THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH

There’s a Monopoly on Change Mom said her boss let her go. Told her that she could enjoy her vacation more now since it’d be longer. The brokerage firm folded. Dad turned down that job with the MTA since he’d see a third of his income lost to taxes. Figured he was better off taking the gamble and having seven hundred dollars in his pocket even if it only meant he could work three days a week and not five. At least he’d have some time to rest his back from all the lifting of boxes. Although, these days ain’t been much resting getting done. Folks been moving like pack rats he said, ‘specially those college students. And the moving rates done dropped as a result of seeing less families packing into these apartments. And those houses, they been renting those to them students too. And them rich folks been using those moving companies and not no independent hustlers with business cards from 1997. So money’s been tight.

Cross the tunnel ain’t been much different. Mom said Aunt Kathleen started renting out the guestroom, the basement and the attic too. She said since her divorce she been short on money for mortgage and spends her evenings sitting around counting the days ‘til she got laid off and counting her blessings too. She said she can’t help but see it coming since so far they let go of three nurses in just one week. So she was just biding her time. She done gave up her BMW and the IRS been garnishing her checks. Thank God she sought to take the NCLEX exam to become an RN. But ain’t but few of those job openings. More and more hospitals been closing, and nursing homes too. It’s like the affordable health care act done intensified the loss of Medicaid reimbursements to the spike in rising costs of supplies and services. All them buildings getting replaced by condominiums.

Could you imagine, having a former burn or intensive care unit for a bedroom?

One time Aunt Stacyann, Dad and Cousin Kendra sat in the front gallery limin’ (as they say) after the sun went down and Aunt Stacyann, who they call Toots, saw a bat and went on about the so called Soucouyant she saw fly across the sky on an evening. “If allyuh see the soucoyant. It come to suck waz he name blood.

He playing he want to teef people money. He go see fireball coming for he arse again tonight. Allyuh feel is joke ah making. People does say they doh believe but I believe and I does see.” And I thought she was talking crazy then. But it seems crazy people just don’t make no case out of proving you wrong. Spirits really do seem to linger outside their physical form. They even linger in objects. All the things we seem to touch and hold and keep and hoard, they all have fingerprints and dust, and stories and memory. And some living things are spirits who make it their business to interact with humans they got history with, somehow or another.

Mom said I got me an old soul, I look at pictures of my great aunt and hear old stories of my grandfather and I can’t help but wonder if I got their spirits running through my blood. And I wonder, whose spirit they had running through theirs and how spirits are so all knowing to just inhabit new bodily territory like that. And what about those spirits that got hold of the wrong bodies if there is even such a thing? I mean, its kind of like these white folks running ‘round here trying to catch wind of this body, except it ain’t just one person’s body. It’s bodies of people, families, homes, and lands. Trying to snatch whatever little life or spec of hope folks ‘round these parts got left. Ain’t no trauma like seeing one your kind lead