Too Tired,read on Ditto,read above - Sheesh.
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by Joe B. RELATIVE SLAVERY Slavery was supposedly ended and most people are free except for isolated places in Sudan and areas of the Middle East where religion binds servitude, enshrines one sex over the other which is only now beginning to crack under practicality. I’m talking about family dynamics of honor, duty,with guilt thrown as insurance. It began for me with a frantic call about rent going up, being alone,and a dread fear of homeless. This desperate person is my mother who had lost her home to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) It is a devastating time for a first time home owner to lose a captured dream. My brother tried getting her a house but she being particular didn’t want what house he could afford to buy her. Now she has to move from her Fairfield Apartment complex because the rent continues to rise. Funny,people who can afford to rent tend to live where they can but as rent increases whether by market forces or personal greed renters leave and apartments become empty. My mother and the renter were once able to pay their rents each month but over time $750 to $900 mom’s S.S.I. (Social Security Insurance) money goes only so far between medicine,food,rent,or extraneous (mad money) to buy personal things for herself. My first thought "Oh, no – don’t want to do this,she’s moved before with me and my brother helping move and I really though this was it. I know this isn’t her last move and the "I have two good son’s" mantra won’t work as I place forefingers and thumb together forming the universal sign of money that I should be paid for it. I go,Friday night, driven by my brother, sister-in-law which mom didn’t say anything about. It was heavy work and recently I had date to see a young lady I met at church but the Fri. Sat. Sun. and Mon. wrecked that all to hell I hurried up called when getting back four and a half hours late! My new lady friend warn me not to strain myself and I said "Won’t but will figure out strength for strain lines. If this was a stranger I’d not give a second thought about saying no but when it’s a relative from father,uncle, nephew, aunt,sister,brother, cousin,or mother – well there is a duty,honor sort of thing so we do it. That’s why I say "Relative Slavery" that is until you know the score long after or before and brake the blood bonds shackling you to do for someone what you’d not do for anyone else. It’s for days of heavy lifting, some brakes, jokes,sleep,and back to mom’s free labor force. My younger brother Solomon voice it first "I’m to old to do this, no more,never again." "Same here,I’ll pay folks for the next move and supervise no more free labor ever again." Mama always pulls the "I didn’t have to let you live,I could’ve closed my legs." She says things like this all the time. "You can’t the birth card every time." I’m thinking but the best way is to be sooooo far away that I couldn’t help her in her next move and Solomon and I both know this isn’t her last move. Requel,Solomon,drove me home where I shower and change and four hours late to work. I’m so tire, worn, muscles aching that I almost fell asleep standing in the shower. I look down and see some striations along my smaller head. "Damn! I used my legs instead of my back,it may have been holding mom’s safe,walking,bending lower it to floors or walking and placing heavy items somewhere? Guess stress lines become strength lines as blood fills ‘em up? I don’t know which are natural or almost–hernia induced veins anymore. The only lifting I want to do is either weight training or slow bedroom evenly matched lovemaking with a lady friend or two. I’m glad,I helped my mother,that its over,and gladder still that after this no more "relative slavery" cause folks, its still around and as long as relatives know they can get help for free without pay; slavery will always exist. So what do you readers think of "Relative Slavery" Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org |