So anyway I was telling you about my momma and pop. This morning, after she hit him she told him, "Yeah, baby, you wish I was a whore cause then we'd have some money." Daddy don' get too much money with his job. He's a musician, 'cept he don't have any money for fancy instruments, just pots and pans. And he sure is famous. Everyone in the neighborhood knows him as Pots And Pans. And when I walk by they say, "Hey! There goes Pots And Pan's kid, Acorn!"

He plays down on the corner uh Fifteenth and Middle Street most every night but not every night. Pop says you gotta keep the people on their toes. Never get it to be so's they expect somethin' all the time, cause when you do somethin' fool like buildin' people up about a particular thing, they'll get on your case about wantin' that thing all the time. Pop says the last thing he wants is people bargin' down his door cause they want him out on the corner playin' his pots and pans.

My momma takes care uh sick people, but she's not a doctor or a nurse. That's what she wanted to be, but a bunch of things happened, and now as she says, she's more like helpful company. She has to double check on what kinds of medicines to give Ôem in what kinds uh doses. Cause, as she says, sick people are so sick sometimes they don't even want to try to get better, so they lie about their medicine. She says nothing helps an old lonely person quite so much as a cup uh hot tea and another body to chat with. Sometimes she says if uh person's gonna die, a person's gonna die, and there ain't two bits o' biscuits anybody can do about it.

So like I started to say, there was one time Momma thought she could help. This one woman, I remember her house cause momma used to bring me there weekdays when I had off from school. The hallway floors were made out of different color tiles, gray, black, brown, and this real ugly green color, and there was a real high ceiling. It was one of those kinds that makes your voice echo, makes it sound much bigger than it is. And her back yard was a huge flower garden with trails running all through it. My momma says no wonder that lady didn't want to leave that house to live in the hospital in an all white room with all white people. My momma took a real liking to this lady. She'd been taking care uh this woman a while when she had one uh her kidneys fail on her. And that part turned out fine cause they took it out, but the very next week the other one went! Now I don't know much about doctors and sick people and that, but two kidneys in two weeks sure seems like a lot uh bad luck to me. So what my momma did was she went straight into that hospital and got her blood tested. It turned out that her blood was the same as that woman's, so what she did was give that ol' woman one uh her kidneys! And when that ol' woman found out she gave my momma all kinds uh money. My momma took that money and put it in her underwear drawer. I know it was her underwear drawer cause she set me up on the top of the dresser while she was talking to me She opened the top drawer and that's when I saw the underwear. I would never have known that drawer was for underwear if I hadn't been sitting up that high. I had to stretch out my legs so she could open and shut the drawer. When she finished arranging it just how she wanted, she put her hands on my knees and winked at me. "This envelope is just between us, Acorn. You and me." I smiled and nodded, and she made me pinky swear not to tell anyone.

I remember the day she went to to the hospital clear as water. It wasn't so long ago. She brought me to the there with her, cause daddy was out "gallivanting for a bit," as momma calls it. "Don't tell your father," she said, and made me pinky swear again. She squeezed me hard before she went in. "I'm scared about this a little, but what I'm more scared about is your father being angry. But the thing is, I'd really like to help this woman. She's done many good things for me and it's not gonna kill me to give her this little piece of my body."

"Mrs. Samarra sure is scared to die, Acorn. I'm not half so scared as she is. You understand about dying, don't you, girl?"

I said "Yes'm. I do believe so."

"You understand what happens to your head and your body when you die?"

"I think so, momma," I said.

"Come 'ere, Acorn."

I got up on Momma's lap. "I love you, baby. Don't you forget it." I nodded and slipped off to sit on my own chair. Her lap was a little too thin and tiny to be comfortable.

Momma was in the hospital for a couple days and my aunt came to stay with me. That's until Daddy came home. I know momma wasn't planning on telling him about it but he had to know, then. Can't make up one lie after another and lead a decent life at the same time. So he had to know cause Momma was in the hospital and I'd been stayin' home with Aunt Maureen. When he found out about the kidney, he left again and didn't come home for uh week. But first he came to the hospital and marched right into Momma's curtained room, where she was getting ready tot leave. Told her she was one stupid broad and what if Acorn needed uh kidney. Then she wouldn't have one to give. Said it's a sick woman who puts complete strangers in front of her own. Selfish bitch, he called her. She just looked at him with uh blank, didn't say anything till he stomped out with his bag uh pots and pans, the curtains flowed shut behind him. She didn't say anything till we got into the car to go home. Then she started crying, and cried all the way till we got in the front door and she dropped her hospital bag on the floor. She said maybe he's not comin' back. Maybe we'll never see him again. So I started crying, too. Me and my momma, usin' up every tissue box in the house. Tissues take up a lotta space in the trash, so when we was done, we took the trash out right away. Then we went out in the car, "which he left us thank God," said Momma, and bought some flowers and stuck 'em in the kitchen. We opened the windows all over the house, even though it was still a little chilly out. "Feels good, doesn't it?" she asked me. I thought it was a little cold, but I nodded anyway. Then she went out and bought the two uh us a pound uh oysters, and we ate 'em all, dipped in that Louisiana hot sauce that we supposed to be so famous for.

That whole week we lived like queens, Momma lettin' us eat on the good plates and use the good silverware. Some nights we dressed in our best dresses for dinner, and once she put lipstick on my lips. I felt very grown-up except for it made my juice taste waxy and then my food, so I made her wipe it off. So we pretended like this till the morning of our royal breakfast of waffles and confectioner's sugar. It was my first time ever eating homemade waffles. We were done eating and I was cleaning up. I had just broke one uh Momma's good dishes with the little blue flowers on it and was cleaning it up when I heard ating a ting bang babang! in the distance and I knew Pop was back.

I thought Momma knew it too, but I wanted to make sure. So I ran into the living room, leaving shards of little blue flowers all over the floor in the kitchen. Momma was reading a magazine, but I knew by the look on her face that she heard those pots and pans, too. I was so excited, wondering why Momma wasn't excited, too. The way she cried when he left, I thought she'd be so happy to see him again. But she wasn't, so I ran out the front door and down the street to the corner of Fifteenth and Middle where Daddy was banging his pots and pans. "Hey there, Acorn!" He took me onto his lap, still banging away. He always said it was good to have me there, that I was good for business. I always thought I was too young to be doing grown up business but if Pop said so, there must be some truth to it. Just like he said once that it's good to have yourself uh talent like uh instrument, cause then you can just up and go whenever the itch gets at yuh. And people like music wherever you go, it don' matter. North, South, East, West, it don't matter where you go cause people gotta calm their souls somehow, and there sure ain't nothin' better than somethin' free. And since his music was free, people got so happy sometimes they give money for it, just outta the kindness uh their heart.

"Hey there, Acorn!" he said to me again. I really like when he says things to me while he's playing cause I know nobody else can hear - it's a little secret we have in front of a whole bunch uh people. Nothing important, just "Hey Acorn," but I'm the only person who knows he said it to me.

Maybe somethin' else I should do is explain why my name is Acorn. I guess it's pretty unusual, since I ain't never heard uh nobody else with that name. People always say "What's that?" when I say it at first. Then I say, "Acorn, you know, like from uh tree." And then they laugh. Maybe they think it's funny cause they never heard of uh acorn bein uh name before. My momma still has some acorns from Virginia, where we used to live. Momma says there they have a lot uh Oak trees, a lot more than they do here. That's where acorns come from. That's where Momma comes from, too. She's kinda white, all uh her family used to either work or live on farms, she says, and all kinds uh colors uh people came outta those farms. Pop's real dark, almost like chocolate. Not sweet milk chocolate, but rich sorta bitter dark stuff. The good stuff. So Pop says they called me Acorn cause when I came out uh momma I looked just like uh little acorn, sorta light and sorta dark, with a little covering uh hair on top.

So there I was, sittin' on Daddy's lap until he finished playin', and havin' a real good time. Finally it was time to go home, so Daddy slung his pots and pans over his back and held my hand the whole way home. I wanted to ask him where he went, but I thought he'd get mad and not hold my hand any more. So I just looked at my feet and tried not to step on any cracks.

He swung open the screen door for me and I walked under his outstretched arm, still feeling like a queen. Momma wasn't in the chair in the front room anymore, and since she wasn't there it was obvious she was in her room. Her and Daddy's room. Our house isn't that big. It's only got three rooms: mine, theirs, and the front room, which is sort of a living room/kitchen all in one. I like uh small house. It's easy to find a person in. If we had uh big ol' mansion with lots of rooms, we'd never see each other since our family's so small. So it was easy to know that momma was in the bedroom.

Pop picked me up and set me in his big easy chair, the chair momma was sittin' in reading when we heard the pots and pans. He kissed me hard on the forehead before he went in there too, to talk to Momma. I sort of took the hard way that he set me in that chair as his way uh sayin' without words, "You set right here, Acorn, until we come outta there."

I sat there a while in that chair, but they weren't comin' out. So I went into the kitchen part to finish cleaning up the little blue flowered dish I broke. But I couldn't find the dustpan, so I left the swept up pile in the middle of the floor. Normally it's in the cabinet under the sink, but I looked and looked and it wasn't there. So I went into my room and got out my crayons and drew for a while. Then I heard some voices comin' from Momma and Pop's room. Not happy voices, either. Real loud and angry. So I got up and sat in Pop's chair again, so he'd think I'd been there the whole time.

Then the door flew open and Pop came out, Momma close behind. She been crying, I could see. She was screamin' so fast I couldn't even understand. He just sayin' real quiet, "Shut your mouth, Val, Shut your damn mouth now." But she wasn't listening to that, no way. They went to the kitchen, but I just sat right in that chair and watched. It was one of those chairs that turns around and around, and also it can lie back. So I turned it around to see in the kitchen part. I didn't lie back though. Somehow it didn't seem right. I wanted to be sitting up straight. They had fights like this before, and things always ended up OK. But this was the first time Pop left like that. He opened the fridge and grabbed out a bag uh apples. She still screaming at him, most stuff I didn't hear. I know the word whore was in there somewhere, and selfish, too. Momma says I am not selfish, and that selfish is one of the worst things to be. I asked her if selfish was a bad word and she said no. I asked her is saying selfish worse than saying whore, and she kind of laughed quietly and didn't answer. I asked her again. She said I can say whatever I want, just watch who I say it to.

Pop turned around then and I noticed he stepped right in my pile of dish, spread those little blue flowers all over the floor again.

"I'm going, Val. Nothin' anybody can do about it. We jus' ain't like we used to be. You know it an' I know it." he said to her, in that same real calm tone of voice.

"I don't know how you can call me selfish, and then take off and leave like this!" Daddy was looking down at his feet. Momma, still crying, so angry. Something happens every time I see my momma crying, I start up too. So I was just turning a little left, a little right, a little left, slouched way down in that easy chair with my elbows on the arm rests, my hands holding each other tight, crying so hard. But there was no tissue in the house after last week, that day with Momma. Thinking about that made me cry even more.

Then Daddy started up yelling. "Look Val. I know what you been up to. I know you been sleepin' around. You say you go to these people's house cause they sick. Half of 'em sick. The other half men you been whoring around with. I know you, I found the envelope." He held up Momma's kidney money. "Where the hell else you gonna get money like that?" That's when I looked up and saw Momma go for the waffle iron. I screamed and shut my eyes tight. But then I couldn't tell what was going on so I opened them to see Momma raise that ol' waffle iron high up over her head, the electric cord hanging down. I remember it as if it took an hour instead of a second. Guess he didn't know Momma got money for that ol' kidney she gave away. Daddy was looking at the floor again. I think he saw the mess he made with my dish. I screamed "Daddy!" cause I saw it coming and Daddy looked over at me and said my name as the waffle iron came crashing down. "Acorn?"

Daddy fell back against the counter, one hand flew to his head, where blood was coming from. I wanted to run at Momma, yell at her. But I was too scared to move, even breathe. I just sat there, my whole face running all over the place. Momma just stared at Daddy, at the way she hurt him. I guess he felt a little better cause he stood up straight and grabbed a dishcloth for his head in one hand, slung his pots and pans over the same arm. Then he came over to me in the easy chair and started leading me out the door. I was afraid Daddy be takin' me with him this week, and I wouldn't see Momma all that time. I tried to break away and run into my room for my crayons, and to kiss and hug Momma good-bye, but then I froze. Momma's the one made Daddy bleed like that. Daddy grabbed my hand again and pulled me out the door before I could think about it anymore. I looked back at Momma, looking frozen like me. Then she ran to the door. But Daddy shut it in her face and ran me out to the car. We got outta there quick. Momma realizing what was happening, running after us in the car. I watched out the back window, but then we turned a corner and she was gone.

We'd been driving about an hour in silence when we pulled into a little drug store. "Wait here for one second, and lock the doors." Daddy told me. So I did it and when he came out he had a big pad uh paper, a box of sixty-four Crayola Crayons, the kind with the built in sharpener, a pack uh root beer Life Savers, and a box uh tissues. He gave everything but the Life Savers to me. "Pop, where're we gonna go?" I asked him.

"I dunno, Acorn. Not really. Somewhere up North, I hope. Maybe New York." Then he was quiet.

"When do we get to see Momma again?"

"I dunno, Acorn. I got some money for us here," he held up Momma's kidney money envelope, and I felt my stomach tighten up. That was Momma's own private money that he wasn't even supposed to know about. I guess he didn't know that I knew about the money. I almost wished I didn't, cause it was making me feel kind of sick. He was still talking. "But she ain't right for you or me. I can't have you around her and her violence or her ways."

"She's not a whore, Daddy," I said real quiet, looking sideways at him.

"Where'd you learn that word from?" he asked. He knew I learned it from him saying it all the time, so I didn't answer. "Huh." he said as if I'd answered his question just by being quiet. Then he didn't say anything for a while.

We drove and drove, out of New Orleans, out of Louisiana, into Mississippi. We stopped for the night at a Super Eight, cause Daddy needed his rest. It had cable and everything, so I watched Bugs Bunny for a while until I fell asleep. Daddy must've turned off the TV during the night, cause when I woke up in the morning the light was shining through the opening in the ugly orange curtains and everything was quiet, except for Daddy's breathing right next to me. It was the first time I'd ever woken up anywhere but in my own bed in New Orleans besides when we lived in Virginia, but that was so long ago I can hardly remember. And besides that one time I slept over at Betsy Lou's house last year, that was cause the exterminator came. I felt a little funny. Daddy started moving around and I knew he was waking up, so I pretended to be asleep. I opened one eye a crack and watched him. I knew he felt a little funny, too, cause after he was awake he just stared at the ceiling for a long long time. I got tired of pretending to be asleep so I pretended to wake up. I wondered what we'd do for breakfast, since Momma wasn't there to cook us fried eggs with runny yolks and toast. I asked Daddy and he said, "Acorn, lots uh people can cook us eggs an' toast. Lots uh people can do the same things that Momma can do, just maybe not all wrapped up in the same body." So we went out for eggs and toast and got back in the car for some more driving. Things were OK for awhile until I started crying again, thinkin' about the last breakfast I had with Momma. "What's uh matter, Acorn?" Daddy asked me.

"Oh, Daddy, I miss our house and my bed and mostly I miss Momma."

"That so, kid?" he asked me and held my hand. Then he didn't say anything for a long time so I started drawing. I drew our house with Momma out front holding a big plate uh eggs. That's when I remembered the broken plate on the kitchen floor.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, Acorn?"

"Kin we stop and buy a dustpan?"

"What you want a dustpan for all the way out here in Mississippi?"

"Not for out here. I mean for when we get back. I broke one uh Momma's good dishes and I tried to clean it up but the dustpan's gone. I got to have a dustpan to put it into the garbage."

"Why didn't you use a piece uh paper or somethin'? You can use lots uh different things for different purposes."

"Naw, Daddy. I really want uh dustpan." My next drawing was of one uh those little blue flowers on the plate. We pulled into a hardware store and bought a dustpan. Daddy even let me come in and pick it out.

"Hey Acorn," he said to me once we were on the road again. "You really wanna finish cleaning up that plate, huh."

"Yeah Daddy," I said. I really did. I really wanted to go back and show Momma my drawings and the new dustpan. Next night we spent under the stars. Just pulled off the road and slept with a blanket. Wasn't a cold night, and Daddy said it was time to start saving money. He said no sense in getting his body ustah cable TV, cause then it would start expecting cable all the time, and his pocket couldn't keep up with his head. That made me think uh his pots and pans and I wondered if people were banging down our door wanting to hear him play.

"Daddy, we out uh Mississippi yet?"

"Naw, kid, we ain't. We almost at Louisiana."

Louisiana! "We going home, Daddy? We're going home, aren't we?" I couldn't hardly wait, my hands all cold and wet.

"Yeah, I'm takin' you there. That's what you want, right?" Oh yeah, that was what I wanted more than anything! For the rest uh the ride Daddy and I talked and laughed about all kinds uh things. Talked about next year in school, who my teacher was gonna be, which friends were in my class. We played twenty questions. He beat me everytime, and once he used the same thing, a wheelbarrow, twice in uh row and I still didn't get it! It's square and round all at once, it moves but it's not a car, so it's real hard. He laughed and laughed at how mad at him I got. I gave him a picture I drew of us in the car, driving over the state line from Mississippi into Louisiana, except I spelled Mississippi wrong. I thought there was only one 'P' at the end. And I couldn't erase, cause it was in black crayon. Daddy said he didn't care, and probably most people spell it wrong anyway, so don't worry.

Next thing I knew there we were in New Orleans, right in front of our house! "All right, kid. This is it, looks like. This is the end uh your line. Take your dustpan and get outta here."

"You not comin' with me, Daddy? We just had uh real good time." I didn't get it, Daddy just leaving me there, on the front steps.

"Acorn, I can't get outta this car, and I know you ain't gonna understand me no matter what way I say it. But this is the way it's gonna be for a while. Here." He looked around the car for something, I didn't know what, and I don't think he did either, the way he was looking. Finally he took a pot out of his bag and gave it to me. "Here yuh go, Acorn. And take some uh this money and give it to your mother." He took some money out uh the envelope and gave it to me. "Now go on inside."

I got out uh car and shut the door. I stood there looking at him with my pot, my crayons, the money, and my dustpan. He looked at me for minute, too, before he turned around and drove off the way he had just come. I started crying again, but this time nobody was there to see. I turned and headed into the house when I was done, hoping Momma had bought some tissues while we were gone, cause I left mine in the car with Daddy.