Free The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFadden

to figure into the budget. “I got two kids,” she’d said when her boss pulled her into his office to give her the news. “Isn’t there something I can do?” she’d asked and wiped at the tears that were forming in her eyes.
    Her boss, he simply adjusted his yellow and green striped tie, shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head. Delia got six weeks’ severance pay and a bouquet of flowers with a card that said: Good luck, we’ll miss you!
    Me, I just couldn’t hold a job. I could hold a bottle, but I found jobs to be slippery, hard to hang on to.
    When the bank foreclosed on the house, we had nowhere to go, and so Delia and I went to the welfare office, signed our names on long white sheets of paper, and sat among dozens of other men and women like ourselves, waiting for our names to be called. “Lowe, Kenzie!” “Lowe, Delia!”
    Mr. Chang. He had only been a caseworker for three months. Fresh out of college. Clean-cut, straight teeth, nice nails. His desk was still uncluttered, the people who sat before him were still people and not just case numbers. He drank mineral water out of the bottle and listened when they spoke.
    Delia and I left there with one hundred dollars in food stamps and a letter for emergency housing at Eastman.
    We would see Mr. Chang six months later for recertification. I noticed his skin had lost its glow and his attention span was a bit short. He still smiled though, even if it seemed forced. The third time I saw him, his desk was a mess of papers and half-empty coffee cups. He smelled of cigarette smoke and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. His eyes were bloodshot and he had developed a nailbiting habit. He still smiled, even though it was strained and looked more like a crazed grin than a smile. My fourth visit, I was assigned a new caseworker. Mr. Chang had gone to work in the private sector.
    I rounded the corner and started toward the elevator. Two men, boys really, stood huddled near the entranceway of the elevator. One boy was tall and dark with a long thin scar that ran the length of his cheek. He wore a bright orange baseball cap and an army fatigue jacket. He had one Timberland boot–covered foot cocked up against the door of the elevator, propping it open for the light while he counted the roll of five- and ten-dollar bills he held in his hands. The other boy was smaller, just as dark, and wore a tattered brown leather jacket that hung too big on his small frame; he sported two diamond studs in his ear. They both looked up as I approached.
    “Hey, girl,” Orange Baseball Cap called out to me.
    I nodded and said hello and even forced a smile. I had to be congenial if nothing else. “Hey,” I said back and tried to tear my eyes away from the money. I considered turning around and moving toward the stairway, but the risk was too great. “Hey,” I said again and nodded my head toward the elevator.
    “Take the fucking stairs,” Brown Leather Jacket mumbled beneath his breath as he watched me out of the side of his eye. He was just a baby, maybe seventeen, if that old.
    “Have some fucking respect, man!” Orange Cap yelled and slapped Brown Leather Jacket in the face with the roll of money. “Move the fuck outta the way,” he said and shoved him backward.
    “Here you go, miss,” Orange Cap said and stepped aside, holding the door open for me. I heard the vials of crack clinking in his pockets as he moved.
    “Thanks,” I responded, still keeping my eyes away from the money and trying hard not to look at either of their faces. I stepped inside the small gray box and said a prayer.
    Orange Cap didn’t let the door close right away; he just stood there smiling at me, blinding me with the row of gold fangs that covered his top front teeth. I was looking at the buttons, trying to will my finger to stop pressing number 3 over and over again. Idiot, I called myself in my mind.
    My heart was racing and I was sure he could smell my fear. Finally I looked up and