Free Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan Page B

They annoy me. I just pretend to like them in front of their mamas or, in this case, their grandma. I’m wondering how long it’s gon’ take for Miss Betty to go on and get legal custody of ’em, ’cause I’ve heard her daughter be turning it down off Rosecrans and Adams but I always assumed Miss Betty knew her daughter was a crackhead and word on the street is she’ll suck anybody’s dick for a ten-dollar bag. The reason I know this is ’cause I got a couple of relatives down there competing with her and sometimes my granny made my brothers drive down there to look for ’em. They learned the hard way that you can’t save nobody who ain’t interested in being saved.
    I can relate to what Miss Betty is going through, ’cause my granny raised me and my two brothers ’cause our mama died of breast cancer when we were little. Our daddy didn’t know what to do with three kids so he left us with our granny, our mama’s mama, moved to Kansas City, got married again, and I heard he had two or three more kids. That’s all we know. That’s all we want to know. Our granny was strict as hell and her middle name was “No!” but we did what she told us to do and things worked in our favor. One of my brothers is an airline mechanic. The other one work for Microsoft.
    It should be obvious that I wasn’t no honor roll student in high school. My favorite class was boys. I graduated with a C+ average, and my granny made me look through the catalog at the junior college near our house and told me to pick something out that looked interesting. I picked nursing. So I went through the LVN program only to find out that hospitals and me don’t get along, just like dead people. So here I am. Just your average, everyday caretaker. I like taking care of people who can’t take care of themselves. Sometimes I go a little overboard, but men like Mr. Lee don’t have a whole lot of time left in this world and I feel good sexing them up and I get a little sumthin’-sumthin’ out of the deal myself. It’s a win-win situation and no harm done.
    “Hi there, you little cuties!” I say with as much niceness as I can. That older one, Luther (what a horrible name to give to a baby), look like he’s staring at my breasts when he waves but I know I’m not seeing right, ’cause he can’t be no more than seven or eight now. But then when that other one runs on back to his room, and Luther sits on the couch and starts smiling at me, I feel a little uncomfortable because that little son of a bitch is looking right through my top.
    “Hi there, Nurse Kim,” Miss Betty says as she walks in with three Mickey D bags in her hand and sets them on the cocktail table.
    What I wouldn’t pay for a Filet-O-Fish and some fries about now.
    “How’re you doing today? And how’s Lee David?”
    Because I like Miss Betty, and she is nice to me, I always try to use my junior college voice with her too, because it’s important to sound like you went to college in front of the people you work for. “I’m good. Mr. Lee is fair to middling. He didn’t have too much to eat today and they might need to step up his meds. But I’m not a doctor. How about you? I see you’ve got the grandkids today.”
    “Yes, Lordy,” she says.
    She collapses in that La-Z-Boy like it’s her life support. But it’s cheap and the back is lumpy and the noise the massager makes can get on your last nerve. She woulda been better off sitting on the couch if Young Mac Daddy here would beat it, but Luther looks like he’s waiting for the right moment to ask for my hand in marriage. He grabs a pillow and props it behind his short little neck, like he ain’t going nowhere no time soon. Miss Betty leans all the way back in her La-Z-Boy and turns on the massager, but then she jerks like something scared her and sits straight up.
    “Lord, it sounds like drums beating, doesn’t it?”
    “Yep. Lots of drums,” Luther says.
    She presses the lever so the chair is upright and