Robbin’ for the Hood

The bill at Dollar Tree was $37. $85 at Food Lion, even with the coupons and store sales. I could picture her grimace and premptively formed a list of reasons to justify the expenses- to her and myself. I bring in the bags of non-perishables and drop them with a thud onto the hardwood. Ian is coming soon. We won't get demolished like the islands always do, but we'll get wind and rain, and the trees tend to fall with a gentle breeze in this part of the state. I set the bags down and hand her the receipt. My daughter greets me with tears in her eyes. I tell grandma I can claim her on food stamps, hoping it'll soften the hundred-dollar blow.

An mental image stirs, one where I'm tip-toeing in tights outside of a pharmaceutical company. A large cloth bag of insulin vials and epi-pens is thrown over my shoulder and bouncing along my back. I'm a more limber, slightly medieval version of Santa Claus. A spotlight captures me as I close onto the outer perimeter.

"SNACK TIME, MUMMA!"

My fantasy is broken by a bowl of store-brand cheese snacks (Cheddar Flavored Whales- with 100% REAL cheese!) being shoved into my face. My grandmother is still going through her long list of co-pays, which she punctuates with a rant about a $300 ambulance ride to the hospital half a mile away. I struggle to remember where I was that day, why I hadn't been called sooner. I'm small but sturdy and learned to lift with my legs years ago. Surely I could have carried feet or arms, or backed the van into the yard.

I'm back in tights, back in the spotlight, trying to haul ass before the summer heat spoils my spoils. The light lingers, moves, then fades. I scurry off, scampering down the highway, to the neighborhoods just past the house-- the ones where the pre-schoolers cuss too much and the old folks sit on the porch dutifully watching decline and decay-- and drop orange bottles and glass vials into chimneys and mailboxes, knocking on doors then jumping into bushes to see joy and relief wash over tired faces.

I ditch my bag and walk up the hill back home, placing small boxes in the fridge under the veil of midnight and avoiding questions as to where I've been.