"Hey, Ma," Johnny mumbles as he makes his way into his home from school the next day. He's supposed to be at tutoring again, but he can't force himself to go. Not when thinks of that rich kid's smug face, suggesting Johnny is so stupid that he has to do his work for him.

No, he's not going to go. Not even if means he's gonna get kicked out of school. Not even if it means they'll call home and he'll be kicked out of his place. Which they haven't, even after he walked out yesterday on his last lesson. Principal McConaughey is all empty threats.

His mom is sitting in front of the television, but it's turned off, and she's painting her nails a stop sign red. Her dark hair is damp and rolled up in rags. She's resting a bare, newly painted foot on the coffee table in front of her, and cluttered around that foot in a sloppy arrangement is a hand mirror and various makeup supplies, bottles and brushes and colored powders. Johnny watches as she tends to the curve of her nail-bed. He lets his lips form into a half-smile. It's nice to see her take care of herself. She must be feeling better.

"You know, your father's taking me out to dinner tonight," she preens. That must mean his old man is still keeping up with his meetings and Jesus talks.

Today is the first time his mom has volunteered information in nearly two weeks. Not that Johnny's much of a talker, but it gets kinda lonely when his own mother doesn't acknowledge his existence. Most days, she stares at the screen of the television, eating and drinking her "mixers" and bitching to herself about his old man. There are times when she goes a week without showering.

"Real glad to hear it," says Johnny. He waits in the hallway, his hands in his pockets, wondering what he should say to her. He wants her to know he's happy for her, he's on her side. He wants her to think he's a good son, now that she's paying attention enough to notice.

The phone rings. Johnny goes still. Nobody calls his house, except occasionally the cops about his old man and the school about him.

"I'll get it!" he says quickly, but the phone is on the side table and his mom is closer.

"I'm expecting a call from Shirley." She picks up the phone. For a second, Johnny feels relief. It's Shirley. It has to be. But then, "Yes, this is Mrs. Cade." She nods on the phone, and glares at him. "I see." That goes on for some time, nodding, and I see, and each time those two words are spoken, they are spoken sharper. Finally she says, "I'm really very sorry. His father and I have tried with him. I promise you he'll get properly disciplined at home. I'll send him over right now. Yes, I apologize again." She hangs up the phone.

"You're damn lucky your father wasn't home to answer that."

Johnny's glad he stayed in the hallway, where the light is turned off and she can't see him clearly. When she's pissed at him, it starts the same way every time. She looks him up and down, showing with her long, critical gaze that he's a disappointment before she lets him have it with her words. And he's glad he didn't step in reaching distance, because she'd probably slap him. One slap from her is worse than a beating from his old man. He loves her more.

"I have half a mind to tell him, too. Only I don't want his progress messed up by you again, or him going off on me when you're the one who deserves it." His mom slams her hand on the coffee table. Her makeup bottles rattle. "So you're failing school again. I don't believe it."

"I'm trying!"

"Oh, is that why you skipped your mandatory tutoring session? Because you're trying! Don't just stand there. Answer me!"

"I ain't feeling good," Johnny mumbles.

"How do you think I feel when your principal calls home, huh Johnny? What kind of mother does that make me look like? How do you think I feel when I find out you're cutting class all the time?" She waits for him to answer. He doesn't.

"You know, the police are gonna call around here if the school bothers with this, don't you? And they're gonna drag me to court for your truancy. You think I feel like standing in front of a judge explaining myself because you're too lazy to do what a boy your age should be doing?"

"I swear Ma, I'm trying. I am." Johnny's voice is small. The only thing worse than her zoning out and ignoring him is her paying attention and hollering.

"If you're getting those grades, and you're actually trying, we need to get you looked at boy, because that means you're retarded. I have a retard for a son."

Johnny feels a knot lump in his throat and his eyes are stinging. She's right. I'm retarded, Johnny thinks. I'm retarded. The thought of facing that Soc who jumped him and not understanding what he's trying to teach him is unbearable.

"I'm doing my best with you, Johnny. I swear I am. Why do you always have to pull this shit? Do you ever consider anyone but yourself? What do you think the other moms in this neighborhood have to say about me, when you behave like this? They blame me, that's what. I'm sick of being judged for your mistakes. And stop slouching like that, you look like a hoodlum." Johnny straightens his posture, at least to some degree, because he can't exactly have perfect posture looking down.

"Do you ever think about your future?" Johnny shakes his head no. Lying and telling her he does would only cause him more strife.

"I didn't think so. Not with your behavior. Let me tell you something, kiddo. When I was your age, I was a straight-A student. I was going places. I was going to be a nurse, you know. And a doctor's wife. I had plans. And I gave it all up to be your mom."

Johnny knows those words are replacement words for what she really wants to say. When I was your age, I got knocked up by your loser father. I should have had an abortion. You were a mistake. She's said those things to him, last year when she got drunk after his old man lost another job. And she slapped him across the face when he started crying, because he wasn't allowed to make her feel like a bad mother after everything she'd done for him.

"And how do you repay me, Johnny? You don't even try. All you care about is going to those drag races and impressing other J.D.s. Well let me tell you something. That's gonna stop now. Your gonna turn around, get outa my house, and march your ass back up to school for tutoring. You're damn lucky that boy's still there waiting for you." She makes a fist and bangs it on the coffee table. When she opens her hand, he can see the polish, sticky and smeared inside her palm. "Look what you made me do! I swear sometimes I want to kill you."

He thinks about his Ma, sixteen and kicked out of her own home, scared, shunned by her parents and friends, forced to quit school, forced to spend the rest of her life with a man she didn't love, forced to care for an infant she didn't want. He's seen a photograph of her, before he came along. She was small, with wide eyes like his, her dark hair carefully arranged, her dress pressed, her smile as wide as her eyes. She was pretty. She was proud.

He thinks of who she was before he ruined her life with his existence: a normal, happy, middle-class girl. Maybe she would have been a nurse. Maybe she would have met a man she loved, had a child she loved, some kid who wasn't a hood. Sometimes Johnny thinks he could've made it up to her, soothed her lifetime of disappointments if only he were a better son, like the son she was supposed to have when she was older. He wonders about the son who never was sometimes. A son who would be allowed over his grandparents' house for dinner because he wasn't born in sin.

The older he gets, the less he blames his mom for hating him. But it doesn't hurt any less, knowing why.

"Ma-"

"Now. Go back to school. I'm sick of your shit, Johnny, I really am. I have had it up to here-"

"But I told you I'm not feeling good!" Normally he wouldn't argue. He wants to please her. He wants to make her life less difficult. He wants to be for her what he knows he can't be. But today, he just can't go back. He can't go back to sitting across from that boy who jumped him.

"Did you not hear me? Your father and I are gonna have a nice night tonight, and you are not gonna spoil this for me. Get out. I don't want to see your face."