![]() ![]() We've had to color paper petals, cut them out, and paste them onto a picture of a flower. In class, I wait in line to show my teacher, Miss Miller, my assignment. She mouths "Bye-bye" as I join my sister Rita, who's waiting on the porch together we walk three long blocks to Winterhalter Elementary and Junior High School, passing by the lush Russell Woods Park. ![]() I bring the bowl to my lips and drink the last of the sweetened milk before I rise and kiss Mama's forehead. ![]() I find comfort in Mama's voice, in the familiar, rhythmic recitation of numbers. What else, Miss Queenie? Six-eight-four for fifty cents boxed, uh-huh. Well, I can take it for a dollar, but since it's a fancy, I can't take it for more than that. Oh did you? What'd you dream? He was a hunchback? Is that what The Red Devil dream book say it play for? Now that I didn't know. "You know, I got customers been playing one-ten all week. One-ten boxed for a dollar." Mama writes the numbers 110, draws a box around them, hesitates. Four-seven-five straight for fifty cents. ![]() Three-eight-eight straight for a quarter. Is this both races, Miss Queenie? Detroit and Pontiac? Okay. She's on the telephone, its receiver in the crook of her neck as she records her customer's three-digit bets in a spiral notebook, repeating each one. On a morning like most, I sit beside Mama at the dining room table, eating my bowl of Sugar Frosted Flakes and watching her work. ![]()
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