Welfare and a Dream

By Linda Faye Wright

Welfare And A Dream is the story of a young girl named Ebony born into a life of poverty. Her family lived on the welfare system. She endured abuse by her mother. Ebony longed for her mother to love her. It wasnt until she was on her death bed that she told Ebony she loved her.
Ebony dreamed that one day she would escape her dysfunctional life. She found out the hard way that dreams dont always come true. She didnt know how to better herself.
She met and fell in love with Zarius, a drug dealer. She had two children for him. Life was good for a while until he ended up in prison. While he was in prison she became involved with another man Miles who she vowed to have a no strings attached relationship with. She let him know that as soon as Zarius got out of prison she was going back to him. But the tables turned when she became pregnant by Miles.
Ebony mistreated Miles because he wasnt Zarius. But Miles was determined to win her love. Zarius was angry when he found out she was with child. He didnt want anything to do with her. Eventually Miles moved on and she was left alone with three kids. She had become a statistican unwed mother with three kids. Her life was filled with pain and heartache. Would she ever overcome?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2007
• ISBN: 9781465315366

Linda Faye Wright

This novel was written by Linda Wright. She lives in Homerville Georgia. She is currently working on her second novel.

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Copyright © 2007 by Linda Faye Wright.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

SUMMERY

EPILOGUE

This novel is dedicated to my sister Debra Carter

who believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

Thanks Sis, I love you.

Your Big Sis.

CHAPTER 1

Childhood Memories

E bony Scott looked at herself in the mirror of her bedroom; it was a

sight she hated. Her face was the constant reminder of the pain of her life. Her youth had been stolen by hardships. Beneath the tired, worried look, remnants of her beauty still remained. Her face presented sadness like a tattoo with a permanent fixture. Life weighed heavily on her shoulders and oftentimes it was more than she could handle. I guess the phrase; God won’t put any more on you than you can bear didn’t apply to her. She was so tired of hurting. There were a few superficial bouts of happiness here and there that gave her temporary hope, only to be out shadowed by overwhelming disappointment.

If she would have known then what she knew now, perhaps she could have created the life she dreamed about. At twenty five years old she was the mother of three small children. She had two different baby daddies. Zarius, her two oldest children’s daddy was in prison but would be released any day now. Her two month old son’s father Miles was forced out of her life because of her own personal reasons, her desire to rekindle a relationship with Zarius. She didn’t have a clue as to how to make her life better. Was there a better way of life? Self-hatred ruled her mind. Damage and destruction lead her path. Her life was void of all the ingredients that would have made her a strong black woman—self confidence, self esteem, self motivation, self-curiosity and most importantly self-love. Ebony no longer wanted to live, but she didn’t want to die either. She didn’t have the nerve to commit suicide. This was not in a black woman’s agenda, no matter how hard things were. More importantly she had three children that needed her.

She usually drifted through her days without dwelling on her situation. But this was one of those days when reality struck and she became depressed. To escape this melancholy mood she started to daydream. She dreamed she was a successful business woman and life was great. She spoke intelligently and wore expensive suits. She envisioned a beautiful home that was filled with exotic remnants of all the places she had been. Dreams helped soothed the unfortunate one’s life. Dreams made living possible. Within minutes realism would resurface and choke the dreams out of her mind.

Ebony was born and raised in a small town called Langston, Georgia. The town itself was almost pathetic. Reason being, the blacks and the whites were segregated, many, many years after Brown vs. Brown civil rights movement. The whites lived uptown in a clean neighborhood with beautiful houses with dependable cars, whereas the blacks lived downtown in the projects and trailer parks that were filthy and rundown. The only time you would see a white person in the hood was when it was election time. Political candidates would cruise the streets with promises of rebuilding the neighborhood. They promised educational and job training programs, promises that were forgotten as soon as the election was over. They would straight out lie just to win an election. Who should be disgusted with whom?

With a population count around twenty thousand Langston was still set in slavery mode. The blacks were locked out of uptown jobs. They were told they weren’t qualified to hold any office positions. You would not see a black face working in the bank, the court house, a lawyer’s office, or any office uptown. And if by chance you happened to see a white person hanging out in the hood, they were usually searching for drugs and had lost their self respect and only the drugs mattered. There were a few white women living with black men, but those women were deemed as poor white trash and were said to be in a place where they belonged.

Ebony has yet, to this day to see a black police officer in this town. It’s not that there weren’t any blacks that are capable. They were never given a chance. There are some hard working black people that can actually read and write living in Manor Heights. They are just as qualified as the ones holding the office. The positions were given to family and friends with little or no education. Hell, if they could have on the job training, why couldn’t we? It’s automatically assumed that because of the way life was in the ghetto everybody was ignorant. We are considered dumb, lazy and unintelligent—void of thinking abilities. It would be impossible for the uptown people to believe that’s not true for all people that live in poor neighborhoods. There are some that have no desire to better themselves, but there are some that would like to live better.

Prejudice was very much alive in Langston. It wasn’t bold or outspoken. It was sugar coated with pretentious actions of equality. And as long as we stayed in the hood and stayed in line, the uptowners would be civil towards us. They planted fear in our ancestors that lingers on even in today’s modern times, especially in small Georgia towns. These actions helped shaped the mind of the black youth. These actions helped to shape her. They help her to be intimidated by them. In a world where color was never the issue, it seemed to Ebony, to always be the issue. As a child she thought this was normal. But now as a woman she knew it wasn’t right.

The rules of life between black and whites were extremely different. They were the privileged ones. They reeked of arrogance portraying that they are better than the blacks. They acted as if it was there God given right to live better. They had all the advantages; they were given the best jobs, extended credit so that they could own a vehicle or a home. It was not an intentional situation; this is just the way it has always been. And as nauseating as it may be, nobody seemed to care. Black or White, everyone lived the way their family before them had lived. It was expected. It was expected that a white kid would go to college and become a well rounded, productive citizen. It was expected that a black kid would be a drug dealer, a high school drop out, in prison, or teenage parents. When all the odds are against you, you have the tendency to give up without a fight.

Ebony wasn’t trying to downplay the chaotic way the blacks lived, but an attempt to try to give it some understanding. If you don’t feel worthy or don’t know how to better your life because the ones before you don’t know, then how can you learn? The slave mentality was a mindset for them and they didn’t know how to free themselves. They didn’t understand they had an option to do better.

The young men were intrigued by drugs and fast money with the illusion that they would somehow be the next kingpin that would not end up in the pen. The end result was they would always end up in prison, always. If they didn’t sell the drugs they would use them. They started drinking and hanging out at a young age. This was a way of life for them. It would have been much easier to get a job and live a respectable life. This option was not appealing to the young mind.

Drug dealers stuck out like a sore thumb, gold teeth, flashy jewelry, expensive clothes and a pimped out ride. It was easy to point them out. How could they afford to live this way without a job? Growing up without a father figure in their lives to teach them how to become a man, they learned from the older thugs on how to become a thug. Once they were apprehended by the police and sent to prison they became felons—forever entrapped in the gangster life. With a record they couldn’t start over. They would be back on the streets doing the same thing getting the same results. This kept them locked into the world of drugs as a means of survival.

Young girls started engaging in sexual relationships as early as 10 years old. They craved love. They were never taught that you had to love yourself before you could love someone else. They confused love and sex. Professing love to a man who only loved having sex with them. These young girls would end up raising a house full of children alone. The man would move on and have more babies by different women. They struggled throughout their life, living off welfare and food stamps. They became entrapped in the system, slaves to living in poverty. They didn’t have any education, couldn’t afford a baby sitter so that they could get a job. They became stuck. These were motherless young girls that didn’t know the importance of an education. They never married and usually had several baby daddies. This became the hardship of their life. As they got older and realized this is not the way they wanted to live, it would be to late.

Who’s to blame? You can’t place blame on the white man for having strong family values and parents who guided them to become successful and well rounded people. They too, lived as they were taught. As a people only we can be blamed. But will the tradition ever be broken? Education should come first, then marriage, then babies.

If little of is expected of people with no direction then little is what they produced. It was a state of mind. There were no strong black leaders to help influence the young black kids that they could succeed. Who would tell them that they could accomplish anything they set their mind on?

Manor Heights were the roughest projects in Langston. This is where Ebony’s manner of existence came to be. As a child Ebony didn’t fully understand the status of her life. The apartments were raggedy, with broken windows that were patched up by its tenants. The housing authority got tired of fixing the place up over and over. If anything was to be repaired, the tenants had to pay for it themselves if they were responsible for the damage. Because they were poor people, the damaged apartments were usually never repaired. The place was a rat and roach infested broken down dump.

The fact that everyone she knew lived this way, her life seemed normal. Everyone she knew was receiving food stamps and a welfare check. Welfare was created to be temporary, but in the ghetto, this was not a temporary situation, it was a way of life. It had become a generational thing. Welfare was seen as a way to get over on the government without working. It was never seen as the trap that it was, a limited living. The recipients were satisfied with this situation.

Now you do the math, if you could live in an apartment, rent free, no water bill, a free check, a large amount of food stamp where you could eat steaks, shrimps, and what ever else that suited your fancy. You could even buy beer and cigarettes with food stamps. Wouldn’t you think that you had found a gold mine, even if it was fool’s gold? You didn’t have to worry about child care because you would be at home to take care of your children. You could lay up all day with your jobless baby daddy, eating good, knowing that your bills were going to be paid on the first of the month. Hell, it all seemed good at the time.

This way of life had stolen Ebony’s respect for herself. It made her ashamed of whom she was. But due to contrary belief she couldn’t get out, she felt trapped. How? When a person believes there is no way out, they don’t have the ability to look for it. They have a tendency to lie down and wallow in their misery. Life passed them by and they accepted whatever comes their way. It would take most of her life to get to a point to where she would have the desire to embrace change and want to live a better life and even then, it wouldn’t come easy.

Teen age pregnancy was nothing to ashamed of, it was almost expected. When a new baby came it added more food stamps and welfare. WIC meant there would be milk and cereal for the family.

There was drama every day in Manor Heights. It was rare for a day to go by without fights. They were the highpoint of the day. There would be fights between lovers. Fights between friends, enemies, brothers and sisters, husband and wife, even children would fight.

Getting high was the next form of activity; you would see people young and old standing around indulging in the high of their choice. The young thugs would smoke weed all day every day. Old toothless men would spend all day drinking. The streets were filled with winos and crack addicts. Young girl would be walking the streets half naked revealing all of their secrets leaving nothing to the imagination. Everybody spent all their time getting high instead of getting educated. This is why there weren’t any improvements in Manor Heights. Any time of day or night you could see a crowd. They would be talking loud, yelling, screaming cursing, dancing in the streets. Loud music would be coming at you from every direction. You name it, they were doing it.

The working class—bus drivers, lunchroom cooks, restaurant cooks, dishwashers, or any other low paying jobs that they went to daily were barely surviving. These people had little and sometimes less than the system pimps. System pimps are the ones that lived off the welfare system with no desire to get a job. Why? What would it profit to work hard all day long on a nine to five making minimum wage and still can’t make ends met? To a fool, living on welfare and food stamps in a rent free apartment sitting around watching the soaps all day was smart. Today she saw it as a trap, once you get trapped in the system you seldom find your way out. We didn’t have a hand in creating the system, yet we are degraded for using it. Aint’ that some shit! Even though the working class didn’t have more, they had respect—at least that’s what they claimed.

Ebony started stealing cigarettes from the Corner Store when she was 12 years old. She had been smoking her mom’s for over six months. When Debra got hip to it, she started hiding them from her. Never once did she say, Honey, cigarettes are bad for you, please don’t smoke. Instead she would say, Bitch you better stop smoking up my damn cigarettes. Hell, I can hardly afford to buy them for myself. This is the kind of mother she was. She simply didn’t give a damn, she had no motherly instinct.

Debra didn’t know how to be a mother, nor did she have the desire to learn. Her children were a hindrance to her. As if they asked to be born. If Ebony would have had a choice she would have chosen a monkey to be her mother. Debra was a tall, heavy set woman that lives to watch the soap operas. She drinks beer all day everyday and chain smoked Newport cigarettes. This was all the excitement life gave her, except beating and cursing out her kids. She was an angry person and her kids reaped the repercussions from that.

Ebony had three older brothers, John, Ray-Ray, and Reggie. John and Ray-Ray were in and out of prison, beginning in their teenage years. Reggie was a chronic alcoholic and drug user, with little hope of recovery. They were labeled as statistics. Society or the educated ones would most likely cast blame on them for the outcome of their life, but common sense would cast blame on the one who reared them in the environment in which they were reared. Monkey sees as monkey does.

John and Ray-Ray had the same father they were the results from teenage lust that lead to Debra’s failed marriage. Their father was living any place he could lay his head, he was a crack addict that they had no respect for. Reggie’s father was in prison with a life sentence for robbing a store uptown. Ebony’s father was a married man that never acknowledged her. He was still with his wife. Every now and then their paths would cross; he would walk right past her as if he didn’t see her, especially if he was with his wife. If he wasn’t with his wife, he would stare at her pitifully as if he wanted to say something but he never did. What manner of man was he? She guessed he didn’t know how to approach her, he had ignored her all her life. What could he say to her? Here I am baby girl. I’m ready to be your daddy. Sorry I pretended that you didn’t exist. Yea, right! Ebony was the spitting image of him, how could a man walk past his child and not have the audacity to even speak. She had long ago accepted his rejection. She hated him as much as she hated her mother. In her life love was something to be desired, fulfilled only in her dreams. But society would expect her to grow up and become a