“Do Not Accept Nan Check”
Grocery shopping with my mother
At Jitney Jungle, you filled our cart with cream of mushroom soup, tuna, name-brand wheat bread, and a big bottle of off-brand cranberry juice. I asked you if I could get the latest issue of Right On! magazine because Salt-N-Pepa were on the cover. You told me you’d get me a subscription to the magazine in a few months when I turned 13, so I just read it while we waited in line. When we walked up to the checkout, I put all the food on the conveyor belt and watched it glide away from us. Behind the cashier, pinned to a board, were a number of checks and Xeroxes of licenses, with the words DO NOT ACCEPT NAN CHECK FROM THESE CUSTOMERS in all caps. A Xerox of your license and one of your checks from Trustmark was in the middle of the board. Your check looked like the undisputed champion of bounced checks at Jitney Jungle.
I wondered what it felt like to have a face like yours plastered on the wall at the biggest grocery store in North Jackson.
“Let’s go,” I said as I watched you go in your purse and pull out your checkbook. “I ain’t even hungry.”
“Kie, do not say ‘ain’t.’”
“Okay. I won’t say ‘ain’t’ again,” I told you. “Can we just go?”
