meaner than I want to

“You can go head and have the baby,” I say. “I give him my name.”

I say it meaner than I want to. She just look up at me and don’t say nothing. Then she say, “He ain’t yours.”

I say, “I know he ain’t mine. But don’t nobody else have to know. Even the baby. He don’t even never have to know.”


--Gayl Jones, “White Rat,” 1971