this will be a lifesaving experience for you all." With that she turned and walked out, her heels
clicking and echoing around us until she was gone and
it was deadly silent.
It was as if all clocks had stopped. Nothing beat
anymore. Not even our own hearts.
2
Dr. Foreman's Funny Farm
.
Two of the so-called buddies left with Dr.
Foreman. but M'Lady Three remained behind, her arms folded, her back against the door, glaring at us, the corners of her mouth dipped with annoyance at what I was sure she considered baby-sitting duty,
"This is so stupid." Teal muttered.
"Did someone speak?" M'Lady Three chimed. Like a hungry cat she was so eager to pounce. We all looked down ashamed of our fear. That
was when I saw that someone probably feeling as
desperate as we did had carved the word help into my
old desk. I felt like adding my own cry of rage. I
would carve in betrayed. When I looked up again. I
saw Robin open her composition notebook and begin
writing. She shrugged at me as if to say, what else can
we do? Humor her. Teal, on the other hand, remained
stubborn, her head in her hands, the notebook still
closed. I opened mine.
My life story?
Where do I begin? I was born in Atlanta. My
daddy was an auto garage tool salesman and my
mama worked as a waitress in one dump after another, drinking up mast of what she made and sometimes not coming home until morning. It was one thing to remember it all, to think about it, but another to actually put it in writing. It made me more angry than ashamed to see it in black and white. Perhaps that was Dr. Foreman's purpose: to get us to hate who we were, who we are. I suppose I couldn't blame her. Why else
would we work on changing ourselves?
It was funny though how tears came into my
eyes after I began to describe our apartment in that
rat-infested building, described my room. the crippled
kitchen with the stove that worked when it was in the