First+Part+Last



//The First Part Last// by Angela Johnson **A Wiki page by Heather Gerrish and Andrew Crivilare**

**This wiki page contains excerpts from a journal Bobby started where the book left off. **

**First Journal Entry**

 I don’t know exactly what I should write about, but Momma said it might be good to keep a journal. I think I’m gonna write mostly about Feather. Six months old, and man, she gets bigger every day. She eats like a horse, so I’m not surprised. If she ever asks me if she fits in to the family, I’m gonna tell her “yeah, Feather. You eat just as much as me and your momma used to.” When Nia was pregnant with her, she wanted to eat everything one minute, and then couldn’t stand the smell of what I brought her the next.

 I talked to Nia’s mom yesterday. She wanted to know all about Feather, and griped at me for not sending her enough pictures (which is totally whack because I send her about 20 pictures a week) of her granddaughter. After we talked for a while about getting settled in to Heaven, Ohio, and Feather’s new babysitter, and the outfits my sister-in-law bought for her, I asked her about Nia. I could hear her breathe real strong and slow on the other end, and then she just said, “just the same, Bobby. Always the same.” I told her to kiss her for me and to be sure to change the picture of Feather in her room to the new one where she’s laughing at me making faces behind the camera. She promised.

 Yeah, a lot can change in six months.

**School**

I get emails sometimes from the guys back in the city. The ask about me and Feather, and say a lot about my old school. They talk about homework and teachers and getting hauled into the principal’s office for this and that, and it seems crazy to me that not too long ago I cared about the same things. Now it’s all about Feather and work.

I liked school, for the most part. Especially art class. I brought my old sketchbook when we moved, and sometimes when Feather’s falling asleep in my arms I’ll flip through it and see who I used to be. Back then I thought I wanted to be a graphic designer, and I still do, kind of, except around here I don’t think there would be too many jobs.

I think what I miss most about school, besides my friends, is getting grades. It sounds kind of stupid, but at least when I have something to do at school, in a few days the teachers hand it back with a grade on it. Good or bad, you know how you did, and what you can do if you want to be better. It’s not that way when you’re a parent. Feather can’t tell me if I’m doing “A” work or “B” work or if I’m failing. Sometimes when I talk to Mamma she tells me all kinds of stuff I should be doing for Feather. I tried to listen to her, but the fact is nobody’s got a big red pen in the sky that says “good work, Bobby,” or “see me after class.” I just have to try my best and hope she turns out happy and healthy.

Some days I wish I could just be a normal 17-year old back in high school, getting ready live it up in college. When Nia was pregnant I secretly wished for that all the time. But, most of the time, I look at Feather and know that this is just how things are supposed to be.

**Family**

At the supermarket where I work there’s a really nice girl who’s my age named Estella. When we clocked in together this morning she asked me, “do you think they’d let me move from stockroom to a checkout?” When I looked at her I saw she had been crying.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“Yeah, I think they’d let you. You tired of working with me already?” I grinned at her, trying to make her feel a little better. She burst into tears.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">“I’m not supposed to lift heavy stuff no more.”

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Estella was pregnant. Her momma is real religious and threw her out as soon as she found out. Just like that. She moved in with her boyfriend’s family, but they make her pay rent. She only has 7 months of school left but she’s gotta drop out to save some money. Poor Estella.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">I used to think I had it rough. My parents wouldn’t watch Feather and let me go out and shoot hoops because they said “this is what being a parent is all about. Sacrifices.” Sometimes I would be so tired and sad and desperate I would hate my family for not helping me enough.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">But they never turned us out. Nia’s parents didn’t, either. I guess I’ve been too busy taking care of Feather to see my family taking care of me. My brother’s family took us in here in Ohio, and my parents still send us a little money here and there. And they love us, that’s the most important thing.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">I guess this just proves that even if you hit rock bottom, you can always climb your way back up if you got your family beside you. I sure hope Estella works things out with her mom.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;">**Grief**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;">Sometimes when I can get Feather to sleep, I look at her lying there in her crib real still. Then like out of no where I see Nia's face instead of Feather's. That carmel color is Nia's. That down pointing nose is Nia's. And when Feather is asleep and I can't see her eyes, I think that's also just like Nia. I want to wake Feather up and look at her eyes again but its like I know I don't have to.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">I don't see Nia no more now that we're out in Ohio, but I still think about her. I used to try to forget about her, like, she was never around to begin with and that it was always just me and Feather. But I know that I always have her so long as Feather is with me. I take Feather to places I think Nia would have liked. We found this park up by the grocery store. It's no central park, and Ohio is no Manhattan, but she would have liked it all the same.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">I know a lot of girls back in the old neighborhood who didn't know their moms or their pop. They weren't all walk outs. Some of them were sent to live with their grandparents, others moved or a parent was remarried. But when I see those kids in the park I think "Man, I don't want Feather to miss out of having her mom."

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">That's what really scare me. We moved and all and I know Heaven is better for us and Feather in the long run, but it don't matter what I do because I'll never be able to really give Feather the time she deserves with Nia. There's this school down the block with big, blank, brick walls. I can't help it, I still get the urge to ink it. You know how quick that'd be covered back in the city. I know just how I'd want to do it too. I'd put up the planets, and the sun and the moon and all the stars. Take a lot of paint. But instead on the face of the sun I'd put Feather, because my whole world is about them. Course people would know who sprayed a picture of a carmel baby up on the school in an instant, but hey, I got to dream, right?

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">**The Future**

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">I took Feather to the pediatrician today for more shots. I never thought before about all the things that the shots are for. They're there to keep you from getting sick, make sure you don't get some weird disease, keep you healthy. What if Feather did get sick, like real bad? I wouldn't know what I'd do without her. I hate thinking like that. Before Feather was born, I would never have thought about things like this. But hey, nothing I can do about that, just keep living my life one day at a time.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">I was listening to the radio while I was unloading boxes down at the store the other day when I heard this commercial for Dempsey College. Its only a community college, not what my moms had planned for me, but it sounds real good. I wouldn't have to take all my classes at once or even be in a classroom, they do online classes. That wouldn't be too bad on nights where Feather is sleeping and I can't. School wouldn't be the same without my friends, but I can't wait for them forever.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Feather won't have to go to school for another two or three years. Everyone tells me that the time will slip right by and that one day I'm going to wonder where it all went. Maybe so, but it don't seem like it. Right now, I feel like Feather is going to be around and I love it. I'm sure my mom and pop felt the same way. Then one morning they wake up and suddenly their kids is going to college and the other kid has a kid of his own and then those kids are gone, out of the city.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Feather and me are just going to take this one day at a time.