I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me.
– Hunter S. Thompson
Tag: poverty
Author’s Note: To the Least of These
Today, cuts take effect that slash the amount of help more than 47 million needy Americans receive in nutritional assistance each month. The Congress, in its finite wisdom, is debating how much more to cut: The Democrats want to cut only “some,” and the Republicans want to cut through the bone and out the other side.
This is the real-world scenario that yesterday’s story is allegory to.
I’ll leave it to you to make the connections and will say nothing further save this: If our government accurately reflects who we are as a people, then we are a heartless, amoral bunch of bastards.
Fiction: A Glass of Water
A tall, shapely woman walked up the three flights of outdoor stairs and turned right, approaching the apartment she was looking for. She was reasonably well dressed and wore a matching set of 12-carat earrings, necklace, and bracelet. She made three sharp, short knocks on the door.
Another woman opened the door. She was a few years older than the one outside. She was not well dressed, she was not wearing jewelry, and her figure was settling.
“I’m Yolanda,” the younger woman said. “Mrs. Cates, I want you to let Horace go so he and I can be together.”
Fiction: Blades Sharpened Wile You Wate
LaVon limped and trudged from his little house to his workshop after lunch. He hadn’t eaten much; it was too hot to care about food. He had made himself drink one glass of water, but even that had been an effort.
“Don’t rightly know why I’m botherin’,” he told himself as he wiped his brow. “Ain’t no one ’round here been needin’ any blades sharpened in a month of Sundays.” He grunted softly. “Folks ’cross the tracks have their own sharpenin’ man.”
But a man went to work; LaVon had been going to one kind of work or another since he was eight years old, and that had been more than six decades ago. Now his work, when he got any, was running a foot-powered grindstone to sharpen dull blades. He couldn’t lift and tote and bend like he had done in his younger days, and this was what was left to him to keep body and soul together.
Fiction: Wishing Well
Skunk Borster hadn’t heard his right name in so long it was no wonder he didn’t remember it. His own mother had practically renamed the boy – “You little skunk!” “You skunk! Get out of there!” “Skunk! Don’t think I don’t know who did that!” – when he was only four years old. Most folk in the area didn’t know it wasn’t his birth name and wouldn’t have cared had they been told.
Skunk fit him like a glove and it had pleased him for forty-seven years to live down to it.
The Depression and the War had both been over for some years, but tell that to the hills. There was still no industry in these parts and the miracles of the post-war boom steered studiously away.
As most people did, Skunk Borster tended his own little garden to help keep body and soul together. Sure, he ate the vegetables, but by and large it served as bait for small meaty creatures such as raccoons. This way, Skunk didn’t even have to go hunting; the prey came within twenty feet of his back door.
He had also made a study of getting money out of other people with little or no labor on his part. He was a wonderfully charming fellow, until one made his closer acquaintance. He could get anyone to trust him once, and maybe even twice.