“We sisters! We sisters!”

Late one afternoon, I was waiting for the south bus at the main stop downtown. This was about a year before they moved all of the stops to the new bus “shelter” at the other end of downtown. As I recall, it was mid-fall and chilly. I stood shivering hoping my bus would pull up soon. I looked to my left down the busy street in anticipation. I then noticed about three feet to my immediate left, a woman of about 35 years. She was tall; maybe 5’10” and nicely dressed. Yeah, I guess she would be considered very attractive by most with angular features. I stared ahead again, I did not want to stare at the woman. Bored, my eyes wandered across the street and up and down, landing on a young woman of maybe 25 years, standing roughly three feet to my right. The very peculiar thing is she looked just like the woman to my left, only 3 or 4 inches shorter. I casually looked again to my left and then to my right and back again and again. Weird, except for the height, they could be twins. At one point, the woman to my left was leaning forward looking beyond me at the younger woman. I looked at the woman to my left curiously wondering what her fascination with the other woman was. Yes, she looked like her but… It was at this point that the woman to my left stepped in front of me and approached the woman to my right. “Is your daddy, Jimmy Ray?” she asked the younger woman. “Yeah, he my daddy” the younger woman responded. Over-joyed the older off the two almost shouted “We sisters! We sisters! He my daddy too.”

I smiled too, I like seeing people happy. You could literally have knocked me over with a feather. They seems so happy, yet so casual, as if they both discovered they had the same model of iPhone or something. The younger woman, in fact did not seem surprised at all, she seemed pleasant and delighted, but not surprised. “You know there’s 38 of us, don’t you?” the older asked. It took a second or two for my head to make sense of her question. Thirty-eight what’s? …I got it. I became momentarily comatose as they bantered the names of their mutual siblings, as if they were distant cousins from opposite sides of the country. They both gleamed and seemed genuinely pleased to make each other’s acquaintance. As I zoned in and out, still unable to get past the number 38. I heard something about Jimmy Ray working at a local funeral home. This might be a clue as to who daddy was. The entire ride home, I was bothered by this. Who the heck has 38 children? I thought that being a mortician was a good business to support them all. I knew from a recent article I had read that the minimum cost to raise a child to age 18 is currently, $235,000. Let’s see, 38 X $235,000 = $8,930,000.00.

I spent the evening obsessing over that $9 million figure. I remembered that a cousin is an unofficial historian of the community, some might say gossip. If she did not know all there was to know of Jimmy Ray and his antics and issue, no one would. I telephoned her and received immediate confirmation. Yes, he has nearly forty children. He is also nearly 80 years of age now and is not now nor has he ever been a mortician. He is paid per “show” and puts the little funeral flags on cars and directs the traffic; lining up of cars for funerals. We estimated that he receives roughly $50.00 per show. This has been Jimmy Ray’s vocation for 3 or 4 decades, I am told. Boggles the mind. He wouldn't be able to take care of himself on $50-$150. A week yet, I also learned that the man was a bit of an impeccable dandy. Perhaps, the many baby mamas helped to support him? I understood the number to be 30. Not, to judge, but it all hurts my head and heart. Sometimes, I think we are too free in this country. Nearly forty children and at the height of your career you make less than minimum wage?

The story made me wonder further about the financing of all these children’s lives. I did not believe I was being unfair to assume that the 30 baby mamas were not heiresses regardless of how dapper Jimmy Ray was or is. I imagined them all to be poor and uneducated. Who would have this man’s child when in such a small town everyone other than myself knew that all his ex’s were indeed there and not in Texas. What I mean is that all of these people live in the same small gossipy town. People talk and it seems obvious to me that there must have been plenty of chatter about this prolific baby daddy. I don’t see how in a small town (actually a small city) his reputation had not preceded him? They have to have known and simply not cared, I suppose?

Maybe, I am being judgmental and or unfair, but I further surmised that at some point in all 38 children’s lives, they needed and received support from the county to survive. Therefore, I might suggest that the kind people of the United States of America footed all or part of that $9,000,000? That works out to roughly $250. per month per child. Certainly not a huge amount and probably not enough and certainly not their fault, but geez!

*Names and places and other stuff was changed here to protect the "innocent".