fatal thunder was the best one had when she came to me for advice about his economic condition.

she was my first client, she said to me: My husband says I’m a fool for waiting for anything. I’ve been a mistress and a wife and a nurse, but I haven’t made a penny on my own. He makes a living as a taxi driver. I live in a modest bungalow and he has a sprawling country home. I make housework and keep the yard and the cars and two cars in good repair. We spend every weekend in our country home and whenever he is away he brings the mistress and the mistress’s boy and the mistress’s boyfriend and the three men together.

He was twenty-six and I was twenty-five when we married.

I’m not a fool, I told him, and here is how I earn my keep. First, I gather the money in envelopes when it is in my immediate possession. Then I write checks when I am told by the client to do so.
I keep the checkbook with me so I know who I have to go back and ask for more. I have a reliable mover. I have a reliable chauffeur. I have an accurate accountant.
This is how I do it.

When I get in the taxi, the driver asks me the destination and I tell him, and when I get there I get out of the taxi and tell him where to go, and when he takes me to the hotel or the house, I give him the key and when I am getting ready for bed I give him the bill for the room and then I turn out the light and go to bed myself.

In the morning I get up and say, “He’s a fool for waiting.”

I’ve been doing this a couple of years, but now I’m running out of the money I got when I first started.
I don’t get any more checks or checks with letters of explanation from my client, and the money is not growing with my business.
I’m sure if I wanted to I could get another job and earn more, but what would I do with all that time?

It might be difficult for me to do.

So silence and pain are my bed brothers. Love is my sister. Together we weep every night.

:: 09.26.2020 ::