Last summer the woman gets that stupid idea, you know, sending me to that fancy-ass private school. Isn’t that money ain’t tight enough already, but whenever she gets an idea stuck in her head, there just ain’t no stopping her. And it’s getting worse now that she’s getting old. "Late middle age," is what she calls it. My foot. "Early ancient" is a lot more like it. But there just ain’t no arguing with that woman.

Anyway, she starts making me go to that school over on Belhaven.

"You’ll thank me later," she says. "There ain’t nothing better important than an education." Ain’t like she’s got one herself! Quit after the seventh grade to be one of them live-in nannies for some stuck-up rich bitch. But, she says, that ain’t gonna
happen to me. No way. I’m gonna finish high school and then go to college, if she has her way. Like college ever learned somebody something useful.

But getting back to what I’m trying to say, I’ve been going to that fancy school since last August. First there wasn’t nobody talking to me at all. They all had their noses stuck straight up in the air, like they was something special. But after a while,
I’m making me some friends. I guess them "fine young women" were impressed, ‘cause I wasn’t taking no shit from nobody. Not from any of them, and damn sure not from no teacher.

About them teachers, anyway. When you mouth off they take you over to the side and talk to you in that low teacher-voice, like they was your friend or something. That shit ain’t gonna work on me, you can be sure of that. One of them actually wrote a "note" to my gramma, but then he’s stupid enough to send it home with me. Like I was gonna give it to her! So, gramma of course don’t go see him like he asked her to, and now he feels real sorry for me, since nobody at my house "shows any interest in my academic achievement," and in his class I can pretty much do whatever I please.

But now I’m finally making some friends, and that girl, Monique, actually invites me for a sleep-over. I’m all excited, ‘till I find out that everybody is bringing her some sort of a gift. So I go ask gramma and she starts in on me that school already
costs more than she can afford and that I’m just supposed to suck it up and tell Monique that I wasn’t gonna be able to bring her no present.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you all that first, so you’d understand better why I did what I did.

Next I know, gramma sends me to Mr. Bukowski’s store on the corner for some bread and milk. We only go there when the money’s real tight, ‘cause his stuff’s more expensive than at Food Lion, but he always lets you keep a tab. You know, "buy today—pay next payday," that kinda thing.

So I grab the bread off the shelf and wait for him to get me the milk from the cooler behind his banged-up counter and I’m still wondering what to do ‘bout that party tomorrow when I see them candles, right there on the counter. Actually I smell
them first, before even I see them. They’re right pretty, sitting there smelling like vanilla and cinnamon, and some other flavor that I don’t know what it’s called. And there’s a yellow one that looks like there’s coffee beans inside of it. And before I know what I’m doing, I slide that one right in the pocket of my old army-jacket. It made the pocket bulge out a little, but I figure if I hold the bread with my left hand, ain’t nobody gonna notice.

Sure as shit, old Mr. Bukowski just hands me the milk jug. He’s so cheap, he don’t even give you no bag for your stuff. Then he tells me to come back for paying when gramma gets her money. And I’m outta there. At home I just put that candle right in my book-bag before my gramma notices anything, and now I have my gift for Monique.

That party turns out to be pretty lame; them girls are all into playing silly baby-games, and combing their hair, and painting their fingernails. Now, my gramma would stroke out dead, if I showed up with painted nails. Anyway, I’m bored most of the time, and the only good part is dinner. Sandwiches in funny shapes, like leaves, and flowers, and stars, and stuff like that, and we eat from plastic plates, the fancy kind with the patterns on ’em, and instead of washing them plates, they just throw them out in the trash.

Oh, turns out my candle ain’t really that special either. Monique’s got all kinds of them lined up on her windowsill. What a bummer! After I go through all that trouble, and risk getting sent off to jail and all.

By the way, jail and all. I don’t think I’m cut out for being a criminal, not even one of them small-time ones, I guess, ‘cause next time I go to Mr. Bukowski’s I see them candles sitting there, and I start feeling all guilty about what I done.

And then the old guy even points them out to me, and he’s all proud of them, and I think maybe he’s talking about them, ‘cause he knows I done took one of them. So I leave right quick, but when I’m back out on the street, my stomach starts hurting real
bad, and my hands get all sweaty. And then it’s like I don’t have no choice, I just turn ‘round and go back inside.

I march right up to old Mr. Bukowski and look him right in the eye, and then I start bawling like a little kid. My heart feels like it’s just gonna pop right out of my chest, and my ears feel like they stuffed fulla cotton, and there’s drool running down
the side of my mouth.

I guess, I scare old Mr. Bukowski, ‘cause he puts his arm ‘round my shoulder and asks in that weird accent of his—my gramma calls him a Polack—anyway, he asks what’s the matter with me, and I tell him. I mean, I tell him everything, just like I’m
telling you now. About gramma, and school, and having no money, and being embarrassed about it, and ‘bout how I took that candle and then Monique don’t even appreciate it.

After I get it all out I actually do feel better. My stomach still hurts, but my ears don’t feel that weird no-more, and my heart ain’t beating that fast either. And then old Mr. Bukowski asks me what I wanna do about paying him back for the candle. I mean, he ain’t all mad and bent-out-a-shape and ugly ‘bout it, and he don’t even mention calling the law on me; just asks how I’m gonna pay him. He even says, he ain’t gonna say nothing to my gramma if I promise to never do nothing like that again.

Now I go to his store three times a week after school’s out, and help doing chores like sweeping the floor and dusting the shelves. I guess, it’ll be only like two weeks or so before I work off that candle, but Mr. Bukowski tells me that if I ever need something, I can just go and ask him for it, and then we figure out a way for me to pay him back . He even says, if I go and read to his wife, he pay me by the hour. Hey, I never knowed his wife can’t see good, just that she’s always moving ‘round
kind a slow and holding on to the shelves a lot.

But why I’m really here is that Mr. Bukowski thinks it’d be good for me to talk to you. He says that I don’t really have to explain anything, that you’d know the whole story already—that you’d know everything that’s going on in the neighborhood. Actually, he says you know everything going on all over the world, but I think that’d be pretty tough, even for a guy like you.

Anyway, I just wanna be sure that you understand the whole thing—why I did it and all, and especially the part where Mr. Bukowski forgives me right away. It kinda shows that what I did wasn’t all that bad; and I reckon if a regular man can forgive me, then maybe you can put a word in for me with your father up there.

And I swear I’ll light one of them candles on the altar next time I come here. And I’m gonna make damn sure I got the money to pay for it, too.