Gubmint Girl

By C.D. Watson

In this near-future dystopia, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

 

And the few are slaves to the system.

 

Fourteen-year-old Queenie is a gubmint girl, a welfare baby born to a single mother living in the projects.

 

She's also one of the few fertile females of her generation, or any.

 

When Mister and Missuz take her home from juvie, Queenie thinks everything's going to be just fine. She'll stay with them for a while, have her baby, then move back to the projects and get enough gubmint money for her and Junior to live on.

 

But the rules changed when she wasn't looking, rules developed and implemented by Missuz and others like her. And what Missuz plans for Queenie isn't a life of government-funded freedom at all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bone Diggers Press
• Release date: Sep 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781943465644

Book preview

GUBMINT GIRL

C.D. Watson

Published by Bone Diggers Press, Clayton, GA.

© 2021 C.D. Watson. All Rights Reserved.

Cover © Autumn’s End Designs

ISBN 978-1-943465-64-4

Description of Gubmint Girl:

In this near-future dystopia, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

And the few are slaves to the system.

Fourteen-year-old Queenie is a gubmint girl, a welfare baby born to a single mother living in the projects.

She's also one of the few fertile females of her generation, or any.

When Mister and Missuz take her home from juvie, Queenie thinks everything's going to be just fine. She'll stay with them for a while, have her baby, then move back to the projects and get enough gubmint money for her and Junior to live on.

But the rules changed when she wasn't looking, rules developed and implemented by Missuz and others like her. And what Missuz plans for Queenie isn't a life of government-funded freedom at all.

Stories by C.D. Watson

Dreaming of a Dark Christmas

Romancing the Weird

Darla the Redneck Zombie Slayer

Apocalypse Weird

Gubmint Girl

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Disclaimer: These stories are works of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is purely a coincidence. Actual localities and entities are mentioned solely for the purpose of adding realism to the stories.

Table of Contents

Epigraph

Juvie

Preppies

Politics

Interlude

Sanctuary

Afterword

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Author

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. –Voltaire

Juvie

I got this scar across my forehead. Ma say it coz when I still in Heaven, my crown so heavy, it leave a mark. That why she name me Queenie. In Heaven, I wore a crown.

Mister like me right off. I can just tell. Him and Missuz drove all the way across town to pick me out special. I the best in Juvie. Even Warden say so. He say how I too sweet for this dump, how it a shame I got caught shoplifting, how maybe I can help him with the lump in his pants, did I mind?

Naw, I di’nt mind. I di’nt mind the fellers none, long as they di’nt make fun. Ain’t no call to make fun, Ma say. We all different birds. Some got more plumage, some got less. Don’t mean one good and one ain’t.

I got to leave my room and meet Mister and Missuz in Warden’s office. They sit me on a chair while they talk it over, Warden on one side of the desk, us three on the other in leather chairs.

They talk right there in front of me, too. Ain’t that something, talking about me like me and the chair the same? Warden handcuff me to it. The nice folk expect it, he say, coz I so troubled. I can’t talk, just listen. It all good by me. I ain’t got nothing to say nohow.

You’re sure she’s clean, Missuz say.

Her voice hard, just like her eyes. Brown eyes like mine. Brown skin like mine. She brown all over, I bet, inside and out. Brown blood, brown bone, brown right down to them shoes. Pointy heels, pointy toes. Hard and sharp, that Missuz.

Absolutely.

Warden’s chair squeak. He lean back, steeple them slender fingers together over his round belly. He got blue eyes, paler than the sky. I like blue. Maybe my baby be a boy, when he born. Maybe he have blue eyes, too.

We test the girls when they come in, he say, make sure they’re disease free.

No vaccine?

Not the sterilizing one, no. She’s a welfare baby, Representative Hammond. A government girl.

Missuz grunts, and it sharp, too. Children supported by the state have access to free healthcare.

That doesn’t mean their parents will take advantage of it. Warden’s voice as patient as a long highway unrolling under the sun. Unless it involves a direct handout or some other tangible benefit.

A child’s wellbeing isn’t a tangible benefit? Mister say. His voice as smooth as gubmint peanut butter, even when he mad. Mister brown, too, and tall, tall like a pine tree. I seen one once on the big screen down in commons. He just like that.

In this case, Warden say, the lack of care is to your advantage, Mr. Hammond.

I yawn and scuff the soles of my red slip-ons against the carpet. Red for blood, Zola say. Red for life.

They do go on, big folk. Ever little thing gotta be told.

And she’s not a retard, Missuz say.

I cut my eyes at her. Dirty word, dirty bird. That what Ma say. I beginning to think Missuz ain’t too right in her heart, where it count. Maybe she orta done gone to Sunday school some. Maybe her ma orta washed her mouth out some, like my ma done mine.

Warden’s chair squeaks again, but them blue eyes just stare at her. Queenie’s intellectual and emotional development were arrested due to an accident when she was a toddler. The interview with her mother is there in her file.

Missuz sit back in her chair, nodding. The fetus is normal, then.

As far as we can ascertain.

I ‘bout roll my eyes. Babies is babies. They all normal when they inside. When they come out, that when the problems start. That what Ma say. She mad when she say it, coz I got caught lifting some Juicy Fruit down at the QuikMart. She say, Queenie, why you go and do such a fool thing for? And I say, coz I want some and I ain’t got no green.

They tears in her eyes then, coz I got throwed in Juvie and she don’t get no more gubmint money for me. She don’t get none for the bun in my oven neither.

How much? Missuz say.

I musta missed some of the convo, coz I don’t know what she mean by that.

Warden smile without showing his teeth. I bet he practice that in the mirror. It’s in her folder.

Mister pick up my folder off Warden’s desk. He flip it open, turn some pages, then he whistle short and sharp. That’s a hefty price.

It includes her care to date, fines for shoplifting and other petty crimes, plus a finder’s fee for the broker.

Missuz’s mouth purse up like she sucking on a lemon. Is that negotiable?

I’m afraid not. She’s a ward of the state, and as such, the fees are set by statute. Warden’s smile get bigger. Still no teeth, though I know they hiding back there behind his thin lips. Pardon me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you help write the pertinent statute, Representative Hammond?

If a human had steam inside, Missuz’d have some coming out her ears.

Mister flop the folder closed and hand it to Warden. When can we take her home?

As soon as the payment processes. Warden stand up and button his suit jacket over his belly. It ain’t that big, his belly, just a little round mound above his dangly. Like my baby bump, only not so big. We’ll take good care of Queenie until then. She’s a bright spot here.

See? That Warden, he something else, being so sweet about me. He musta read about my crown. When I get to Heaven again, I goina sure tell God all about him.

I HEAR TELL ABOUT OTHER girls getting to leave Juvie early. Mostly them with babies on the way, like me. I hear tell, too, about what they getting out for, how some of ‘em don’t come back, even them too young to make it on the street alone. I hear all kinds of things in Juvie.

Ma say to close my ears. Gossip is for dirty birds, and I ain’t no dirty bird.

I don’t tell nobody I getting out neither. Nunh-unh, not a peep coming outta these lips about Mister and Missuz. I mind my p’s and q’s real good, and I even help Warden out with his lump before Mister come back and get me.

I di’nt mind. Maybe Mister want me to do that for him, too. Sure enough, men get that problem around me a lot.

BEFORE I LEAVE, WARDEN say it fine oh fine if I write a letter to Ma, just to let her know her baby bird doing ok. This what I say:

Dear ma

I goin wit mistr n mises

See you when da babe born

Sorry bout da gubmint muny

Luv

Queenie

I look it over real good and give it to Warden to mail. He got Ma’s address. I done forgot it. I ain’t no retard though. I just can’t remember much for long sometimes is all.

THEY’S A GIRL IN JUVIE, name of Merry. Same hall, different room. Her skin so white, it glow. She let me braid her hair sometimes, play like she my own little china doll. Merry so scrawny, her baby bump stick out like a basketball. Ain’t no Mister come for her yet, but they goina.

After school, same day Mister and Missuz come to pick me out, I ask can I braid her hair one last time? She smile real tired and sit down for me in the commons, with her back to the big screen. They’s dark circles under her eyes. Her bones so thin, she look like a scarecrow sitting in the plastic chair. She ain’t thin like Mister. Him a giant next to her.

They’s some other girls watching the TV, dirty birds with dirty mouths. Me and Merry stick to our own, we do. I sing her a song ‘bout how we goina get outta Juvie together and live side by side forever. She goina have a girl child, I goina have a boy child, and they be the best of friends, just like me and her. They goina be so good, they get married someday and have babies of their own, and me and Merry goina sit on the porch and watch them grandbabies and talk and talk, coz we never run outta things to say.

She my best friend, I think. I think maybe I her best friend, too.

Them other girls ain’t so polite as me and Merry. One of ‘em, Zola, she get up from watching the TV and come over. She got a mean look to her face. Her hair real short on her head, and she hard and wide, like a wall. I bet her and Missuz kin somehow.

What you gotta make all that racket for? Zola say. "Can’t you see us