Queen Sugar

by Natalie Baszile

“I can barely afford to buy gas,” Charley said. “If I can’t afford that, I can’t afford to pay you, and you can’t work for free. If I could hire you now with the promise of paying you after the harvest, I would, but I’m not sure there’ll be any profit. Hell, I’ll not sure there will be any cane to harvest.” Still, he was her brother—her disinherited brother. She reached for her purse and pulled her last twenty from her wallet. “It’s all I have. I’m sorry.” As she held out the money, Charley thought of the old black veteran who peddled newspapers outside her neighborhood market back in Los Angeles—not a fancy market, but still a decent one, with its crates of freshly picked produce, and bulk bins of grain, and cuts of meat laid between sheets of butcher paper. All day, every day, he stood there, politely, in his dirty veteran’s cap, with his pulpy, smudged newspapers in one hand and frayed American flag in the other. She always thanked him as she bought a paper, slipped him an extra dollar. And sometimes she didn’t buy a paper at all, just gave him the money. “It’s all I have,” she’d say.