Can't Buy Me Love - Juliette Kelley

Street’s first philosophical paradox came at age twelve. On the Meet the Beatles album one of the tracks was Can’t Buy Me Love while on the other side was a cover of Chuck Berry’s Money is All I Want. How could her favorite band actually put both songs on the same album without forcing every fan’s hand. She pondered this juxtaposition at least a thousand times during that dry Sacramento summer as a theologian would try to grasp transubstantiation. It just didn’t make sense to her.

She pictured her mother blunted and vacuous, sitting and smoking on her unmade bed drawing Street toward her. “Now remember Streeter Ann, love is more precious than anything on earth”. She stressed that it couldn’t be bought or wrangled out of anyone. Street assessed that was true because no matter what she did, her mother never looked as if she ever loved anything.

Then there was Grammy Queen. Grammy Queen had a cinnamon roll in Street’s mouth before Street could fully enter the house. Grammy Queen was always one to cajole and bargain for Street to do things for her, bad things mostly, like hosing the neighbors cat or gathering up dog shit in a bag to put in the collection plate at church. In return she would always give Street some money or a sweet treat or best of all let her look at her genuine “Nigger Toe”.

“Got if off Stanley Boom. Little fucker,” Grammy Queen would always laugh after saying fucker. “He had it comin’ though, he really did. I’ll tell you about it someday.” But of course someday hadn’t come yet.

She felt like Grammy loved her more than her mother did but her mother said she loved her more than Grammy did. That summer they all ran together like a bus accident. Now Street blamed the Beatles for even bringing up the question.