Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Depressed Black Bitch
    Depressed Black Bitch
    Depressed Black Bitch
    Ebook162 pages3 hours

    Depressed Black Bitch

    By Ashley Bradley

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A woman attempts to get put on mental health disability, so she does not have to work.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAshley Bradley
    Release dateJan 26, 2017
    ISBN9781386743163
    Depressed Black Bitch

    Read more from Ashley Bradley

    Related to Depressed Black Bitch

    Related ebooks

    Dark Humor For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Will You Be my Friend?

      Aug 17, 2022

      Will You Be my Friend?
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Blind Dates

      Mar 15, 2021

      I spot him immediately when I walk into the bar. He smiles at me like he knows me, despite the fact this is a blind date and we’ve never met before. Nerves take hold of my body and my hands begin to tremble as I approach him. “Hi,” he says. “Hi, um,

      5 min read

    • Article

      Best Wishes

      Aug 17, 2022

      I WAS in Central Park one afternoon, tying my shoe, when two sparrows landed on the back of a nearby bench. A child seated not far away noticed them as well and said to the woman I assumed was her nanny, “Look, they’re friends!” It’s what a kid would

      6 min read

    • Article

      I’ll Bet You Think This Story’s about You: When People Keep Finding Themselves in Your Fiction

      Nov 28, 2018

      My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying. —Anton Chekhov 1. A Phone Call from Mom “Do you know what your brother did when he finished rea

      5 min read

    • Article

      My Gangfight On The Buses

      Jan 12, 2022

      My Gangfight On The Buses
      3 min read

    • Article

      Lauren Hough

      Aug 18, 2021

      Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing (Vintage, April), a debut collection of personal essays about survival, identity, and what it means to live freely; stories of growing up in a cult, joining the Air Force, living in a car, coming out, and reclaiming on

      3 min read

    • Article

      My Name Is Everyone

      Sep 1, 2020

      My Name Is Everyone
      17 min read

    • Article

      Ellie Kemper

      Oct 22, 2018

      The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star on her new essay collection, befriending animals and the perks of being a redhead

      2 min read

    • Article

      Never Meet YOUR HEROES?

      Apr 2, 2020

      Never Meet YOUR HEROES?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Who Gets To Go For Drinks?

      Dec 30, 2019

      Who Gets To Go For Drinks?
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Few Words to the Graduates

      Jun 11, 2018

      A Few Words to the Graduates
      7 min read

    • Article

      Valley OF THE Dudes

      Feb 16, 2020

      Valley OF THE Dudes
      7 min read

    • Article

      Someone Else’s Shoes

      Aug 21, 2023

      Someone Else’s Shoes
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Sound Of Crickets

      Jul 10, 2022

      The Sound Of Crickets
      9 min read

    • Article

      Not That Story

      Oct 28, 2017

      Not That Story
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Depressed Black Bitch

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Depressed Black Bitch - Ashley Bradley

      Kmart fired me because I wouldn't say Have a nice day! to customers after completing transactions. At most, they got a terse and monotone Goodbye. Some customers would say Thank you after I handed them their receipt, and to all of them I'd grunt back an Mhmm, as enthusiastically curbed as possible.

      My manager—Well, I had several managers. I knew four by name. There was Tony, Lisa, Fat Aundrea, and Marcos. The one who fired me, I didn't know her name until she was firing me: Karen. It said on her name-tag. I saw Karen around a lot at the store, her big lumpy butt squeezed into the khaki slacks we were required to wear. She didn't work in my area, so I didn't have too much interaction with her. But I knew I didn't like her. Because of how her butt looked in her khakis, because her name was Karen, and because of how she walked around the store like she was Cleopatra or some shit, instead of a fucking floor manager at a Kmart in New Jersey.

      You lied on your application! Karen barked at me. She had one dead tooth, right up front. It was earl grey colored, and smelled like Chernobyl.

      I didn't know what Karen was talking about. I'd been interviewed by two different people for the job: some dude named Lamont whom I saw getting arrested in the parking-lot five minutes after I left the interview, and then again by my direct manager, Lisa, who said I looked too hard to work out on the floor where customers could see, so she'd be placing me in the stockroom, and then sometimes I'd be allowed to wrangle carts.

      You said in your interview you were a team player!

      She was pointing to some paper on her desk. It wasn't really her desk - it was more a communal desk, shared by anyone at the store who had a subordinate. Karen had the nerve to have a picture of her husband on the desk, when 1. Everyone knows he left her for his parole officer, and 2. that Todd from Electronics will be promptly removing it when he comes back there to do his numbers for the day. Todd never replaces the picture of Karen's husband - he desires negative space. Which is actually positive space - Karen's husband looks like a dilapidated Gary Busey. No one wants to see that.

      Karen jabbed at her paper again, "It says right here: 'Francis notes she is a team player'."

      I don't remember what the fuck I said to Lamont, or Lisa. I wonder which one of them wrote that down? Probably Lisa; Lamont seemed like he didn't know how to read, let alone write. Also he had an s-curl. His fingers were probably too greasy to correctly grasp onto a writing implement.

      No one actually means that, I said, kind of bored, and wondering when my firing would be over. I wanted some pizza, and to sit on the toilet for two hours straight playing Candy Crush on my phone while I internally screamed in place of where my soul should be. Or maybe I'd take a nap. Though, probably I should start looking for a new job. I had no interest in that, but what kind of person were you if you just...didn't get a job? And it's not like I had any ambition to acquire money and take care of myself through other means like twerking on the subway for change or writing erotic bestiality ebooks about women fucking bears - I had no plans at all. People who have no plans need to get a job. I wonder if I could get paid somehow for playing Candy Crush? Maybe if I filmed myself on the toilet...

      "No one actually means what?"

      Karen seemed a little too pressed to me. I didn't even know this bitch. Why was she spitting while talking at me?

      The team player thing, I said seemingly too nonchalantly. Karen jolted back in her seat, as if my breath had bounced back her own breath to her. Maybe that was it. What does that even mean in the retail industry context? We're not playing basketball.

      Karen scoffed. She was obviously one of those Retail is Life types. Before Kmart, I worked at Macy*s (was fired for bringing my own stool chair in to sit behind the register), and I had this really embarrassing manager named Nancy who took way too much pride in the fact that she had to slave away for twenty years as a cashier there before they promoted her to manager, which is something it seemed they were required to do by law at that point. Either that, or kill her. But if they killed her they'd have to hire a whole somebody else to train. And these new kids, this new generation, some of these niggas actually have standards. They might try and ask to be treated with some respect. Nah, just promote the relic. Karen reminded me of Nancy, only a bit younger. The only other way to get promoted in retail besides refusing to die, is by going on a date with Mark from corporate. Very few on the ground floor know how many levels there are to corporate. Blowing Mark gets you a twelve cent an hour raise, big deal. Mark doesn't even have his own office back at headquarters. You gotta hunt down Evan who got the office with a view overlooking those vagabonds having sex in that alleyway between Chipotle and H&R Block. What does Evan do? Shrug. But he wears three-piece suits and uses facial moisturizer - clear indicators of someone you should blow to advance. Mark wears his Breathe Right strips to work sometimes. And he's been written up for it. No.

      Hoop-shooters aren't the only people who need worry about team-playing! Karen spit at me.

      Hoop-shooters?

      Retail is a collective organization. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch, Francis.

      I took out a crumpled tissue from my khaki pants pocket and blew my nose into it really hard - my one power move, So a rotten apple is not being a team player?

      Karen nodded, like she was some fucking scholar, Precisely.

      But a rotten apple is not choosing to be rotten, it just happened that way. A worm got into it or something, I don't know. No apple just decides to rot itself, it's not a choice!

      Karen leaned forward in her seat and I could tell she was trying to let out a fart, You're so wrong, Francis. You're so wrong, you don't even know how wrong you are. She shook her head, I can't believe someone like you slipped through the cracks. But that's why I'm here: to caulk the cracks.

      I closed my eyes, and softly whispered, Please.

      Karen held out her hand, which looked both crispy and crying, Hand over your employee ID and discount card.

      I shook my head, I don't...know where either of those are.

      Karen closed her eyes and sighed deeply, What do you mean you don't know where they are?? You don't know where your ID is? You're required to wear it in the store!

      I shrugged, Guess I'm not Kmart material...

      I have to agree with you there, Francis, Karen sighed. I don't want to agree with you, as I only agree with my friends, and you are not my—

      You only agree with your friends?

      Karen looked offended, Yes?

      What if one of them says they think Hitler was simply misunderstood?

      Well, he was! People don't—

      "You were fired? Already?? Bitch, you just got that job! And it took you forever to find it after your dumb, bum ass got fired from Macy's! Who gets fired from fucking Ma—Who gets fired from fucking Kmart? Where did you go wrong in life? Point me to that exact moment so I can go there and SLAP IT!"

      This is my only friend, Samantha. She's a bit dramatic. We don't really have too much in common, besides the fact that we're both black. Oh, and we have the same birthday. But we're Gemini. So, she's one side, and I'm the other. Sam would set fire to Kmart; Kmart sets fire to me.

      ...But how am I dumb? I don't understand why sales associates can't sit down sometimes. Standing a lot is bad for your knees.

      Samantha, per usual, seemed exhausted with my existence, Bitch...if you don't want a job where your ass has to stand all day, gain some higher motherfucking aspirations and seek employment where you can sit your bitch ass down! What about what I just said is complex for your goofy ass?

      I didn't like when Sam talked to me like this - she reminded me of my mom, who used to talk to me like that all the time. Always calling me goofy and silly but not in a fun way, more in an I should have aborted you way. I wasn't unglad when she died, that's all imma say.

      What sitting-down job is a college drop-out supposed to acquire, Sam? We were at Dunkin Donuts. Sam bought me a Congrats On Getting Fired iced coffee. Small. She was only an okay friend.

      No one told your delusional ass to drop out of school, Francis. What even was the plan there?

      I suddenly felt sick. I forgot I didn't actually drop out, but was asked to leave because I tried to kill myself during Rush Week. I wasn't rushing, my suicide attempt just happened to fall on that week. My school thought I was trying to make some sort of statement. I didn't even know we had sororities and shit. That must've been what all those sheets were for. I thought our school had a KKK Club.

      Um... I shrugged, searching for a lie. I met Sam on Tumblr, post suicide attempt at college, after I had moved back home with my grandma and special uncle, James. My grandma kept asking me when I was going back to school, which was annoying. I lied and told her I'd switched to online classes, which caused her to sigh with disappointment and disgust, but satisfied her enough to leave me alone. Really, I was on Tumblr reblogging gifs of DiCaprio getting stuck between that wall in Inception, and messaging with one of my followers, Sam, whose Tumblr handle back then was iluvchris-brown. Apparently it was ironic. Sam has a dry sense of humor. Now her handle is zionist. It's funny in an alternative sort of way. She only reblogs pictures of obese cats.

      I shook my head, I wanted to be a...poet. I thought I'd be a poet.

      Sam spit out the munchkin she was chewing on, to laugh in my face, What?!

      Okay...

      "You? Poetry? I think you made that shit up inside your head, bitch!"

      What - I can't poetry?

      You can't even write a fucking to-do list! How the hell are you gonna even know you need to write poetry?? Please!

      See, it's attitudes like yours that discouraged me from pursuing my art! I yelled, like I hadn't completely just made that shit up about being an aspiring poet. I just felt some type of way about Sam laughing at even the idea of me writing haikus and shit. And haikus are easy! All you needed to know how to do was count! Which I mostly did! She was such a bitch.

      Girl, please, Sam dismissed. She returned to eating her donut holes, and through a mouth full of unchewed doughnut mush, had the audacity to ask me, So whatchur bum ass gon' do now - become a butterfly? She snickered to herself. I deeply hoped for her to choke and die.

      That's the funniest shit ever, I said dead-faced, to match my insides.

      I can maybe see if we have any open positions at my office. Secretaries always gettin' fired. Them bitches stay stealin'.

      ...What is there to steal at a textile factory?

      Sam scrunched her face up like I was the stupidest bitch alive, Textiles????

      Nah, no thanks. I'll figure something out.

      She laughed dead in my face, Sure.

      I felt my bowels drop.

      ––––––––

      Instead of going home and straight away applying to some jobs, I ordered a pizza, then played Candy Crush on the porch while waiting for it to arrive. I was happy my grandma wasn't home when I got there. On Wednesdays—who the fuck gets fired on a Wednesday?!—she has Bingo. My Uncle James was there, though, building a blanket fort

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1