I Know I've Been Changed

Prologue1995I'm outta here and I don't care what anyone has to say.Shondella, Reno, Auntie Mel. Even Mama Tee. I don't need none of them. Tell me I ain't gonna make it. I'll show 'em all. They can have this funky town.Here I was, standing in front of Eddie's Filling Tank, the lone gas station bus stop in town, with all my belongings stuffed into four tattered suitcases. There was no turning back, not that I'd even want to. I was tired of Sweet Poke and all that it didn't have to offer. The one-stoplight town didn't even have a movie theater or a mall. The only three stores in the town were the five-and-dime store, McConn's, an overpriced old-people clothing store, and Piggly Wiggly. We didn't even have a freakin' Wal-Mart. If you wanted a decent pair of underwear, you had to drive twenty minutes to the next town to get it. And the nearest major city, Little Rock, was an hour and a half away. Sweet Poke was simply not a place where you could thrive. And it definitely wasn't a place for someone like me.Shondella, my jealous older sister, had laughed when I'd first announced my intention to leave and go work in Tyler, Texas. She said I would probably end up hooking on the street. Then there was my great-aunt Mel, who had helped my grandmother raise me since my no-account mama had decided she didn't want to be a mama anymore and left me, Shondella, and my twin sister and brother, Jasmine and Justin, at this very bus stop. Auntie Mel had prayed over me like I needed to be exorcised or something. Mama Tee wouldn't even say good-bye. She just acted like I was goin' to the corner store or something.I glanced at my watch. The bus was over an hour late and the wind was kicking my tail, messing up the $40, spiral-curl hairstyle that I'd had to sleep sitting up to maintain. People were always telling me I looked like former Miss America Vanessa Williams, so I'd tried to copy the hairstyle she always wore.Some of the dust being kicked around by the wind got lodged in my throat and gave me a coughing fit."Just another reason to get out of this place," I muttered. Sweet Poke, Arkansas, was known for its twisterlike dirt clouds. And that about summed up all this town had to offer. On the list of progressive places in the country, Sweet Poke would rank at the very bottom. That's why I had to leave. Ever since junior high school, I've known I was bigger than this place. My family, friends, Reno, none of them could ever understand that. Some of my relatives called me uppity, but they just didn't understand. It wasn't only the slow pace that was driving me insane. I simply couldn't live in poverty. Since the average salary in this town of three thousand people was just over $14,000 a year, poverty was very real. Growing up, we were dirt-poor, although you'd never know it because Mama Tee was always hollering 'bout we was rich in spirit. Yeah, right. Tell that to the light company. They ain't trying to hear nothin' 'bout no spirits.No, my future would be nothing like my past. I refused to be like Mama Tee, struggling to make ends meet, yet still singing every church song in the book. Forget that. Don't get me wrong, I haven't completely stopped believing in God, I just don't think He makes frequent stops in Sweet Poke. If He did, everyone here wouldn't live such miserable lives.I used to pray that God would make things better for us, that he would bring my mama back. That was a pipe dream. All the nights I cried, all the nights I prayed for hours, begging God to...