence
~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

Pop is dead, but I won’t cry. Crying is for sissys and wimps. I ain’t no wimp, and I damn sure ain’t no sissy. Greg can’t even think ’bout Pop without tearing up. I smack him around a bit, tell him to toughen up, we the men of the house now—men don’t cry. But Ma always coming to his rescue, “Stop being so hard on him,” she says, then let him lay in her bed and watch cartoons. “You know he’s sensitive.”

Shit, where was that motherly protection when Pop was taking off his belt, beating me like I just bust the windows with a baseball? Even though I did, and after that, I started hitting toward the neighbor’s brick house across the street.

Me and Pop had an understanding bout discipline. I mess up, I get whipped up. Simple. But when it came time for Greg to get his, Ma always got in the way. Not her baby, she’d say. That’s why the nigga’s such a softy now. I’m just trying to do for him why Ma never let Pop do. Spare the rod, spoil the child, right? Or does that only apply to me?

“Everyone grieves differently,” Grandma says, but Ma out here acting like nothing’s changed. Done gone and join the Jail Witnessing Team at church. Her first trip to the county, she practiced her tactics on me. Guess she figured I’d end up there eventually.

“How long have you been in here?” Holy Spirit filled Ma said to convict me. Start with the general stuff first, ease them into talking ’bout religion.

“Five years.”

“What for?”

“Weed.”

Real Ma came back quick. “You better not be smoking weed, boy.”

“I ain’t.” But she patted me down anyway, another preparation tactic for what we’d both experience in the jail, eventually.

I didn’t bother to tell her they sell weed at the bus stop outside the school—dropouts and repeat seniors who ain’t graduating again. The principal’s called the cops on them twice, but they strategic. They only come out during class changes and dismissal, after the lights on the school zone sign stop flashing.

Sometimes, when I’m walking home from practice, I stop and ask them how much. They tell me I gotta get a grinder to break it up first, and cigars to roll it in. It might be easier for me to get my hands on joint paper, but if I really want to get good and high, I gotta find somebody to buy me cigars—they hold more and better. One kid, nineteen, offered me a gram for a discount and he’d buy me all the stuff I needed. I told him I’d think about it.

After Ma left, I snuck into her room and found her cash stash underneath the jewelry box on her dresser. I took a ten dollar bill, licked the edges and rolled it up into a skinny cylinder. Then I pinched it with my index finger and thumb, brought it to my lips, and breathed in.

“What are you doing?”

I shoved the money in my mouth so fast I nearly choked. Greg’s always creeping up on people. He’s too quiet, like a damn ghost.

“Mind ya business,” I mumbled.

“What’s in your mouth?”

I slid the bill under my tongue. “Get outta here.”

“This is Mama’s room, and I’m telling.”

“No you ain’t.” I mushed the side of his face and pushed him into the wall. The tears were welling up in his eyes before he even hit the floor.

“Stop all that crying, boy!”

“Why you always so mean?”

“Somebody’s gotta be.”

Ma came back sooner than I expected. They wouldn’t let her in ’cause of her shoes. Jails are strict, you can’t just come to visit looking any ol’ kinda way. If she watched Lockup on MSNBC she’d know that.

“Why do you even watch that?” she asked.

I just shrugged. I really don’t know. Something to do, I guess. Figure out how much time I’ll have to do if I ever got caught.

She ain’t notice the money missing. I’m in the clear for now. Monday, I’ll skip Mr. Wilson’s Language Arts class, cut across the lawn of the main building to the stop during class change. I gotta make sure I have a extra dollar fifty for the bus. Then we’ll ride to the nearest gas station to buy the rest of the stuff, and by lunch, I’ll be in the trees.

—Nortina

Written for the A to Z Challenge. This year, I’m getting a head start on planning my novel for NaNoWriMo. Prologues, character sketches, structure planning, plot twists, or in the case of this post, more backstories. Stick around as I try to figure out what the heck I’m going to write in November!