The move from California had been hard for me. My parents weren’t rich or successful, but liked to live as if we were. My father sold cars. I grew up in feast or famine. We would have a house, then lose the house.
My father Louis was a small man with a big voice. He could talk, and by the time I was in high school I told my friend Brenda that, “The main quality I look for in a husband is silence.”
I met Brenda when I moved to Texas, she was not someone I should have hooked up with. She rode my school bus out to the Andrew Jackson Mobile Home Park, she lived there to at the end of the bus route, at the end of the world. No one lived further from the school in our school district.
I passed the 12-year-old (most important test) in California so I wore a ‘Academic Scholar’ patch on my school jacket. Others had yearly tests until age 16 to pass the test.
Brenda was fat, well she was fat compared to me. My body and face were about perfect, I could look in a mirror like anyone else. I had small breasts, but perfect ones, the exact same size and shapely. Even my hair was very good, sandy and manageable.
Louis was selling used cars in Virginia and my mother Kate was working in an all night restaurant called Revcince’s. That was the name of the guy who owned it. It was pronounced like the word, ‘Rancid’ and that was not a good name for a place to eat, my mother agreed with that and she worked primarily for tips. I did wash dishes on Saturday nights and Sunday, or put them in the washer after scraping the plates. There were few low-end jobs open for free people with the influx of slave labor.
Mr. Rencince had a big sign in front his establishment that said, “ALL FOOD COOKED AND SERVED BY FREE AMERICANS’. That appealed to workers who had been fired and replaced by slaves, but most of those couldn’t afford dinners and suppers. Business wasn’t good and sometimes my dish washing brought in more than mother’s tips.
Father sold clunkers and people were always angry with him about bogus guarantees. His max commissions was about 200 credits. That was not really much money. So they could pay the trailer rent I gave them all my dish washing money.
Brenda and Brenda’s parents liked me to visit her and I liked eating at her place At our house all we ate were left overs that Kate brought home. Mostly it wasn’t enough for 3 people. Our rent was 150 credits a month and then there was 25 to 35 per month for utilities. Brenda was a hopeless case with the test. She had made 100 points below the passing grade on her 12-year-old test and 125 points below passing on her 2nd test at 14.
“I won’t have to worry about finding a husband” she told me. But at night she told me how scared she was about being sold as a slave. Her parents thought I was helping her with her 15-year-old test, but she wouldn’t pay attention. She was only interested in a math problem for about 15 minutes and then she would start talking about boys. I felt bad that I was eating their good food and she couldn’t be helped. Brenda read the newspaper and studied about slavery. The newspapers were full of stories concerning slavery. Some nights when I was trying to get some sleep Brenda would be reading ads about slaves for sale. One night she was sitting up against some pillows and said. “Well here’s one Carolyn, ’52 farm grade animals, 30 females ages 13 to 41 and 14 assorted children, 8 and under. All bargain priced at 4,000 credits, or O.B.O. Inspect at Fulton’s Produce on Riverview Street.’ What does ‘OBO mean Carolyn?”
“Or best offer,” I said.
“that’s not even a hundred credits per person,” Brenda said.
“Not much for a living person,” I told her, “and the buyer will own them for life and can do anything with his slave.”
“The little children won’t even get the chance to pass a test of math, science, and reading .” Brenda said.
“Well you have one more chance.” I said.
“I should be losing weight instead of studying. probably when I’m sold the master won’t feed that much. You don’t see many fat slaves.”
“You can study and lose weight, and besides your not that fat, maybe a little pudgy.” I told her and she slid down in the covers and reached a hand across the bed and squeezed my arm, “I know I have no chance. My mother and father talk to each other when they think I’m not hearing and my father who is so up beat to my face said, ‘Brenda is a dead duck!’
Another time my mother said, ‘You know Fred, I wish I never had her. Someone will buy her to slop their hogs.’ She said it in a whisper, but I heard it. Of course their right — I’m a dummy, but knowing a freight train is coming doesn’t mean you have to stand up straight and let it hit you while you watch.”
“So what way, other than a passing score on the test, do you plan to dodge the train?” I asked as she scooted over and grabbed me around the waist and pressed herself against me. The side of her face was pressed against my pajama waist band, she started blubbering then and talking but she was crying so hard that I didn’t understand the words. She grabbed me frantically as she cried.
“Cry now,” I said, “we’ll talk later after all the water is over. It must have been an hour. She didn’t want her parents to hear so she pulled the covers over her and used a pillow to muffle her words. Then all at once she was over it and her head popped out of the covers.
“Now I can talk, that cry was good for me” I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to start another flood.
“Yes”, she finally said now clutching my arm again, “Now I have a plan that involves you.”
“Me?” I said, “what can I do, take your test for you?”
“No, that wouldn’t work, of course I’ve looked into such things. They use machine identification. They scanned my face last year and I’ve read they do your whole body now. They even check your scars — where ever they are.”
“So, let’s have your plan.” I said.
“Well what I have to tell you is confidential, and it’s a life or death secret so first let’s go in the closet.”
“We’re in bed Brenda, can’t we whisper, it’s 2AM.”
“I can’t tell you on the school bus Carolyn, I can’t tell you at lunch with other big ears around., or at supper with my parents and this is a SLIT MY THROAT SECRET! This is not some little gossip about Fevor Sweeney getting a hard-on in Mrs. Forley’s class. You are my best friend.”
“I’m your only friend,” I said and I was sorry I said that, it was true, but not so friend like.
“That’s very true,” Brenda said and gave a sob. ‘Oh my god,’ I thought, she’s going to splash the eye spicket again.’ So I got out of bed and went with her to the closet. There was no light in the trailer closet, but her families mobile home was twice as big as ours. The closet wasn’t cluttered and she pulled the door almost closed and put the blanket over my head and her head and put her wet face against mine.
“You know in math we studied all the possibilities of what could happen to get a solution,” Brenda said, in a whisper in my ear.
“Yes,” I said.
Well”, Brenda hugged me frantically and said, “I figured it out, and your my only hope.”
She was grasping me hard and I said, “do you really have something to tell me Brenda or do you just want to love me?”
“Both Carolyn, I do love you. Before you moved here I had no one to talk to, boys don’t talk to chubby girls, and girls don’t have anything to do with girls with black patches. before I got my test failure patch to wear I still had no friends. Your really the only real friend I’ve ever had in my life, even my cousins laugh at me. You know I dream about you at night, like some girls dream about boys, I dream about you. even when you work at the restaurant I don’t want to be away from you. I’ve ben in love with you since I met you. I knew at the first week you moved in the trailer park. Think about it, everything you tell me you like, or would like me to do for you, I try to do. I love you so much that I would like to be your slave.”
“You wouldn’t want to be anyone’s slave, not even mine, but I’m not likely to be able to buy a slave. My mother and I will be lucky to keep on eating and paying trailer rent. I soon will start looking for a better paying job.”
“You won’t need a better job if my plan works.” She kissed me on my lips like a boy might.
“I know your not a secret boy, I’ve seen you naked in the bathroom, so are you telling me you don’t like boys, and you’re a lesbian? I said.
“If you wanted me to be a lesbian or do lesbian things to you I would do them. I always was into reading and I read sex books, but now I’m more into being your slave property than letting you stick dildo’s up into me.”
“So how will I get by without more dish washing or a better job?” I said.
“My grandmother died 10 years ago. She was my father’s mother and he was her only living son. My grandmother was rich, but my father throws his money away on stupid things, and his mother knew him well. She set up a 30 year trust for him for half of 10 million credits. He was to get the interest on 5 million and the rest would stay in the bank for 30 years and then could be drawn out. For the other half of the estate she gave to me at age 15. That is my age now, but only I can draw it out. My father tried last year to go to a lawyer and get me declared crazy so he could get my money. Even his own lawyer, talked to me, and said I wasn’t crazy.”
“So why do you live in Andy Jackson Mobile Home Park if your parents have 5 million credits?” I asked.
“The lottery, blackjack, oil futures, horses. He goes crazy when he has money. Then he found out that there are companies that give you half your money now, rather than waiting 30 years. All we have left is the trailer and two old cars. He’s as much an idiot as your father is a successful auto salesman. He’s probably listening at my wall because he wants my money, he likes me a little, but he’d slit my throat in a fuckin minute if it would get him my 5 million, that’s sitting quietly at the United Federal Consolidated Trust of America.
Did you know that last year 3 thousand 16 year olds who had over a million credits were sold in the test failure auctions. that’s in this country. the government takes their money and sells the kid for an average 2,000 credits.
I’ve got 5 million and the government is watching me. they inquire in the office at school about me being in class and talk to my teachers. It gets back to my ears. My parents think that I will sign it over to them before I become a slave. The law is written where they can’t even buy me. They can’t even get a relative to buy me. I’ve been studying these things instead of math. I’m terrified of being a slave. Have your parents ever taken you to a slave auction, mine took me”
“My father sells cars and we don’t have a decent car.” I said, “No we don’t look at slaves at auction, or anywhere else,. My father once had an offer to sell slaves instead of cars, but mother said she’d rather keep working.”
“My idea is brilliant for a black-patched moron. I have money because I’m 15 and I can give it away, eat it or stuff it up my ample ass cheeks, but I thought of you. Your smart, beautiful, not popular, but poor like me. I’m like a dead person sitting on a pile of cash, thinking about pulling it into his casket with him. My plan goes like this. ONE – you can make a contract with anyone, TWO – your parents can sell their children. That’s the flat-out law in Texas. In this case they will be paid to do it. THREE – You Caroline Cardill are not kin to me in any way. You all came here from California.
FOUR – The children in both our families are the parents. I am of course a fuckin failure at tests and fit to be an animal, but I don’t have to wait for the final test and sing as I ride the bus to the auction. I figure you wold like to have 4 million credits and me as your slave property to wait on you. I would be useful to you. This is not to bargain something better for myself. It would be fraud and you might lose the money if I was treated better or nicer than a regular slave. With the government watching and waiting to grab up my money I recommend that you beat me some, especially at first, like leave marks on my back. really I want to be in bondage to you, your abject slave licking and sucking your toes, cleaning your floors. I’ll love it.”
“So your saying”, I said as she was now kissing my legs. She had been squeezing them with her hands and now she was kissing and licking. That was really a sales pitch for the deal. My father was always talking about his sales pitch, but maybe if he started kissing and licking the calf of his customers legs maybe the cars would sell. “Your saying we pay off your parents with half a million credits so they will sell you to me? I buy you from them for..”
“A one credit dollar,” Brenda said, “Then after they sign the lifetime indenture to you for my person and make me your animal, then I recommend you reward them by giving them one-half million credits and your parents a half million. My father may say, ‘I won’t sign for less than half’ or ‘I won’t sign for less than a million.’ If he says anything like that say, “Brenda says you can’t deal with any more than that, and I should put the half million in your wife’s name, because Brenda won’t be able to give you anymore.”
We were up that whole night talking in the closet and playing with each other under the blanket. Sometime during the early morning before breakfast the deal was set and Brenda was my belonging. Before we went into eat cereal and go out and wait for our school bus she had surrendered as my slave.
That morning she washed and dressed me and gave me all her savings which was 4,000 credits. Her room was filled with all sorts of things that I had either never had, or once had and lost in moving: electronic games, clothes and accessories. I could not wear her clothes, but I enhanced my outfit that day with some of her things. Her parents always slept on and we got on the bus in early morning. No one would think I was carrying 4000 credit bills in my shoes, bra and pocket.
When we got in town at the school I didn’t go to home room. We instead used a pay phone and I called my neighbor next door and talked to my mother. My neighbor had a phone.
“Kat,” I said when she got to the phone, “It’s real important that you meet me at the bank at Main Street and Tree Avenue, United Federal. Get Mr. Sandway to drive you. I can give him money for fuel costs. Tell him to get you there at nine and I’ll give him a five credit note.”
“What!” she said.
“Don’t worry I have the money just dress up and be there.”
We could have walked to the bank in plenty of time, but we got a cab. Lots of students left school in cabs, it was a very large school and cabs were cheap. We wandered around downtown window shopping before the bank opened. Brenda had given me her bank book, but I told her to carry it in the bank.
Mother was right on time and I smiled at Mr. Sandway and gave him the money. He said, “It’s too much” and I said, “We live a long way from town.”
Mother had a look on her face like somehow I had done something wrong, so I said, “This is simple mother,” I called her mother when she got worried about me, but usually Kate, because we were friends. “Brenda” I told her, “has failed all but one test, and would fail that in a few months. She has a lot of money that she has given me, she wants to be my slave girl instead of just anyone’s slave who might buy her. Were going in the bank to change accounts. I am giving you, not father 500,000 credits. I want you both to be able to live mostly on the interest and not his commissions. There is a paper, we can get at the bank that you both must sign saying I’m not a child anymore.” She nodded.
“I’m also ging to give Brenda’s parents some money after they sign her over to me.” Mother had little to say and the bank work went great. I think that if I had taken more than 50,000 credits out they would have been more of a problem. We established a checking account for mother, and a checking and savings account for me. Mother signed the paper freeing me from my parents, and that went to the bank and she carried out another one for father to sign.
With my new bank book and checks and 50,000 in a paper bag we rode in a cab to father’s car lot.
When Louis, my father, saw us get out of the cab you could hear him a football field away, “What are you doing here!”
“I’m here to buy a car,” I said, but he didn’t hear me till he got closer.
Kate said, “Louis your daughter has given us some money, but you need to sign the emancipation document so I can begin giving it to you.”
“Whoo, how much money does she have and how much is she giving us?” He said.
Kate rarely got angry, but she said, “Look you idiot, your daughter got some money and is giving us so much that we can live comfortably off just the interest. I have it in a bank account already and if you don’t sign this for her I’ll give it back. All I have to do is write a check.”
He signed the document and I stuffed it on top in the paper bag I was carrying.
“So Louis,” I said, “have you got any good running cars on the lot now?”
“I have a used Y Car, only 2 years old, but you don’t have a license in this state Carolyn.”
“How cheap can I get it dad?”
“Minus my commission 1000 credits.”
“I’ll take it.” I said, “Mother and I need to go out house hunting.
I had a thousand in my pocket and got the title. It was a pretty yellow car with leather upholstery. Not something a person with 4 million would drive. Since my father sold cars all his life I had driven my first car at age ten, but in Texas I didn’t have a hope of one until that day.
Mother rode up front and Brenda was in the back seat and we were about to drive off when he said, “So aren’t you going to tell me how much you gave your mother?”
“Five hundred thousand credits” I said and drove away. That left him with his mouth open.
I was driving back to the trailer park and mother said, “Brenda, you haven’t said anything.”
“I’m Carolyn’s slave,” she said.
“Well Carolyn doesn’t care if you talk to us, do you?”
“No, you can talk. You won’t be officially my property until your father signs”
“I know mistress and money makes him crazy.”
“Well crazy he may get, but to get any of the cash he will have to do what I say.”
I locked my bag of money in the car trunk and took mother and Brenda in the Nosen house trailer.
Mr. and Mrs. Nosen, Brenda’s parents were up and dressed when we all went in the door. We sat around the kitchen table and Pete Nosen, who was a foot and a half shorter than his wife Ann said, “I figured it would come down to something like this when she got the bank book and wouldn’t let us have the money. No a half million won’t work. Why would I give you 4 and a half million credits?”
“Well you won’t,” I said, “What will happen is I will buy Brenda for 1 credit and you’ll sign her over as my property. Then after that is over I will write you a check for 500,000 credits. Other wise you get to keep Brenda and you don’t get the money.”
“There are lots of lawyers who will fight this!”
“That’s it spend your money on lawyers and see which pile of money wins. Come on mother” I said, “this man doesn’t want to sell me Brenda.” We got up and mother even opened the door and Ann Nosen said, “You stupid fool.” to her husband.
“Yes he is Ann,” I said, “and if he wants any money now. I’ll only write the check to you Ann so this time he can’t gamble it away and you two can live on the interest income.”
“Come right back in Ann said, “he’ll sign, by damn, and you write the check to me. He wasted 5 million credits,a nd he won’t touch this. If Brenda planned this then I have a very smart daughter not a dummy.”
“She planned it,” I said.
Pete Nosen signed the paper and I gave him one credit note for Brenda. then I signed a check for 500,000 to Ann. When I handed the check to her I looked at Brenda who had her head bowed and I said, “If Brenda was not a slave she would say, “Ann don’t give Pete any way to get into your money.”
“Being a slave now” Ann said, “I don’t think Brenda could have a better owner.”
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Contact Ray Cates at: rcates2@cox.net
Or fax him at: 1-352-629-1573
