A Life Not My Own

SSHHH, be quiet boy! You want to eat, don't you? Just take the stuff on top and let's go "Who dat? Lil Tina and Mack, iz dat you" "Yes Ma'am" "What yal doing down dere? What . . . Yal come on up here right now" "See . . . I told you to be quiet! Now, we in trouble" I said. My mind was already thinking about the various ways this might play out. I don't remember, or maybe I haven't been able to remember, the circumstances that brought my brother Mack and I to this point. All I know is, to this day, I can still feel how hungry we were and how good those fish scraps looked when we found them wrapped in aluminum foil, sitting right on top of the trash below the lid of the first trashcan that we searched.