Cola Rum - Here Come Yo Mama 

 

John Gorrie Junior High Basketball court is what we congregated. A nappy headed menagerie of habitual mama rulebreakers, teenage maternal large transgressors from the hood, rowdy recalcitrants from the slums who only respected the reasoning in our mother's rules if they were backed by the rod in their hands. [audience laughter] In other words, we were them loud ghetto kids that regularly needed our asses whooped. [audience laughter] And every few days, one of our mothers would come to the park to bolster that actuality. Her distant approach being trumpeted with the loud forewarning ,of “Here come your mama,” [audience laughter] by some snotty nosed kid on the periphery of the park, which would send the targeted individual into panic and everyone else into anticipating laughter at his imminent beatdown from breaking one of his mama's rules. 

 

Oh, we laughed in an uproar of screams when Jon John's mother took an extension cord to his hide for cussing out Sister Ann at the corner church. We howled in a fit of cackles when Charlie Boy's mama went at him with her purse for stealing money out of her purse. I was the snotty nose kid on the periphery of the park who yelled, “Baldy, here come your mama.” Before Ms. Davis marched into the park and reinforced her rules with an old school army belt. Boy, this was our life. Spectacle, hungry juveniles with dark sense of humor who viewed the ass whoopings of our peers as free entertainment. [audience laughter] 

 

Now, even though I was a contemporary and held intimate knowledge of the rod, I did hold one distinction over my fellow mama rule breakers. My mother had never come to the park, because my mother was different. My mother was too cultured and civilized to discipline me in public like some Section 8 Hood Rat. At least, that's what I thought. [audience laughter] Until that fateful day when God let me know that air was quintessential to my existence also. [audience laughter] I was sitting on the park bench with my friend Gargamel. Listening to Run-D.M.C. on his boombox, when I heard it resound through the air like the cawing of some exotic ghetto bird. “Cola, here come your mama,” which I didn't believe [audience laughter] until the entire park who had turned towards the direction of the voice, slowly turned back around and stared at me with sadistic grins on their faces. That said, it's about fucking time. [audience laughter] 

 

I still didn't want to believe it until she entered the park with slitted eyes, pursed lips and clenched jaws, hence the face of a woman who was about to whoop her child's ass. [audience laughter] She didn't have a belt, a purse or an extension cord. Straps didn't work on me. At 13 years old, I was already 6”2’, but my mother was 6”3’. [audience laughter] And took up pound of flesh with four arms and elbows. She said, “Didn't I tell you to quit leaving my kitchen dirty whenever you cook because that's how you get roaches.” When the word roaches came out of her mouth, the entire scene of the crime appeared in my mind. [audience laughter] An open container of pancake batter on the countertop, flour debris on the stove, a half-eaten pancake sitting in a plate of maple syrup. left sitting in the sink. Thus, a grocery store for roaches. 

 

I wanted to tell my mother I didn't clean up, because I had to get to the park to hang out with the fellas. They needed me. But I looked into her eyes and saw the laws that governed mama rule enforcement and I knew that the ass whooping coming was nonnegotiable. So, I decided to break another one of her rules, which was, “Don't you ever run from me.” [audience laughter] Hey, the decision was simple math. Two ass whoopings at home was a lot more palatable than one in the park. [audience laughter] She must have saw the decision in my mind, because she abruptly attacked. I counter attack with a fake to the left and a spin to the right. She countered my counter with the left forearm swing [audience laughter] which I ducked up under, then took it to the house as the entire park exploded into laughter. 

 

Yeah, I was a habitual mama rule breaker who only respected the reasoning of my mother's rules, if they were backed by the rod in her hand, a transgressor of maternal law who had determined on that fateful day that the rod that my mother used would be administered in private. Thank you.