Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim

too many white cops in the ghetto are just thugs. They try to kill hope in black people so that the black man especially is niggerized and becomes a drunken bum in the ghetto.
    â€œNow you take the nigger cops. They’re so mean and brutal because they are ashamed of their uniform and they know how much they are despised by their own kind.
    â€œA lot of them don’t let their neighbors see them in uniform. They change at the station. The maniacs help the white hoodlum cops to suppress and humiliate their black brothers imprisoned in the ghetto.
    â€œThere are only a few cops black or white who don’t go on duty in the ghetto with a thirst for blood or their hands out for a bribe or shakedown. One of these days black people will crawl out of their ratty tenements and destroy the hoodlum cops in the streets. I’m going to soil myself in joy when it happens.”
    Mama looked embarrassed and bluntly changed the subject.
    She said, “Sojer, yu know ’bout rats?”
    Soldier said, “I have lived with them all my life. They carry diseases like typhoid, typhus and jaundice. This is the season when rats desert the alleys and dumps to get in out of the cold.
    â€œIt’s almost impossible to keep them out of these old buildings.They gnaw and tunnel through wood, plaster and even decaying cement. A female rat can get pregnant several times a year and have up to two dozen young.
    â€œMany city rats, especially the older ones, are too cunning to fall for traps and poison. The best you can do is keep all food away from them and your sink and drain boards wiped dry because they can live on only crumbs and drops of water each day.
    â€œThat way you will force them to go elsewhere where pickings are better. Does that cover the rat question for you, Mrs. Tilson?”
    Mama smiled and said, “It sho do. Ah got roaches too.”
    Soldier said, “Powdered borax spread along the woodwork and under the sink in the kitchen is the only way a poor person can deal with them. The only sure-shot remedy for roaches and rats in these old buildings is to burn them to the ground.”
    Mama said, “Thank yu, Sojer. Yu sho is smart.”
    Papa had started to say something when there was a knock on the door. Carol opened the door. It was Cousin Bunny in a pink housecoat and matching fluffy slippers. She staggered into the living room and plopped down on Soldier’s lap.
    Papa frowned and waved us from the room. We went to bed. The twins and I slept in the bed. Junior slept on a pallet on the floor. But none of us could sleep.
    We listened to Bunny’s crying about the little black guy, and then her cursing of the police. And then she wailed about how guilty she felt because she hadn’t blown the white cops’ heads off with her dead husband’s shotgun since she was dying anyway.
    I heard Papa go into the bedroom across the hall. For what seemed like hours I heard Soldier and Bunny briefing Mama about the treacherous black ghetto.
    Finally Mama let them out and I heard her slow steps to her bedroom. I lay there with my heart raging, and I was trembling all over in fear for my family.
    Just before I fell into nightmarish sleep larded with murderouspolice, thieving and horny black preachers and dope fiend pimps enslaving my innocent sisters, I heard Papa say, “Sedalia, Ah got eight dollars’ snow money. Mayhaps Ah git uh sho nuff job an’ ketch snow wuk tu. Come a nice seasun, we git frum this hellhole an’ mayhaps go somewhar’s else, an’ even th’ big foot country.”
    Mama said, “Oh, shoot, Frank, ain’t no use tu rabbit outta’ heah. Bunny an’ Sojer both tol’ me ain’t no town up heah gud fer niggers. They’s all bad an’ Ah ain’t goin’ South, Frank. We just got tu tuff it out an’ keep th’ younguns an’ us hin’ pahts frum eny law truble.”

6
MERRY CHRISTMAS IN HELL
    P apa and Soldier