Poor People Food

Flash Fiction | 2 minute read

This week’s story was written during Tammy Breitweiser’s Fabulous Flash Fiction course (I highly recommend it). It should take about two minutes to read.

Created by Nicole Rivera using Canva Pro (photo cred: DustyPixel)

“Does anybody make that anymore?” Nicola asked.

“Nah, that’s poor people food,” Brian said.

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t delicious, though. And, anyway, you tell me one amazing, culture-defining food that didn’t start out as poor people food,” Nicola took a bite out of her taco, then brandished it in the air as her proof.

“Yeah, yeah. I hear you, but there’s a difference when it ain’t your culture, like it’s exotic or some shit, so it don’t feel poor.” Brian sat back into his chair lifting his foot up onto his seat so he could dangle his arm over his knee like he was doing some lean back in a cruiser down the 110.

Nicola laughed. She thought Brian was good-looking and a good time, but if she couldn’t expand his horizons past the boundaries of their hood, she was going to have to put a hard stop to the time they spent together before it was too late, before she started really falling for him.

“Brian, you know that boy Isaac down the block from us?”

“What you mean, Issa with all them Jordans? Course I know him! That boy’s got eyes on him in all directions.” Brian leaned in closer. “What about him?”

Nicola rolled her eyes. “You know his mama?”

Brian’s eyes broadcast his humor before he could even begin to deliver his jokes. He sat up proper, wiped his hands clean on his napkin and took Nicola’s one free hand in both of his and said, “Now you listen here, beautiful. You ain’t gotta worry like that. I ain’t going for no MILFs -- is she a MILF? -- I only got eyes for you.” He fluttered his eyelashes like an old school cartoon character.

“Bri-an!” Nicola was all smiles as she shook his hands away with a two-beat shake matching the syllables of his name. “I’m talking about her business. She is Dumpling Mama!”

“Those dumplings are kickin’ — that’s Issa’s mami? You think he’ll give us some hook ups?”

“What? No. I don’t know. Brian. That’s not my point. My point is Isaac — I mean Issa, whatever — can afford the Jordans you desperately seek because of his family’s poor people food. You gotta think differently about the value you can bring to the world just being you.” It was Nicola’s turn to wipe her hands clean and place them over Brian’s. His head was down and she knew she had finally broken through his barriers of humor and bravado.

“I ain’t you, Nic — or Isssa. I ain’t as smart, ain’t as polished, my family is poor—”

Nicola squeezed his hands tight to stop him. “Your family is amazing. You are amazing. Poor people food is exotic and expensive once introduced to a new culture who know nothing about where it comes from. Nothing has to change about it, nothing fancy added — keep it as pure and true to its roots as if it were served to a hungry family scraping together their meal to make it to another day. You can do exactly the same thing with poor people, don’t you think?”

Brian looked up, no longer sad, or bemused. Now he was stoic, like his whole unknowable experience of poverty came to rest in the corners of his eyes. Nicola sensed he had so much more wisdom than he ever let show. “No, Nicola. I don’t think that’s how it goes at all. I think, when you do that with poor people, they get eaten alive.”

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