A Biscuit In the Oven At Maverick Estate By Desiree Smith
At the age of 19, and in the middle of my second year at a community college, I found myself pregnant. Well, actually I didn’t find myself that way—I pretty much know how it happened—but I was pregnant nonetheless. Like so many unguided and un-mentored young adults, I didn’t have a clue how life-altering pregnancy would be. I was almost four months pregnant, with no health insurance, no job, no college degree, no marriage license. . .and no “baby daddy.”
Life was harder than I could’ve ever imagined. “Harder than a one-legged man trying to win a kickboxing contest,” they used to say. I no longer had a car (well, not one that worked ) and soon after, I found myself homeless after my college roommate turned on me and threw every earthly item that I owned in the trash: my clothes, high school yearbooks, photos, even my college textbooks. I chose not to go home to my
mom because she still had a relationship with the stepfather who molested me as a child, which they decided was my fault. They said I had flaunted myself in front of my step-father by parading around in my bikini. I was 10 years old.
Back then, there was a new fashion trend that helped
So other than my mom, I had no extended family, except an older sister and brother who had young families of their own and could not “afford me.” My mom and biological dad met in her native country of Panama, where he was serving in the United States Air Force. Later, he was transferred to a military base in northern California where I was born. They divorced not longer after my little brother was born. For whatever reason, my mom and dad did not keep in touch, so I didn’t know him or his family. My mom’s family still resided in Panama, so I had no one else.
The realization hit me that I had more than just “a biscuit in the oven.” I had a living and growing being inside of me that I was responsible for feeding and clothing and housing. Yet I couldn’t do it for myself. I was all alone in the world. Actually, it was just Sacramento, but that’s how I felt. I stole a nap here and there, sleeping on friends’ couches and floors. I showered whenever and wherever I could. I was still a student so I used the gymnasium showers at school or those of benevolent friends. Eventually I ended up sleeping in my car, which was broke down in the parking lot of a baseball park in my old neighborhood. I used the student aid and money from my campus job to eat, re-buy textbooks, buy my bus passes to get to school, and to occasionally pay for a $12 dollar room at the Busy Bee Motel for a couple of nights a week.
By now I was well into my second trimester,
still struggling to keep any semblance of dignity and hope going. Eventually I started avoiding the very friends that had put me up temporarily. I was so ashamed that I could have ended up in such a predicament. I was emotionally crushed by the jokes and gossip about me being homeless with no “baby daddy.” Though I went to class and work every day, those bootstraps were never long enough to reach. If they were, I don’t think I was strong enough to pull myself up.
Determined not to be like most of the girls I grew up with in my ‘hood, I refused to apply for welfare or food stamps. I was full of young foolish pride and afraid of stigma, so I toughed it out, even collecting and selling soda bottles and aluminum (now known as recycling). As I was approaching my seventh month of pregnancy it got harder to move or turn in the back of the 1973 Ford Maverick, which I called Maverick Estate, so I
relented. It may also have had something to do with the occasional knocks on the car window from the police or from bad-ass kids with nothing else to do. Sometimes it would be other loiterers or perverts. I would lean on the car horn for a minute, which usually made them go away. Or it could have been that kick-ass cold February weather. Someone had stolen my blankets and my “sleeping coat” out of the car while I was at school one day. Either way, I knew it was time to ask for help.
I woke up just before 4:30 a.m. to the knocks of a police baton on my car window.
“Ma’am, ma’am, you cannot keep sleeping out here! I warned you before. If I see you out here again, I am going to give you a citation and have your car towed! It’s also very dangerous out here! Don’t you know someone can rob or kill you out here?”
“Yes, officer. I’m sorry. I am getting help today. I’m going to have a place to stay, starting today!”
I took the bandana scarf off my head and combed my hair, then dipped the bar of soap I kept wrapped in a terry cloth rag into a small Crisco can filled with freezing water to wash up with. I used to be able to warm up the water slightly by putting it under the hood with the engine as I turned my car on throughout the night for heat—that was until someone stole the battery. I brushed my teeth with the other half of the terry cloth rag and toothpaste before putting on a halfway clean blouse and pants. The word on the streets was that you couldn’t go down to the welfare office all “geared up” in your concert best. That’s because they’ll think you really don’t need help and reject your application. That was certainly not going to be a problem for me. So I sucked up
my pride and eagerly waddled the three long blocks, in the still dark, freezing morning air, and caught the bus to the welfare office, using my monthly pass that would expire in two days.
The other word on the streets was that if you desperately needed help, the welfare people would give you emergency housing and food stamps that same day. I was glad that I had finally taken the initiative to ask for help. So when I walked into the welfare office and began the arduous process of filling out form after form and waiting in line after line, I didn’t complain. After nearly four hours there I began to feel faint. I had not eaten since the night before when I ate part of a sandwich I stole out of the employee refrigerator at the college. The egg salad sandwich I thought I was stealing turned out to be a chicken salad sandwich. I ended up eating only the bread and lettuce, after
throwing up the chicken; I was a vegetarian, the kind that doesn’t eat anything with a face. As I grew more faint and nauseous, a very stern, almost rude, social worker finally called my name. As I sat there watching her pore over the forms, she abruptly said,
“You don’t qualify.”
“Excuse me ma’am?”
She pushed some of the papers back to me and put the rest in a vanilla file folder which she stamped, closed and put on top a stack of other folders.
“You don’t qualify! You own a car! You can’t come in here asking for help when you have assets!”
I was in a state of shock but finally managed to say,
“Ma’am, my car doesn’t even work. It has been broke down in a parking lot for almost six months!”
The social worker swiftly got up from her chair and walked to the door as she callously explained,
“Welfare don’t care where your car is or what condition it is. As long as you own it, you have assets, and we can’t give you welfare! Now, have a good day!”
“Ma’am, what about emergency food stamps? I heard that I could get emergency food stamps or a voucher for a hotel. Ma’am, I have nowhere to live!” I begged her.
The stone-faced woman looked at me as she pointed me to the exit and said,
“Live in your car! And by the way, you also
can’t get welfare without a physical street address. So you might want to work on that, too!”
I felt critically wounded. I could hardly stand to my feet. The hunger that seemed to subside earlier was now howling, literally. My baby was kicking inside with protest. Somehow I managed not to faint and found the exit. I was in disbelief about the bad news and the way I it was delivered. I was in even bigger disbelief that I had not taken a handful of those Hershey Kisses in the nice big candy jar on the social worker’s desk. The only food I saw in my immediate future was the half-eaten chicken breast pieces and the brown edges of the bread that I peeled off the sandwich. I saved the remainder of the sandwich and hid it under the seat, as my guilt and conscience had me convinced that a then non-existent CSI team would track the used sandwich foil
back to me. But thankfully, I had saved it. It would be dinner, as soon as I got back to Maverick Estate.
I decided to walk to the next bus stop, which was two blocks away. The welfare office was two doors down from none other than the mighty House of Pancakes. Oh, what I would have done just to have one pancake with some maple syrup. I was so hungry, I almost stopped a complete stranger to ask for a dollar. I managed to make it to the next stop where I got on the bus and went to sleep to escape the pain. About an hour and a half later, I arrived at the baseball park and made a beeline to Maverick Estate where my dinner awaited me. As I approached the other side of the park where my old Ford was parked, I could see no sign of Maverick Estate. Standing over the large oil stain that marked the spot where the car originally broke down, it
became apparent that my home was gone—towed away or stolen. I didn’t know and it didn’t matter, since I had no insurance, or any money to pay the impound fees.
I walked back to the bus stop and decided I would ride the entire bus route that made a continuous loop downtown, past the welfare office and the House of Pancakes, past the baseball park and back again. This would buy me some sleep time until approximately 11 p.m., when the buses stopped running. After that, I hadn’t a clue what I would do. After a couple of loops on the bus, I nearly passed out from the pain in my stomach and the migraine headache I instantly inherited when I realized Maverick Estate, my clothes, textbooks, homework, and the stolen, half-eaten chicken sandwich were gone forever. I was convinced that my ill-fate that day was no doubt punishment from God for stealing
the day before. What if the sandwich belonged to someone else in my predicament? I couldn’t stop obsessing over the fact that my life had been reduced to being a pregnant, homeless thief. My mama always said, “God don’t like ugly! And very little pretty!” She was right. “God,” I prayed, “please, please help me. I promise I will never steal anything, ever again. Please forgive me and please help me, dear God.”
Soon, the commuter rush began to dissipate and I quickly claimed two seats so I could lie down and hopefully not vomit. When I laid down, my head rested on a somewhat hard object. It was a wallet. Speared with guilt from my previous transgression, I convinced myself this was a set-up. I held the wallet in my hand for several minutes. I looked for any sign of a passenger that appeared to have lost anything. I waited for any sign and there was none.
I came up with the idea of possibly borrowing the money from the wallet and then re-paying it later. Yes, that’s what I would do. No. I couldn’t because it would only mean more bad karma. Wait, maybe I could return the wallet and the owner would give me a reward. Another ten minutes went by and still I sat frozen with fear and guilt. I strategized with God and decided if there were identification, then I would turn the wallet in. If not, then this was God’s way of helping me, assuming there was money inside. I opened the wallet and there was no identification whatsoever, not even a library card. And there was a gold mine inside—$37 dollars and a brand-new monthly bus pass.
Finally, the bus made its loop towards the House of Pancakes again, and I rang the bell for the driver to stop. I was so happy, I was practically doing the cha-cha as I got off the bus and walked into the House of
Pancakes.
Needless to say, it was probably one of my most memorable meals: buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup, eggs with onions and cheddar cheese, fruit and two cups of hot chocolate. I rubbed my stomach and said to the precious life inside, “Here’s some pancakes for my little biscuit.” The meal cost around $5 and I tipped the server $1.50. I caught the bus again—this time to the Busy Bee Motel, where I rented the last room, for the next two nights. The motel manager let me stay two additional nights free and allowed me to use their address to re-apply for welfare.
—Desiree Smith
