Finding Momentum

"Belinda's drinking again," Mike tells me as I pass him by in the Ghetto, "day in and day out." She's been drinking a pack of beer a day. "She's gonna kill herself. She's not drunk, but when she drink she gets feisty, you know?" Mike's expression is mournful.

Mike's been staying at Belinda's place, but he can't technically stay. "Section 8, you know? They pay 1300 dollars a month for Belinda's rent, and she pays 56. Only Belinda and the girls can stay." Mike pops in late at night and leaves early in the morning. "Once I ran into the landlord, she's like 'Do you stay here?' and I'm like 'Not at all, ma'am' and I book it out of there."

Mike treats the girls awfully well. One, Giovana, is thirteen and the other (whose name I can't remember) is ten. "They're a piece of work," he tells me. "One day they ask me to buy them walkie-talkies. I told them I could promise them nothing. They give me attitude, slammin' doors and pouting. I tell them I'll take a look." Mike goes to Wal-Mart to buy the walkie talkies. "I thought they'd be five dollars. You know how much they cost? Thirty-seven." He buys them anyways, with another 8 bucks for batteries. Mike's shaking his head, "I treat them so well, I get them anything they ask for. They're spoiled." Back at home, the girls are delighted with the walkie-talkies and yak away for hours on end--until the batteries die one night later. "They're even talking on them when they go to bed--'hello?'--one in one room and one in the other. Belinda tells me 'You should have never bought them the d--- things.'"

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