Tessie D

Prince was gone. 

Daddy came out later that morning and dragged Prince to the back pasture and buried him. It was the first time Daddy had done anything resembling work in months. I half expected him to be angry about Prince but he wasn’t. He wasn’t anything. The Daddy of the Carnival was gone — he’d burned through that good mood just as quickly as it’d come on — and the Daddy of the Dining Room table was back. Sullen, depressed, sitting with his head in his hands. 

Momma went back to work and I didn’t see her much for the next couple days. She picked up a few extra shifts, probably trying to make up some of the money we’d lost.

But, it wouldn’t matter. If Momma made $500, Daddy would spend that $500 in the bank and put another $500 on a credit card. He’d say that he needs something around the farm — a new tool or part for the tractor. And, he’d need more beer and cigarettes. 

None of this is new or surprising. I just have to get through it. I just need to think of this like Christmas.

I hate Christmas. Daddy of the Carnival will show up and he’ll go all out — putting groceries and presents on credit cards in December. By February, the creditors will start calling. By March, they’re calling two or three times a day. Daddy of the Dining Room Table will be back, and he won’t answer the phone so Annie and I’ll do. We’ll tell them that he’s not home. Sometimes, we just hang up. Then, Daddy’ll find some money in April — selling hay, the calves, a bull — to pay the credit cards down just enough get by for a few more months until it all starts over again in the fall. 

I want to be mad at him. At both of them. For spending more money than we have. But, I don’t know if that’s even fair or true. It’d be easy to say, “Just work out a budget and stick to it.” But, how do convince people who have no money to just get by with less? Zero divided by anything is still zero. And, when Momma works all the time and Daddy does finally go out in to the pasture and bales hay, don’t they deserve to enjoy a little bit of it too? And, Daddy’s not just buying for himself — when he’s in a mood, he buys for us, too. I can already hear myself justify it: If the money is going to be gone tomorrow anyways, shouldn’t we enjoy a little bit of it now while we can? Is a new sweater or a new pair of earrings too much to ask when we say no all the other days of the year? 

This time feels different though. The razor’s edge is just a bit sharper. I don’t know how we’re going to buy the fertilizer. Or, how we’re going to bale the hay. Momma’s paycheck will be just enough to cover the groceries and the electric bill. Summer is coming, too, which means that the electricity bill is going to triple in cost. We live in a poorly insulated trailer house in Texas. And, our well runs off electricity, which means that if they cut off the power, we won’t have water. And, the credit cards got us through but if we don’t pay them down enough, we won’t be able to charge them back up later. 

This is all I could think about, and I spent the rest of the week in my room. Annie would try to coax me out every once in a while to watch television or play a board game. But, I wasn’t in the mood. It felt like everything that was good and possible had died with Prince.