Mama walks with her rolling gait away from the bar, the Titty Twister, they called it. She was still a little pissed off at that skinny little white bitch bartender, ignoring her to mewl over some fresh little shorty who should still be on her mama's tit, she was so raw. Kid or no kid, it's a bar. Shit, kick the kid out and tend to the customers, or at least give them a "Hey, chill, I get you when I get you," so a woman KNOWS she's been heard.

As she goes over it, she heads towards one of the vacants she'd spied out earlier taking a good look around the place and peering through windows. Finally Mama listens for a long minute at the door and slips inside.

Old stained mattress, blood, cum, piss and cheap liquor probably. Used needles and pipes and other crap every which way. Oh, and that sour rank odor that could be found nowhere else. Yeah. Just like home, she thinks.

Mama walks up the rotting stairs to the third floor which was missing parts but had other bonuses, which is why she'd picked this one. The place had a balcony and a good view of the busy part of town and lots of circulation so the stink wasn't so bad. She'd scored some blankets and suchlike from a clothes line and brought it up here and now she goes about getting her little nest set up. Nodding, Mama makes note to scrounge up one of them single burner gas stoves and some candles as she walks a last circuit of the place, planning to roust out any fiends before she closes her own eyes. Spying a lump of clothes in one dark corner, she pokes it with her carving knife in case there was person amidst all the rags, eyes narrowing when she hears a thunk. Looking closer, she sees the edge of a leather bound book, no title, water stained, piss probably, but dry.

She picks it up and cracks it open, looking at the wavy pages with their strange water marks, all of them blank, and Mama has a notion. She'd felt on the verge of something epic lately, a true grand arc in her own life as Mama Carver. She should write it down, tell down her own thoughts on things. Yeah, why not? She has a pencil somewhere.

Taking the book back to her nest, Mama starts to write by moonlight in her childish, sixth grade hand. She didn't know how to spell as much as she might, but she could sound things out well enough.

((rather than try to reproduce the phonetic approach to spelling many words, I'm going to just write Mama's journal as it sounds to her in her head))

"So this is a diary. Yeah, well, ah'm goin' to keeps one seein' as it just up an' said 'use me'. Ah'm in this little backwaterass town name of Hathian and whoo, they are some sorry people here. Lotsa eating kinda places though, even if ah've only found me one bar. I thougth ah'd go to a smaller place after Detroit, you know, get some space from things.

"So I was out along the vacants, choosing me a place to stay when this scrawny white boy, he comes from behind and holds up a knife, sayin' I should empty mah pockets. Yeah, I was amused at his nerve. Little guy, shakin' in his ripped up knickers, and he was hurt besides. Who'd he think he was mugging? Not a girl from the projects, no how, and I scared him but good, playin' him a bit then finally pullin' my carving knife from behind my back.

"There's that practice payin' off 'cause that sheathe I sewed up, it worked like a charm, smooth as honey. That boy's eyes got all wide and horse like, and he backed off, still trying to spit some bullshit about lettin' me runaway. So I wound him up a little more, and he rabbitted off.

"I was feelin' pretty fine about this place by now. That one bar, this Titty Twister, earlier, some man got to feeling his oats and had bought a round for everybody there, so I thought I'd head on back and see what other pleasantries might be aroun' for someone like meself. But this time? Shit. That man was there alright, and just as generous, but when I makes my order, this skinny white cunt behind the bar, she just ignore me. Then this shorty comes in tryin' to play it tough, but yeah, she don' know what tough is - child needs some schoolin'. Still, little miss bitch, she just cooin' and fawnin' and not hearin' a damn word I'm sayin' about them havin' what I was orderin', even when I asked twice, all polite. So then I got less polite, you know, makin' myself heard and she still barely blinked, just slidin' mah drink over. Bitch HAS to be wrong in the haid.

"I shoa hope they's got a better bar here in town. Or least wise, better tenders."

Mama closes the book, her hand cramped from doing more writing then she probably did in the entire sixth grade, her last year in tender care of the West Baltimore public school system. Stuffing it under her makeshift pillow, she settles down to a dreamless sleep, her carving knife resting under her hand.