by Gary Percesepe
M is a journalist in Kentucky who went through a nasty divorce a few years back. She was drinking white wine in those days and coping with an abusive ex-husband but she pulled herself together, went through rehab, and raised two kids who adore her. The kids are out of the house now, and M is six years sober. She lives alone in a small town along the I-75 corridor just south of Cincinnati.
During the recent recession, jobs went away for journalists in the rural part of northern Kentucky where she lives. M found a job tutoring kids in English that paid $13 per hour, but a new Republican governor was elected and the program was cut. M strung some freelance work together, found some other part-time work. But none of her three jobs come with benefits or health care. She has some help from her family and her house is paid off. Of the nineteen million Americans classified as “the working poor,” she is better off than most. Still, in 2009 she made $20,000. In 2010 she made $10,000, well below the poverty line.
I went to see M just before Christmas. She’d just had some teeth pulled at the free clinic. Her mouth looked swollen and puffy. She’d been dreading the oral surgery for weeks, she told me on the phone. Every time she went to the “free clinic,” it cost $30 to be seen. Plus, getting there was a major pain in the ass. The clinic told her she wouldn’t be able to drive after the surgery, so a friend drove her, a sixty mile round trip.
I was there to provide consolation, M said when I walked through the door. In the Catholic sense, she added, presenting her tender mouth for a kiss. M had a Catholic girlhood, eight years of private Catholic schools, and could quote Julian of Norwich from memory, but these days she refers to herself as a pagan and is more likely to invoke the Goddess. She is mad at Jesus, who spoke so glowingly of the poor. There is nothing fucking virtuous about poverty, she groused.
Leaving my house in Ohio to make the drive to see her, I had reached down and picked up from the floor the remains of a case of chicken noodle soup, as an afterthought. When I swung the soup onto her kitchen counter, I sheepishly counted six cans. Oh, she said. You brought soup!
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During the recent recession, jobs went away for journalists in the rural part of northern Kentucky where she lives. M found a job tutoring kids in English that paid $13 per hour, but a new Republican governor was elected and the program was cut. M strung some freelance work together, found some other part-time work. But none of her three jobs come with benefits or health care. She has some help from her family and her house is paid off. Of the nineteen million Americans classified as “the working poor,” she is better off than most. Still, in 2009 she made $20,000. In 2010 she made $10,000, well below the poverty line.
I went to see M just before Christmas. She’d just had some teeth pulled at the free clinic. Her mouth looked swollen and puffy. She’d been dreading the oral surgery for weeks, she told me on the phone. Every time she went to the “free clinic,” it cost $30 to be seen. Plus, getting there was a major pain in the ass. The clinic told her she wouldn’t be able to drive after the surgery, so a friend drove her, a sixty mile round trip.
I was there to provide consolation, M said when I walked through the door. In the Catholic sense, she added, presenting her tender mouth for a kiss. M had a Catholic girlhood, eight years of private Catholic schools, and could quote Julian of Norwich from memory, but these days she refers to herself as a pagan and is more likely to invoke the Goddess. She is mad at Jesus, who spoke so glowingly of the poor. There is nothing fucking virtuous about poverty, she groused.
Leaving my house in Ohio to make the drive to see her, I had reached down and picked up from the floor the remains of a case of chicken noodle soup, as an afterthought. When I swung the soup onto her kitchen counter, I sheepishly counted six cans. Oh, she said. You brought soup!
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