Men Do

Charleen lives down the dirt road from me. I will not dwell on trailer stereotypes. Charleen is poor. We read a lot about the poor poor. Charleen and her babies lived in the car that now sits at the side of the trailer in the thick nettle weeds. Charleen gets rides. Charleen is my entire poll. I want her opinion. She’s pretty free with it. “I think I should be Vice President.” I take her to Denny’s and we talk. Charleen would be horrible as Vice President. Charleen has goings on back in that woods. Charleen has only been twenty-five miles from where she was born. Right here. Her mother sneaks them food. Her mother will babysit. Charleen does not approve of local politicians. “More crooked than a barrel of fishhooks.” Charleen reads all the wrong things. The poor have no face in the media. You do not know how we live. We are not a novel. We are not a film. No one sees us. We’re just the poor. We don’t vote. We don’t matter. We do not care because every day, we are just the bottom feeders. Trying to survive by the skin of our teeth. Charleen has a few teeth left. No one takes Charleen to Denny’s. I explained that she cannot be President. “Why.” I gave her my best Because You Are Nineteen Look. Oh. I get a bad case of sensory overload from too much East Coast Political Handwringing. Charleen likes Kelly because he went to the moon. I refuse to discuss that one. Charleen hides pregnancy. I have delivered her to the clinic on my dirt bike. She does not own her own body. Men do.