2.09.08 / 10:30 pmIt’s a muggy Saturday night and instead of being out with friends, Kara is laying in bed after working a double shift at the local Academy Sports and Outdoors. She started working there last August as a seasonal cashier and although the store claims to offer the sports and outdoors enthusiast a broad selection of equipment, apparel, and footwear Kara found that they had products she liked too. In fact, she discovered that Academy had a variety of things she could buy at greatly discounted prices then resell to other kids at school or resale shops. As her income increased, from working and black-market sales, so did her expenses. Time progressed and she became like many seventeen year olds her age, juggling work, with school, friends, and sometimes family. Tonight she is pumped up on Starbucks after a long day of work.
Her room is painted a sage green, but you can tell from the hot pink polos and multi colored flip flops (the ones mass produced for Old Navy) that there is nothing calm about this girl. The room’s décor is hidden by the piles of clothing and shoes. Her bed, lacking sheets, has a floral green comforter thrown atop.
From the other side of her cracked bedroom door you can hear her singing while on her cell phone. She rhymes, “No panties, no bra, goin’ to the Marti Gras” then tells the person on the other line she learned this refrain from “some black girl in school.” As she takes another gulp of her venti white chocolate mocha frappuccino blended coffee with whipped cream on top, she sees me on the other side of her door in the hall, rolls her eyes, and slams the door shut.
2.08.08 / 2:30 amIt’s moderately late and a slow rain can be heard falling outside the bedroom windows. Kara is on her cell phone talking to a friend about a ping pong table she bought from work. It was $899 but she picked it up on sale for 25. She is looking to sell it sometime next week. She says she also has a few cell phones and blue tooth headsets “Phone Daddy” gave her to sell. She tells the person that she gets twenty to thirty dollars for every refurbished phone she sells and five for every headset. Last week she made about sixty bucks. Kara is a hustler.
2.08.08 / 3:47 amA few hours before sunrise, Kara is now sleeping peacefully in her overstuffed bed. Under the rolls of the blankets you can see the separate parts of two short dogs hidden within the warm folds around her. Out of the three you can only see bits and pieces of their bodies. Only Kara’s maroon pony tail, one of her size 9 feet, and a pair of soft brown ears from one of the dogs is exposed. Everyone is warm and sleeping. From the hall you can hear one low hum of snoring and one slightly higher pitched.
The curtains are drawn and shadows from the television play against the wall and over the large mound of covers that is Kara’s body. There is an infomercial on the television. A lady pours cake batter and Snickers bars in to an electronic cooking device. Next to the television is an empty Styrofoam cup from a package of instant soup. The fork she used for her late night carbo-load has fallen to the floor. The high pitched snoring stops for a moment then proceeds with a gasp of air. One of the three has sleep apnea.
