my name is precious jones. i wanna take tap dance lessons. mama said we can't afford it.
plus she say who wanna see me dancing anyway. i goes to i.s. 111. in harlem. new york. today i was almost late. that'd a been a problem.
i like maff but i don't say nuffin' -don't open my book even. just sit there.
everyday i tell myself something gonna happen, like i'm gonna break through or somebody gonna break through to me -i'm gonna learn, catch up, be normal, sit in the front . someday.
i like mr. wicher. i pretend he my husband and we live in weschesser, whereever that is. i can see by his eyes mr. wicher like me too. i wish i could tell him all the pages in my book look the same to me, but i can't.
i feels sorry for mr. wicher. he do his best but he ain't got no voice. he scared too. i feels sorry for him.
shut up motherfuckers, i'm trying to learn something! hard enuff wiffout you stupid clowns carryin' on!
stupid asses.  go on 'bout cha lesson mr. wicher. they ain' gonna give you no more trouble today.
i'm like the polices for mr. wicher. tha's why i can't be late to maff.
now dis .
what this bitch want? claireece .  only motherfuckers i hate call me claireece.
you gonna be okay mr. wicher?
am i in trouble?
am i in trouble?
then i don't want to miss no more of maff class.
my muver is busy.
my muver wouldn't like that.
for what?
that ain't fair. i ain' done nuffin! i doose my work. i ain' in no trouble. my grades is good.
no kids on her pictures. maybe she jealous. i still don't say nuffin.
thas when i knew i'd never get back to maff class . lawd i hate this hoe.
no mama, i dropped some of my thangs on the way to school.
daddy?
no one ever ring the bell but crack addicts. i hates crack addicts. give the ghetto a bad name.
stop ringing the goddam buzzer motherfucker!
stop ringing the goddam buzzer.
stop it!
stop it!
white bitch from school.
lord, where is crack addicts when you need 'em.
i don't know.
what you want?
this bitch crazy. 'sides, my muver don't want to get cut off welfare and that's what mrs. lichenstein comin' to visit result in. it's hard to believe a hoe dis retarded sposed to educate somebody.
git outa here mrs. lichenstein 'fore i kick your ass.
yeah.
i know where that is.
bitch.
i heard you the first time.
i don't know what an alternative school is but i feel i want to know.
my heart is all warm. mr. wicher say i'm a good student.
ain' you s'posed to be in school?
see, thas jus exackly why we ain' gon' be playin'. i never said nuffin like it.
cause you a mess. look at ya' -no style, no friends, no mama, no daddy.
what you say?!
thas what i thought.
you do that.
i'm lookin' up. lookin' out for a piano to fall, a desk, couch, tv, mama maybe? always somethin' in the way. alternative. i'm gon' see all about it.
then my mind come back down to earf.
boyz always been little things that laff and grab they selves -cept for when i's real big and pregnant wif my first baby. then boyz don't say nuffin. they stand out the way real quiet like i'm queen of england.
still, i wonder. what could i wear that boyz don't laff?
i always be fallin like that when my mind be wanderin. mama say i gonna fall to my death one day. wonder what that be like?
this the alternative?
this the alternative?
well what is this here?
i'm looking for alternative school.
what alternative is?
alternative. the lady from my other school tell me to come here to hotel theresa, nineteenth floor, it's "alternative" school.
oh.
i got kicked out 'cause i was pregnant.
mrs. lichenstein ain' say all that.
what she say?
thas me.
what stuff?
i thought this was new start. file and tesses chase me to the grave.
huh?
can i start today?
no. my muver get afdc for me and my daughter.
huh?
not this baby! i got another one 'sides this coming.
i got to go get all that now?
what's the difference?
i was in ninfe grade at i.s. ill.
there has always been something wrong wif the tesses .
the tesses paint a picture of me wif no brain. the tesses paint a picture of me 'an my muver -my whole family as less than dumb just ugly black grease to be wiped away, punished, caged up, kilt, changed, finded a job for.
sometimes i wish i was not alive. i be o.k. i guess.
today is first day. i been tessed. i been incomed eligible. i got my medicaid card, proof of address, self, pencil, notebook -alla dat shit.
ma! !!
ma! !!
i need some money.
sumthin' to eat. my head hurt.
five dollars.
the other day i cried, felt stupid. guess what. fuck that other day. thas why god or whoever make new days. still hungry tho.
give me a basket please.
ain't sure. still thinkin'. watchin' the weight you know.
potato salad! thas it.
yes.
first thing i wonder is where is everybody -the boyz, the noises . this feel like a sunday school or crazy house. or something like bof' but different. smell different too.
it's mine!
i leff it! i did! i leff it at the kickin fried chicken on lenox tween one-two-seven and one-two-six this morning.
off da bat sumthin' different wif dis lady. she like to sing. i wish i could sing. go to church. sing on a choir. mama say ain't no god. dis lady remind me mr. wicher but more a man and like miss lichenstein 'cept not a cuckoo. dress like she ride in out the village too.
could i skip too miz rain?
i could. could i. go?
everybody looking at me now. everybody see me. i wish for back of class again.
then i think, never that again.
my name claireece precious jones. i go by precious. i was born in harlem. i like yellow 'n i had a problem at my old school so i come here.
nuffin.
i can cook and.
i never.
well . i never talked in class before. i guess now i could do that too.
here. it make me feel . here.
whatever the fuck that spozed to mean. this school different, okay. but this not star trek neitha'.
complicated, complicated -chinese journeys, 2 books, write 'n you don't know how? dawg .
sure lady, right after i get voted president.
i can't do that miz rain.
no! !!
the pages .
they all look alike to me. always did.
the words.
peoples at the beach?
yes. a.
no. i don't.
d, a, y.
ate.
the!
beach?
a-day-at-the-shore.
school! i was at school!
am not!
mama, i tole you i got kicked out. i been home mostly every day for two weeks.
mama, i tole you dis morning i was goin'to school.
i'm gonna get stipend for school and then.
now?
i ain' hungry. i .
but mama i .
but i thought you said you was hongry?
what do you want me to say?
seem like inquiring white bitches always want to know.
i wish i had a tv in my room.
no.  my muver is a like a whale person for the couch. she says i eat alla time, but then she always makin' me eat.  and then call me a fat mess.  she says apartment is little because of me.
i don't know much more than you do miz white.
he say he the original man like farrakhan be saying but little do he know about it. he give me this baby comin and my other one before. thas all i know. don't see him. don't need to i guess.
nuffin.
no i didn't neitha. if you heard that, then you heard sumthin' else cause i ain' said nuffin like it!
now whas next?
mongo?
mongo? thas short for mongoloid. she got down sinder.
alla dat.
my grandmuver toosie, brangs little mongo over on days social worker come so it look like mongo live wif us. then my mama get the check 'n food stamps for me 'n little mongo. but it's my baby. little mongo is money for me, not her!
sometimes i see vampires too. they come for me sometimes and they say that i am one of them. they say, "precious, you belong wif us."
i say, "check wif my muver." after that, they just look at me and go down through the floor. the family downstairs is vampires so that's where they should go.
i'm going to the doctor now too. it's nice. miz rain, she fall out when she finded out that i ain' been to no doctor. whole class scream 'preenatal' at me. they don't know i had my first baby on the kitchen floor wif my muver kicking me upside my head. i mean, who would believe?
them the kind of thangs you mean when you say talk about whatever come into my mind?
i still don't know why i said all them thangs. i know i wasn't s'posed to. just tired.
miz rain brang us out to see some real old stuff. thangs and stuff before tv's was made, before mr. abraham lincoln, before miz harriet tubman -maybe some stuff before miz weiss even.
before we turn tha corner in a mummy tomb, rita grab hold of my hand. no one in my life ever do that. ever. how rita do it wiffout a thought?
guide lady smart. say dis the first civilization of the earf. black folks, first!
i liked'd that museum so much i went back by myself.  peoples . they only look when my belly big. they minds all made. but do they know? no. they do not know that i am a girl for flowers and thin straw legs?
if other peoples could see that the way i do, they would see that i am a real person inside.
miz rain say the longest journey begin wif a single step. i wonder what step they journeys begin on. mama always talk about how there be all different types of welfare. i want filfy rich white folks welfare. mama crazy but mama not stupid.
i am happy to be writing. i am happy to be in school. i am happy to know my baby coming soon. don't see the sense in pretending i am not pregnant anymore. i am also thinking about lil mongo a lot. miz rain say we gonna write everyday, that mean home too.
and she gonna write back everyday. thas great.
mama say this new school ain' shit tho. say you can't learn nuffin' writing in no book. gotta git on that computer you want to make some money. but mama wrong about that.
listen baby, muver love you. muver not dumb. listen:
his name abdul jamal louis jones. he healthy. his muver love him.
i win.
get to x-ray.
you gon have to if you don't practice.
dear miz rain, all the years i sit in class i never learn, but now i got baby again by my fahver.
i wish i had a boyfriend like other girls and then i'd feel right that i have to quit school. i love my baby but want school too.
dear miz rain.
social worker ask me if i want to give little mongo and abdul up for adoption. i could kill her. she never help before. now she want to take my kids away? if she take abdul, i won't have nothing nomore.
dear miz rain, grandmuver come visit and say only a dog will drop a baby and walk off. say later not even a dog.
dear miz rain, lot of questions you ask. no muver, no grandmuver and father rape me years. little mongo wif my grandmuver. best for me to stop breaving sometimes i think. i want to be a good mother too tho.
dear miz rain, i is best able to meet my child's need.
the welfare help mama, it help me.
mama! ! !
mama! ! !
stop it mama! you gon crazy?!!!
i ain't steal nuffin from you mama!
shut up momma! i not stupid! i am not stupid! don't say that!
i need to see nurse john. where nurse john at?
you don't know me bitch. get lost 'fore i kick your ass.
bitch?
i ain't make no mistake unless it was being born.
my mama kick my ass again. i ain' giving abdul away. and i ain' gonna stop school . i just. ain't.
i'm gonna get little mongo back too. i don't hardly even know what she look like now. don't matter tho. that don't matter.
nurse john say lots of people get out of hospital wif no place to go. his eyes look worried tho . wonder what next? scared now.
ab c d e f g h i j k l m n 0 p, q rs t u v, w x y z. now i know my abc's, tell me what you think of me.
miz rain say i was moving through the vowel 'n consonant sounds faster than even rhonda johnson was. maybe could've even catched up to jermaine. maybe .
where my baby?! where my baby at?!
i can tell by miz rain's face that i ain' gonna be homeless no more. only i ain' so sure where i'm gon end up tho.
thas the one time i heard miz rain curse.
i feels really sorry for her. she just a abc teacher, not no social worker. but she all i could think of.
they have . something. it's an immediate opening and it's in queens.
queens?
i don't really know queens.
hi miss lisa.
good. how you been?
thanks.
huh?
oh.
this abdul.
thanks. y'all really married?
i don't know. stuff in my life. abdul.
mama say homos is bad peoples .
but homos not who rape me, homos not who let me sit up in school 16 years and learn nuffin and homos not sell crack to peoples in harlem. i wonder what oprah have to say about that?
y' all watch oprah?
miz rain the one who put the chalk in my hand, make me queen of abc's.
after i settle in halfway house, i work my hardest to memorize letter sounds, write in journal and read smaller and fatter books. then i find out mayor's office give me literacy award and check for progress. everybody at the party, nurse john, cornrows and the staff stop in too, but they need to get back to they desks before too long. whole operation can't stop just cause miss precious get a trophy. even ms. katherine shows.
thanks nurse john.
i owe the chicken place for a bucket that i swiped last year. thas first. after that, get some thangs for abdul.
miz rain?
like dis.
no.
the good word. wif ms. rain?
you ain't her type.
miss lisa this nurse john. nurse john this miss lisa.
y'all work it out.
miz rain?
not yet. i forgot to say thank you for my party.
i . no.
well, i was thinking.
you talk to us girls in the class when we be working out problems and thangs and stuff, right?
well, who do you talk to?
or you probably don't have no problems so.
ms. rain, some folks just got it made in the shade.
oh, okay. i didn't have nobody to really speak wif for a long time. i know how that be sometimes so thas why i asked cause almost evrybody need a little help once in a .
well . only that -well, evrybody need a little help once in a .
i jus .
i just thought that if you might need some .
yes.
me? i never.
nuffin?
for real?
i jus help you finish up first. i got some time.
some folks got a light around them that shine for other peoples. i think maybe some of them was in a long tunnel before. and in that tunnel, maybe the only light they had was one that was inside of them and then -even long after they escaped that tunnel, they still be shining for everybody else. thas miz rain to me.
in a book i read, a lady escaped to a 1. 2 way house. and the lady, she asked the people there just what a 1. 2 way house was. they tole her, you is 1. 2 way between the life you had and the life you want to have . thas nice. that also mean i can't stay here forever and that there is still a ways to go. it be something to get apartment of my own.
abdul nine months old and walking! smart too. i been reading to him since the day he was born almost. barely talkin' and he countin' .
mama, daddy, i.s. iii and 444 lenox avenue already seem like a past life or some old bad dream. i wish i could have started out from here but still wif abdul and poor mongo.
come in.
thas rhonda. she always early.
i should've said 4 'cause then that way.
is that all?
 you got it?
the aids virus.
how you know?
no, i don't know mama.
he never been wif you?
you better go to the doctor ma.
i'm home here. i better go see 'bout abdul and do homework.
nurse say i am h.i.v. positive.
i don't have nuffin to write today and i don't hate no one. not even my muhver. my head is all dark inside so i don't have nuffin to write today. maybe nuffin never.
yeah. he good. won't bress feed him no more to be safe.
what for? how?! i feel like i am drowning inside a giant river miz rain. thas what.
fuck you! you don't know nuffin what i been through!!! i never had no boyfriend! my daddy say he gonna marry me but how he do that, fucking me illegal? i never been no child! not even one day!!!
i'm tired miz rain!
nobody love me. thas a lie.
please don't lie miz rain! love?! me?! love rape me, beat me, call me animal, get me sick and make me feel wurfless. i had enough love.
no.
some things is hard to say and maybe not your business no way but rhonda's brother rape her for years and when her muhver fine out, she throw rhonda out her house.
rita's daddy kill her muhver in front of her eyes and rita been out on the street selling herself since she 12.
jermaine say mens beat her and then rape her for what she is. muhver throw her out the house when she fine out that she different from other girls.
miz rain still a sort of mystery, but a nice one like the sun.
miz rain right too. these girls is my family now. they visit me at hospital when i had abdul and even take up a collection when mama kick me out. they got love in they eyes and in they hearts for me, same as i got for them.
i do.
tired of this lady asking me questions. miz rain say talk anyway but miz weiss just a spy for the state who write reports on me undercover. reports go in file. file say what i could get, where i could go and if i could get cut off and kicked out of advancement house.
nothing.
i don't know. it's sort of hot in here i guess.
a soda sounds nice . please.
i don't care.
orange.
thank you.
really?
i don't know. i never really thought about it before.
'i have just finished a session with claireece precious jones, an eighteen-year-old african american female. according to her teachers at each one teach one where she attends school she is a pen-, phen-
success. having made strides so tre-men-tremendous in the past year, she was given the mayor's award for outstanding achievement. she seems actively en. engaged in all aspects of the learning process. however, her tabe test scores are disappointingly low.  ' not to miz rain! not to miz rain! 'she scored 2.8 on her last test.' so what! miz rain-
'she will need at least an 8.0 before she can enter g.e.d. class and begin work toward her high school e-q. equivalency.'
thanks. 'abdul is the client's second-born child. he's from all outwhere.
'appearances, a healthy and welladjusted toddler. precious attends to his needs a-s-s-i-d-u-o-s-l-y.
 'and with great affection and ee.  '
 'seeks any and all information on child rearing. the time and resources it would require for this young woman to get a g.e.d. or into college would be considerable'.
finish reading this . i know what's coming.
i don't want to be no motherfucking home attendant! i wanna be.
she say she not put that in my file! bitch!
that file do show one thing -that
i'm getting my g.e.d., a job, and a place for me and abdul, then i go to college. i don't want to 'home attend' nobody!
miz weiss just part of the gang but definitely not cool. and social worker look at me like i am ugly freak who did something to make my own life like it is. i guess i am trying to figure out just what has happened to me while miz weiss just hell bent on making me go wipe old people's asses.
got to sort dis out quick tho 'fore abdul's next birthday -coming up fast.
i don't really want to read all i wrote, i jus' wanna kinda say what it is i'm writing about and how it came about.
well, to make a long story short, the counselor at advancement house quizzing me about mama and daddy etc., etc. but it's really about workfare. she want to send me out as home attendant.
cause i stole my file from advancement house and read it.
all this 'what you wanna be?' and 'you can talk to me.' they ain' no motherfucking therapists on our side, they just flunkies for the 'fare. i wanna work, but not for no motherfucking welfare check in central park -displacing brothers and sisters who really got jobs cleaning up 'cause i'm there working for free.
miz rain, if i didn't steal that file i wouldn't know what i was facing!
yeah. basically.
the people had her there all day and night - 'on call' they call it. but you only get pay for 8 hours so that's 8 x $6.37 = $50.96 a day, but then you is not really getting that much cause you is working more than eight hours a day. you is working 24 hours a day and 50.96 divided by 24 is.
home attendants usually work six days a week. i would only see abdul on sundays? when would i go to school? am i gonna hafta go be home attendant like rhonda was?
well, i just write in my notebook till i get wif some kinda therapist i can trust. actually that always help me more than talking to her. plus, i'm going to start going to meetings wif rita for insect survivors.
that's what i mean.
what's the big deal?
no. i never really had nothing tested. nothing like that. glasses is what i really want so my eyes don't hurt when i be reading at night.
rita and me on our way. i look at subway map sometimes and wonder where i be if i go to the end of the line. jermaine say there be a white boy wif a baseball bat when you get off. rita say it's not true, or if it be true, it's only part true.
i was raped by my father and beat by my mother ever since i could remember anything at all. raped and beat by both.
anyway, thas all i'd like to say for today. thank y'all for letting me share.
everything is floating around me now. like geeses from the lake. i see flying. feel flying. am flying. far up. thank you rita for getting me here on time.
how you get your hair like that?
thank you miriam.
rita ask me do i want another hot chocolate. i do but i don't want to be greedy, even if her boyfriend do give her money.
i'm alive inside. a bird is my heart. mama and daddy didn't win. i'm winning. i'm drinking hot chocolate on the upper west side with girls - all kind who love me. how does a stranger meet me and love me?
one day miz rain ask us to write about our ideal self. i wrote that i would be light skinned and small wif wavy swing-job hair.
miz rain read all that and then say i am beautiful like i am. i never believe her before but somehow, today, this moment -can't say why, i do. just now. the inside i thought was so beautiful is a black girl too.
i was born in november. far as i know.
that's enough mama. that's .  enough. you know, i didn't realize what you was until this day -even after all those thangs you did. maybe i didn't know no better or maybe i just didn't want to but i finally see you crystal clear for the first time. i forgive you too.
but i'll never see you again. not even if you dead.
stay down mama.
i forgive you too. i can tell right now that you ain't qualified for dis kind of mess.
i took the tabe test again. this time it's 7.8. last time it was