Call Me Tuesday

My name is Tuesday Storm, and I am eight-years-old. A typical day for me begins with taking a scant bar of soap that I stole from the family bathroom, and washing my hair under an outside water faucet in sub-zero temperature. When I get on the bus my hair will still be greasy in some parts, and there will be frozen, soapy clumps in others. Once I’m at school, my classmates will be relentless with their teasing about my hair, my “high water” pants and two-sizes-too-big men’s boots. At lunch, my favorite part of the day, I will go from table to table in the cafeteria, bumming food from people I hardly know, because I'm always hungry. Hungry for food, for affection, attention. Just hungry.

When I get home, I will tie an old dishrag around my face—gangster style—turn toward a wall and stand there until I am given permission to do otherwise. For supper, if I’m lucky I will eat from the dog’s scraps. If I’m not so lucky I’ll be given a slab of fatty hog jowl, or half-chewed meat gristle, and other discarded bits of food from everyone else’s plates. Later, after my family is asleep, if I can get by with it, I will slip into the bathroom, steal some toilet paper, and tearing off one perforated sheet at a time, I will eat the entire roll.

I am not poor. Daddy makes a decent living as a teacher and football coach at the local high school. We live in a nice, ranch-style home in a middle class neighborhood in Spring Hill, Tennessee. My brothers are always clean, dressed properly and well-fed. But I am different from my brothers. I am Tuesday and this is my story.

From the book, Call Me Tuesday