Here's the Story - Bonnie Smetts

Here’s the story. Like I said, this ain’t no memoir of story, just my own. So I, Rawling Summer, made some important decisions ever before I was 18. All the girls in Nordeen was planning and giggling and buzzing with excitement about going to beauty school, Every Last One of the Them. Now how many salons can you stick behind how many houses in Nordeen? I ask myself. Seems like every other house’s has got sign, some streets just smell like a beauty parlor, the whole damn street.

No way, I say to myself. That’s when I decide I’m gonna be a court reporter. I was looking through one of those beauty magazines, the kind where I have to look to find those ads for brassieres for big girls. I’m called a big girl on account of my breasts, I’m as skinny as a stray cat, my legs is no bigger than my arms, not much of a chew if a bear decided to attack. But no, I got big breasts, I mean way too big. Nowhere in Nordeen, nowhere in Baton Rouge, could I find what I needed. And that’s the least of my problems with those breasts, especially before I learned how to use them. When I was twelve, I hadn’t learned that I had the power in them. Buddy, Harper, and the rest of those no good boys all wanted a feel. I should have been charging then, but then I was still terrified of those breasts. But thanks to them, I was there in the back of the beauty magazine. Those bras for big girls, no way you can make them pretty, but so the ad right next door with the offering “Make A Career in Criminal Justice” caught my eye. Guess I’d been thinking about what else to do beside the beauty school. Said you’d have an exciting time learning about criminals and all the bad things they’ve done.

Now I’ve got a curiosity bigger than my breasts, so I’m figuring I got the skills to do this job. They said you don’t even need to graduate high school, which was good since I didn’t (partly because of the breasts). I get invited down to take the test to see if I can join this exciting career of a court reporter. The test, I never seen such kind of tests, but I try with that big yellow pencil they give me. And praise to god, a few days later they tell me I can come. But they say I’m gonna have to work really hard. They also say I gotta pay $1,000. Now how the hell I’m coming up with that kind of money? I could buy a car for that. But they offer to give the money too, and I can pay them back. I tell them over the phone that I’m particularly qualified because I’ve already seen three dead people and I’m only just eighteen years old. And that was the beginning of hearing a lot more about dead people.