Prologue of the ending of the original “Thank You Ma’am”:
She led him
down the hall to the front door and opened it. "Goodnight!" Behave
yourself, boy!" she said, looking out into the street.
The boy wanted
to say something else other that "Thank you, ma’am" to Mrs. Luella
Bates Washington Jones, but he couldn’t do so as he turned at the barren stoop
and looked back at the large woman in the door. He barely managed to say
"Thank you" before she shut the door.
“Where were you, Roger?”
a husky voice asked from the shadows.
“I was out,” Roger
replied curtly.
The voice’s silhouette
approached the boy slowly. “Doing what?” the voice asked. His silhouette was
muscular and tall, about eighteen years old.
Roger stood still, but on
the inside he was prickling with fear. “The usual, Todd,” he replied as
casually as he could, as not to give away anything about Mrs. LBWJ.
Todd sneered. “How come I
saw you comin’ out of that woman’s house?” he inquired. When his friend didn’t
respond, Todd pressed for more information, “Murder? Theft? Details, Roger. Do
not forget I put you in my gang and I can easily take that away
from you.”
“What if I don’t want to
be in the gang? What if I want a family of my own? Why shouldn’t I be able to
get an education? I want a real life, not this!” Roger shouted.
“This is a life, and you
chose it, Roger,” Todd told his brother.
The poor boy howled in
pain as his blood splattered to the pavement. With effort Roger managed to whisper,
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Author’s After Notes: Well, when my teacher started talking about
his experience with troubled kids who stole and committed crimes, it got me thinking about what would happen to
Roger after he was out the door. The experience Mrs. Jones gave Roger is life
altering, so I saw that it would only be fit that Roger would try to turn his
back on his past and all of the crimes. Also that since he didn’t even get to
say, “Thank you ma’am,” it would make sense that he should say what he wanted
to say before he goes.
